Jewish Poetry: Golden Age of Spain

The Following are 3 selected poems from 3 of the best known and beloved Jewish poets from the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. Note the lyricism and word play. Here are two chevruta questions to consider and discuss for each poem:

1. What surprises you most about this poem? What makes it Jewish? What makes it religious?

2. How does this literature compare to what you read from the greatest Jewish Spanish Rabbi and Scholar, Rambam or Maimonides? What were some of the topics Rambam was concerned about versus what are the topics these poems are concerned about?

Samuel HaNagid (993-1096)

THE HOUR

She said: “Be happy that God has helped you reach

The age of fifty in this world,” not knowing

That to me there is no difference between my life’s

Past and that of Noah about whom I heard.

For me there is only the hour in which I am present in this world:

It stays for a moment and then like a cloud moves on.

Translated by Leon J. Weinberger

from Leon J. Weinberger, trans.,

Jewish Prince in Moslem Spain: Selected Poems of Samuel ibn Nagrela.

(Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997).

Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1069)

I LOOK FOR YOU

I look for you early,

my rock and my refuge,

offering you worship

morning and night;

before your vastness

I come confused

and afraid for you see

the thoughts of my heart

What could the heart

and tongue compose,

or spirit’s strength

within me to suit you?

But song soothes you

and so I’ll give praise

to your being as long

as your breath-in-me moves.

Translated by Peter Cole

from Peter Cole, trans., Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001).

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6933.html

Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

Moses ibn Ezra (1055-1138)

THE ROSE*

The garden put on a coat of many colors,

and its grass garments were like robes of brocade.

All the trees dressed in checkered tunics

and showed their wonders to every eye.

The new blossoms all came forth in honor of time renewed,

came gaily to welcome him.

But at their head advanced the rose,

king of them all,

for his throne was set on high.

He came out from among the guard of leaves

and cast aside his prison-clothes.

Whoever does not drink his wine upon the rose-bed—

that man will surely bear his guilt!

*Or ‘The Lily’.

Translated by T. Carmi

from The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, edited by T. Carmi