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pali e palisa lili pi wan len

jan lili la jan Li Pa li pali e kama sona.
pini pali e kama sona la ona li weka pali e kama sona.
lon nasin la ona li kama tawa meli suli.
meli suli li pona pilin e ijo pi suli kiwen kepeken ijo pi suli kiwen sin.
jan Li Pa li wile sona e tan seme.
meli suli li toki e ni:
"mi pali e palisa lili pi wan len."
jan Li Pa li kama pilin mute tan toki ona.
tenpo sin la jan Li Pa li pali pini e kama sona.

Source:
Grinding a Pestle To Make a Needle 磨杵作針
From the Qian que lei shu 潛確類書 by Chen Renxi 陳仁錫

When Li Bai was young he did his studies. 李白少讀書
Without finishing his studies, he quit. 未成棄去
On the road he encountered an old lady grinding a pestle. 道逢老嫗磨杵
Bai asked her why. 白問其故
She said, "I'm making a needle." 曰：作針
Bai was greatly moved by her words. 白感其言
And then he finished his studies. 遂卒業

Conditionals tend to place the whole sentence (are adverbial), not the nouns within it (adjectival), so 'jan lili la' and 'pini pali e kama sona la' don't quite work. They are probably best covered by the very similar conditional sentence pattern: 'jan Li Pa li lili la ona pali e kama sona' . 'kama sona' means "study" as a verb. The noun is probably 'nasin pi kama sona' "course of studies" (could be 'kulupu', too; we haven't done this much). With the verb, you don't need 'pali', so either 'ona li kama sona' or 'ona li pali e nasin pi kama sona'

'pini pali e kama sona' is a predicate, so can't stand alone as a 'la' phrase (so far as I can find). But you want to say "without finishing his studies" and you only have "finished his studies". Again, a conditional sentence sees called for 'ona li pini ala e nasin pi kama sona, la ..." But here we come into the problem of tp 'pini', which means both "complete" and "stop". I think the 'weka' solution is a good one here, he threw them away 'ona jan li weka e nasin ni'

'meli suli li pona pilin e ijo pi suli kiwen kepeken ijo pi suli kiwen sin.' "tactually fixing a metalically big thing with another metalically big thing" Well, yes, but not very clear. I have to get over metates and porcelain mortars and pestles, not to mentioned wheels, to get back to bronze one, for one thing, but that is my problem. Here, we need to get the idea of grinding a pestle in a mortar and pestle, Well, "grind" in the relevant sense, is 'ko', 'making DO into dust". And we need a distinctive "pestle", maybe 'palisa ko" (never mind the dusty sticks). Then we have the still opaque but salvageable 'li ko e palisa ko (kiwen) kepeken palisa ko (kiwen) sin' (good use of 'sin') Not sure whether the 'kiwen', "metal" (can't get "stone" out of my mind) is needed (a mortar is probably 'poki ko', somehow distinct from a vacuum cleaner bag).

just 'tan', adding the 'seme' makes the whole sentence a question.

'palisa lili pi wan len' is very nice. (I want to throw in 'pini', "pointed", but you don't need that.)

"and then" 'ni pini' "after that" 'pini pali' "finished doing" (with the problem noted earlier [part of an argument for 'pake' "stop, block"])

I love the classics! Thank you for this one.