Judah Halevi And His Circle of Hebrew Poets in Granada (Hebrew Language and Literature Series) (Hebrew Language and Literature Series)

Judah Halevi and His Circle

HEBREW LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SERIES Managing Editor Geerd Haayer

Edited by

W.Jac. van Bekkum

BRILL • STYX LEIDEN • BOSTON 2005

HEBREW LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SERIES 6

JUDAH HALEVI AND HIS CIRCLE OF HEBREW POETS IN GRANADA

by

Ann Brener

BRILL • STYX LEIDEN • BOSTON 2005

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brener, Ann, 1969Judah Halevi and his circle of Hebrew poets in Granada / by Ann Brener. p. cm. -- (Hebrew language and literature series ; v. 6) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 90-04-14709-8 1. Judah, ha-Levi, 12th cent. - -Criticism and interpretation. 2. Judah, ha-Levi, 12th cent.--Translations into English. I. Title. II. Series. PJ5050.J8B74 2005 892.4 12--dc22 2005050078

ISSN 1381–2564 ISBN 90 04 14709 8 c Copyright 2005 by Styx/Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is a great pleasure for me to thank the editors of this book, my second in the series Hebrew Language and Literature. Between the careful editing of Professor Wout van Bekkum, the editor of the series, and the professional expertise of Geerd Haayer, this second experience has been even more pleasant than the first – something I never would have thought possible. To both these gentlemen of Brill/Styx, therefore – my very warmest thanks. I also wish to thank my colleagues of Ben-Gurion University, Professor Dvora Bregman and Dr. Haviva Ishay, for their part in this book. Their helpful comments and encouragement over the past several years helped to make the writing of this book a very pleasant experience indeed. Ann Brener Groningen, April 2005

v

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ix PART ONE: ON THE ROAD TO GRANADA

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE

1 First Contacts between Judah Halevi and Moses ibn Ezra

9

CHAPTER TWO Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra

29

CHAPTER THREE First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat

45

CHAPTER FOUR

59

A Star is Born: Judah Halevi in Granada

PART TWO: A CIRCLE OF HEBREW POETS CHAPTER FIVE The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties

73

CHAPTER SIX The Poet’s Workshop

93

CHAPTER SEVEN Hebrew Boon-Companions as Poets for Jewish Occasions

111

CHAPTER EIGHT “The Girl from Granada” – Granada as Metaphor and Place

129

AFTERWORD

139

BIBLIOGRAPHY

143

INDEX OF POEMS

151

GENERAL INDEX

153

vii

PREFACE

Towards the end of the eleventh century, there existed in Muslim Spain a unique circle of Hebrew poets loosely centered around the city-kingdom of Granada, then under the rule of ªAbdall¯ah ibn Bulugg¯ın, the last prince of the Zirid dynasty. The members of this circle were poets as well as rabbinic scholars, Orthodox Jews passionately devoted to Hebrew language and literature – but also passionate devotees of Arabic poetry and culture. They composed poetry based on classical Arabic poetics and Arabic models of genre and rhetoric, only they wrote their poems in Hebrew rather than in Arabic, and used the treasures of the Bible, and not the Koran, to do so. It was a small, highly refined group, one that Moses ibn Ezra, its leader, was later to call a ‰¯Â·Á ˙¯„‰ ‰ˆÂ·˜ ˙¯‡ÂÙÓ “A wonderful group / and a marvelous troupe.”1 A circle of medieval Hebrew poets may seem like a strange and wondrous phenomenon to us today, but it was in fact very much a creation of its time. Poetry played an important role in the society of Muslim Spain, or at least in certain segments of that society, and it left its traces wherever we look. Poetry is chiseled into palace walls, woven into garments and rugs, carved in marble and stone. It spills off the pages of Andalusi histories and rises, song after song, anecdote after anecdote, in the numerous anthologies from the period, till we almost wonder whether poetry was not in the very air itself. Here we read of kings and laundresses improvising distichs on the banks of rivers, there we read about princes and poets trading versets and rhymes. And everywhere we read of odes recited and rewarded, poems set to music and performed, farewells taken in rhyme and meter, and the wine-drinking parties in which all this took place. Poetry was the prerogative of kings, and poets the ornaments of courtly life. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that this love for poetry had a kind of rippling effect on other segments of society, or to learn that the Jewish poets of al-Andalus were in many ways a reflection of practices and norms current in the courts of Muslim society.2 Like any creative circle of working artists, the members of this group evolved their own codes of behavior and ways of interacting with each other: influencing, inspiring, and, as we shall see, occasionally - if gracefully – even correcting each other. These Hebrew poets did not write for some anonymous far-off reader, and certainly not for their desk 1 Ibn Ezra composed his book in Judaeo-Arabic, that is, in Arabic written in Hebrew letters; it has been translated into Hebrew by A. S. Halkin, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara wal-mudh¯akara (Jerusalem, Mekitzei Nirdamim: 1975). For a good analysis of the work in English, see Raymond Scheindlin, “Rabbi Moshe ibn Ezra on the Legitimacy of Poetry,” Medievalia et Humanistica , n. s. 7 (1976), pp. 101–115. 2 The fourteenth-century Muslim historian, Lis¯ an al-D¯ın ibn al-Khat.¯ıb, conceded that the Andalusi talent for poetry trickled down to women as well as infidels. See his comments in Ah.med ibn Moh.ammed al-Maqqar¯ı, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. Pascual de Gayangos, (London: The Oriental Translation Fund, 1890), 1: 151.

ix

Preface drawers. Very often their poems were addressed to a specific member, or members, of the group, and often as not elicited a reply in kind. They reflect specific social situations and norms, and give expression to contemporary standards of elegance and conduct. In them we read about wine-drinking parties and poetic competitions, Purim feasts and weddings. We hear of poems sung and then imitated, of gifts given and received, of riddles propounded and solved. Seen as a group these poems help breathe life into what must surely be one of the most fascinating periods of Hebrew creativity since the close of the biblical canon. In them one senses the same excitement, the same pulse of energy that animates the work of any creative group of artists, whether they inhabit the gardens and villas of Renaissance Italy, the cobble-stoned streets of Provence, or the throbbing coffee houses of New York and London. Yet the poems emanating from the “Granada period” of Judah Halevi’s life have never yet been examined as the expression of a distinct circle of poets, and it is this circle – “this wonderful group / and marvelous troupe” – that the present study will seek to examine.

x

PART ONE: ON THE ROAD TO GRANADA

INTRODUCTION

When ªAbdall¯ah ibn Bulugg¯ın, the last Zirid prince of Muslim Granada, threw open the gates of his kingdom in 1090 to the conquering hordes from North Africa, it signaled more than the end of his own ruling house. In one stroke it not only ushered a new era into Granada, but throughout al-Andalus sounded the death knoll for that period of cultural splendor and achievement known as the Taifa, or “party” kingdoms, of Muslim Spain.1 These were the thirty or so independent city-kingdoms that rose from the ashes of the Caliphate of Cordoba following the breakdown of centralized government in 1013, in a process that one medieval historian likened to “the breaking of the necklace and the scattering of its pearls.”2 The Muslim rulers who scrambled for the “pearls” in that turbulent period may have fought each other almost as much as they fought their enemies in Christian Spain, but they also gave new impetus to the arts and sciences. In a process not unlike that of Renaissance Italy, the princes of each tiny kingdom “disputed with each other the prize of prose and poetical composition . . . encouraged literature, and treated the learned with distinction, rewarding them munificently for their labors.”3 Poetry and music flourished, as did the decorative arts and architecture for aristocratic consumption. This was the period in which Ibn Zaydun sang of the princess Wallada, in which the miradors and palaces of the Alcazaba and the Alfajeria were constructed, and in which the carmen gardens of the Alhambra and Generalife were laid out and planted. All this magnificence, however, came to an end with the Almoravid troops from North Africa as, one by one, the victors removed the individual kings from their thrones and restrung the “scattered pearls” into an empire of their own. From exile in North Africa the deposed ªAbdall¯ah recalled the days of glory as he penned a history of his dynasty’s rule in Granada, closing his political memoirs with a backward glance at the pastimes of kings once his to enjoy, and at a period of his life when, as he himself put it, “my 1 The literature on this period is extensive; see for example E. L´ evi-Provenc¸al, L’Espagne musulmane au Xeme si`ecle: Institutions et view sociale, 3 vols. (Paris: Larose, 1932); Reinhart Dozy, Spanish Islam, trans. Francis Griffin Stokes (London: Frank Cass, 1972); and David Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain 1002–1086 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). Translations from the Arab historians on the events of this period, and on the progress of the Almoravid victors, are found in Ah.med ibn Mohammed al-Maqqar¯ı, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. Pascual de Gayangos, (London: The Oriental Translation Fund, 1890). Of particular interest, perhaps, are several recent studies dealing with the period from a more interdisciplinary point of view, combining studies of poetry, architecture, and social life from the period. See for example Cynthia Robinson, In Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence, 1105–1134 A. D. (Leiden: Brill, 2002); D. Fairchild Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). 2 Al-Shaqund¯ı (d. 1231–1232). Quoted from Al-Maqqar¯ı, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties, pp. 34–35. 3 Ibid.

1

Introduction mind was carefree, my heart relaxed and . . . able to contemplate all that was lovely.”4 But it was not only deposed Zirid rulers who suffered under the new dynasty or who looked with longing at life back in Granada.5 Yet another exile from the Zirid kingdom recalled the glories of life in Granada before the days of Almoravid rule and bewailed his lost paradise from the distance of a foreign land. This was Moses ibn Ezra (1055–1135), the leading Hebrew poet of Muslim Spain on the eve of the Almoravid invasion, and a member of a prominent Jewish family whose sons were later to figure amongst the leaders of the emerging Jewish communities in Christian Spain. From the loneliness of exile in Christian Spain, alienated for unknown reasons from his family and deeply scornful of the cultural life in his new surroundings,6 Ibn Ezra yearned for Granada and wistfully recalled the days when he had enjoyed a life of flourishing creativity amongst a group of like-minded Hebrew poets and scholars. It was a small, highly refined group, one that Ibn Ezra, its leader, was later to call a ‰¯Â·Á ˙¯„‰ ‰ˆÂ·˜ ˙¯‡ÂÙÓ “a wonderful group / and a marvelous troupe.”7 It was also this circle of poets that was destined to provide the framework for the appearance of perhaps the greatest Hebrew poet since biblical times: Judah ben Samuel Halevi. Today Judah Halevi is best-known as the author of exquisite lyric poetry describing his longing for Zion and his voyage to the Holy Land in old age. Many of his religious poems grace the pages of Hebrew prayer-books the world over, and no commemoration of Independence Day in Israel is complete without a recitation of his great threnody, 4 This fascinating document disappeared during the Middle Ages and was only recovered in 1932 when the great Arabist, E. L´evi-Provenc¸al, discovered it in the library of a mosque in Fez. L´evi-Provenc¸al published part of his findings in Al-Andalus 3 (1935); 4 (1936–1939); and 6 (1941). The quotation here comes from the English translation of the Arabic original, published as The Tibyan: Memoirs of ªAbdall¯ah b. Buluggin, Last Zirid Amir of Granada, trans. Amin T. Tibi (Leiden: Brill, 1986), p. 174. 5 The majority of Granada’s citizens disapproved of Zirid rule and gave the conquering Almoravid general a hero’s welcome, but other segments of society suffered greatly by the change. As Reinhart Dozy concludes, Almoravid rule justified both the expectations of the clerical Muslims in Granada and “the fears of those who desired to be ruled neither by ecclesiastics nor barbarians from Morocco and the Sahara. Scholars, poets, philosophers all had bitter grievances.” Though many of these found positions under the new rulers, “they found themselves out of place amongst an uncongenial crowd of fanatical priests and uncouth soldiers; far different had been the Courts they had been accustomed to.” These souls, Dozy continues, felt “a deep regret for the lettered princes who had passed for ever.” See Reinhart Dozy, Spanish Islam, p. 718. Cynthia Robinson points to a similar experience in Saragossa, where the “loss to the Almoravid in 1111 appears to have been – for the nobility and literati, at any rate – devastating.” See Cynthia Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 317, note 43. 6 The most comprehensive treatment of the poet’s life in both Granada and Christian Spain is Haim Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995), ed. and notes by Ezra Fleischer, pp. 391–403. This book, which will be frequently cited in the following chapters, was composed by Haim Schirmann without notes, either through design or because he died before he could carry out his project. Ezra Fleischer, who subsequently edited the book, provides copious notes to Schirmann’s text, giving poetic citations, updated and very detailed bibliography, additional information, and occasional corrections based on the research subsequent to Schirmann’s death. Fleischer also provides entire sub-chapters supplementing Schirmann’s text. It is Fleischer’s notes and additions which essentially transform the book from a general history of Hebrew poetry in Muslim Spain into the most authoritative work of its kind up to the present date, and probably for many generations to come. In English, the best study of Ibn Ezra’s life is Haim Brody, “Moses ibn Ezra: Incidents in His Life,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n. s. 24 (1933), pp. 309 ff. See also Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, trans. Louis Schoffman (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1961), 1: 59–64. 7 Ibn Ezra composed his book in Judaeo-Arabic, that is, in Arabic written in Hebrew letters; it has been translated into Hebrew by A. S. Halkin, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara wal-mudh¯akara (Jerusalem, Mekitzei Nirdamim: 1975). For a good analysis of the work in English, see Raymond Scheindlin, “Rabbi Moshe ibn Ezra on the Legitimacy of Poetry,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n. s. 7 (1976), pp. 101–115.

2

Introduction “Zion, wilt thou not ask?” (Tzion ha-lo tishºali).8 Even in his own lifetime Judah Halevi achieved a near-canonical status. One of his contemporaries referred to Halevi as nothing less than “the quintessence and embodiment of our country,”9 and when, in old age, he sojourned in Egypt on his way to the Land of Israel, the local Jewish community fell over itself welcoming the national hero.10 But when Halevi first burst into this group of poets in Granada he was just a young man, less than twenty years old, incredibly talented, and completely unknown. Very little, if anything, is known of Judah Halevi before the “Granada period” of his life. He was obviously young when he came to Granada; in Chapter One we will see Moses ibn Ezra marveling over this very fact. But just how young, we do not know; the standard references cite 1075 as the year of his birth,11 and this would make him – at the most! – fifteen years old at the time of the Almoravid conquest and the end of this Granada period. Such a date is not impossible; other Hebrew poets were known to have composed wonderful poetry at rather tender ages.12 And indeed, one authority, the thirteenth-century Joseph ibn ªAknin, counselled the age of ten to fifteen as the ideal time for learning to write poetry.13 But although Judah Halevi was undoubtedly a prodigy, a birth date of 1075 would not acount for the good fellowship he obviously enjoyed with other members of the poetic circle during his time in Granada. In one charming wine-poem we learn that he is not yet twenty-four years old, but whether he was twenty-three when he wrote it, or twenty-two, (or perhaps twelve!) we have no way of knowing. Nor is there any way of dating it to the Granada period: For you I’ll sing forever more and my lips drink in your wine’s rich store “Brother!” quoth I to the cask you sent and from its mouth taste sweets galore 8 Halevi’s “Songs of Zion” are printed in his D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 155–187. For English translations of Tzion ha-lo tishºali and other of Halevi’s poems, see Nina Salaman, Selected Poems by Judah Halevi (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1974). 9 The letter was written by Joseph ibn al-Ukhtush to Halfon ben Nethanel Halevi in May-June 1130; S. D. Goitein published the letter in Tarbiz 24 (1955), pp. 138–146. An English translation of the Judaeo-Arabic letter (quoted here) is published in idem, A Mediterranean Society 5: 288–289. 10 There is a considerable body of research on Judah Halevi’s prolonged visit to Egypt on his way to the Holy Land. S. D. Goitein published an important series of Hebrew articles about this period of Halevi’s life, which are summed up in the English-language “The Biography of Rabbi Judah ha-Levi in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Documents,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 28 (1959), pp. 41–56. For an analysis of the poet’s social milieu in Egypt see Yosef Yahalom, “The Context of Hebrew Imitations of Muwassahat in Egypt,” in Po´esia Estr´ofica, ed. F. Corriente and A. S´aenz-Badillos (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1991), pp. 357–366. The documents pertaining to this period in Halevi’s life, together with a fascinating narrative of his relations with friends in both Spain and Egypt, have recently been published by Ezra Fleischer and Moshe Gil, Yehuda ha-Levi u-vnei h.ugo (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2001). 11 See for example, Haim Schirmann, Le-toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 430, who writes that Judah Halevi was born in 1075 “at the latest.” 12 Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021/1022–1053/1058) composed some of his greatest poems before the age of twenty, citing his age in the poem itself: Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, pp. 45–48 (no. 85, l. 95); ibid., p. 77 (no. 129, l. 3); p. 99 (no. 160, l. 3); and p. 125 (no. 200, l. 10). Joseph ha-Nagid (1035–1066) was only nine when he wrote a beautiful little poem out on the fields of battle with his father (D¯ıw¯an Shmuel ha-Nagid, ed. Yarden, p. 56, no. 17); and from a later period, in Italy, Leone da Modena (1571–1648) composed an elegy that could be read in both Hebrew and Italian at the advanced age of seven. 13 Simha Assaf, Meqorot le-toldot ha-hinukh be-yisrael (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1931), 2: 38. .

3

Introduction

5

Until my friends thought me a drunk, and therefore asked me: “How much more??” To them I said: “Can Gilead’s balm be here nearby and I not drink to heal my sore? How could I tire of Eden’s cask when I’m not even twenty-four?!”14

In sum, the most we can say is that Judah Halevi was probably born several years before the commonly cited date of 1075. There is also confusion as to his place of birth. As we will see in Chapters One and Two, Judah Halevi referred to himself as coming from the lands of Christian Spain, and was also referred to in similar fashion. Thus it is clear that he grew up in Christian Spain, but whether he had been born there or in Muslim Spain, or where in Christian Spain he lived, we have no way of knowing. Moses ibn Ezra distinctly writes that Judah Halevi and Abraham ibn Ezra were both born in Tudela15 but it is difficult to accept this statement at face value since Tudela was in Muslim hands up until 1115. So until further information is available it seems best to resign ourselves, as Ezra Fleischer has suggested, to saying that Halevi was born, or at least brought up in Christian Spain, in a city whose name we do not know.16 Ibn Ezra’s account of the poets he had known in al-Andalus is found in his Kit¯ab almuh.a¯ d.ara wal-mudh¯akara ("The Book of Arguments and Discussions”), the treatise which he wrote from exile in Christian Spain on the subject of Hebrew poetry in alAndalus. Because of the importance of this passage we bring it in full:17 And contemporary with these poets towards the end of their days [in the late 11th century] and coming after them and following in their footsteps, was a wonderful group and a marvelous troupe. These poets understood the meaning of poetry and entered it through every gate and every road, cultivated both the sublime and the light-hearted, and ended up with poetry of the utmost perfection and beauty. For they excelled in their use of imagery, though they all used different techniques and were not equally gifted. Truly has it been said that people are like the rungs of a ladder: some are higher, and some are lower. But all of them, in whatever city they dwelt, came within the circle of success, precision, and perfection. Chief among them was Joseph ibn Tzadik18 of Cordoba, a good-hearted, generous man, marvelously erudite in Jewish law; and Judah ibn Ghayyat,19 who was born in Lucena and dwelt in Granada, and was an original poet and a highly cultivated man. Chief among the scholars of Jewish law was Solomon ibn al-Muªallim20 of Seville, the city of poetry: his splendor and independence shone forth in both [Hebrew and Arabic] with 14

˙¯ÈÓÊ ¯ÈÚ‡ Í·. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 308 (no. 92).

Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 79 [42a–43a]. On the subject of Judah Halevi’s date of birth see Ezra Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot h.ayyav ve-yetzirato,” Israel Levin Jubilee Volume (Tel Aviv, 1994), pp. 245–246; concerning his place of birth see ibid., pp. 243–245 17 Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 79 [42a–43a]. All translations from this book are mine. 18 Joseph ibn Tzadik was the chief authority of Jewish ritual law in Cordoba as well as a gifted poet. See further below, Chapter Two. 19 On Judah ibn Ghayyat see Chapter Three. 20 On Solomon ibn al-Muªallim see Chapter Six. 15 16

4

Introduction the light of day, and he sounded the depths of both [languages], may God defend his merit. And Judah Halevi, who drew pearls from the sea,21 and composed with such sharp wit, and Abraham ibn Ezra,22 whose language was so pure and ornamental: both were natives of Tudela23 and dwelt afterwards in Cordoba. And at the northernmost tip of al-Andalus was Ab¯u al-Hassan ben Batat,24 among those renowned as exegetes, orators and poets, from the houses of renowned and pious forefathers; and the renowned teacher and eminent scholar Levi ibn al-Tabban,25 a writer, poet, and preacher; and the honorable Ab¯u Abraham [Isaac] ibn Barun,26 his pupil, an outstanding man of incisive intellect, and among those who spoke both [Hebrew and Arabic] with purity. Also among these artists, craftsmen, and poets was Ab¯u al-Hassan ben Elazar,27 and among the men of poetry, good taste, and precision was Ab¯u Abraham [Isaac] ben Mescaron.28 Among those known for their prolific output and 21

The poet diving for pearls is a conventional figure of both Arabic and Hebrew poetry in the Middle Ages. ªAbd al-Q¯ahir al-Jurj¯an¯ı advised the poet to “work hard and dive deep to find the pearl,” as Doris Behrens-Abouseif notes in Beauty in Arabic Culture (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999), p. 96. For other examples, see The Poetry of Ibn Khaf¯ajah: A Literary Analysis, Magda M. al-Nowaihi (Leiden: Brill, 1993), pp. 7 and 37. 22 There is considerable research on Abraham ibn Ezra, whose writings on the Hebrew language, biblical exegesis, mathematics and astrology have long won the attention of scholars. See Haim Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-notzrit (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997), pp. 13–92, with copious notes and bibliography by Ezra Fleischer, whose father was himself an eminent scholar on the subject of Abraham ibn Ezra. 23 Shraga Abramson points out the confusion between the spelling of Tudela and Toledo in “Iggeret Rav Yehuda Halevi le-Rav Moshe ben Ezra,” Sefer Haim Schirmann (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1970), pp. 397–398. 24 In Yediªot ha-makhon le-heqer ha-shirah ha-ªivrit 4 (1938), p. 251, Schirmann notes that there are two . men by this name; the first received one poem by Moses ibn Ezra (no. 185 in Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Brody); the second received two (ibid., nos. 52 and 78). 25 The poems of Levi ibn al-Tabban were published by Dan Pagis in Shirei Levi ibn al-Tabban (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1967). And see Haim Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, pp. 496–503. 26 Isaac ibn Barun was a noted linguist but only one of his poems – and that only four lines long – has come down to us. This was mistakenly attributed to Moses ibn Ezra by Bialik and Ravnitsky, who published it in their Shirei Moshe ibn Ezra, (no. 48, p. 78). Fragments from Ibn Barun’s comparative study of the Hebrew and Arabic languages, Kit¯ab al-muºazana, were published in facsimile by P. Kokotzov in the Russian- language History of Hebrew Linguistics in the Middle Ages, I-II (St. Peterburg, 1916). In English see P. Wechter, Ibn Barun’s Arabic Works on Hebrew Grammar and Lexicography (Philadelphia, 1964). Two documents mentioning Ibn Barun have been published by Ezra Fleischer and Moshe Gil in Yehuda Halevi u-venei h.ugo, nos. 3 and 15, and see Fleischer’s comments ibid., pp. 127–129. Moses ibn Ezra composed three poems in honor of Ibn Barun’s book; see Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, pp. 16–18 (no. 12); p. 33 (no. 30); and pp. 175–177 (no. 176). Ibn Ezra apparently composed three other panegyrics for Ibn Barun (ibid. no. 7, p. 9; no. 33, pp. 34–35; and no. 112, pp. 113–114) as well as a lament upon his death (ibid., no. 190, p. 190). The problems concerning the rubrics to the latter three panegyrics are discussed by Fleischer in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, pp. 496–497, note 63. Judah Halevi composed two poems for Ibn Barun; see Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 7–10 (no. 7) 1: 182–183 (no. 123). This latter poem is a magnificent strophic poem modeled on the meter and rhyme-scheme of a muwashshah.a by Joseph ibn Tzadik, published in Yonah David, Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik, no. 1. 27 There appear to be two men by this name in the sources; one, a physician whose Hebrew name seems to be “Meir,” and to whom Moses ibn Ezra addressed poem no. 193 in Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Brody, and a second one, to someone called simply “Ibn Elazar” in the rubric before the poem (ibid., no. 63). Schirmann, in Yediªot ha-makhon 4, p. 277 suggests that it is the first of these, Meir, who composed the collection of homonym poetry found in MS Ginzburg 475, in Moscow. In this context, let us mention that in Chapter Five we will be briefly “meeting” one R. Elazar, perhaps this very one, in the course of a kind of poetic contest between Judah Halevi and Joseph ibn Sahal. 28 The spelling of this name (Ô‡¯Î˘Ó) is totally subjective; as Schirmann notes in Yediªot ha-makhon 4, p. 277, neither the origin of the name nor its meaning is clear. Schirmann refers the reader to Steinschneider’s comments in the Jewish Quarterly Review 11, p. 149, no. 391. All that is known about this figure is that he composed one religious poem (see Davidson’s Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Vol. 1, no. 6914) and

5

Introduction innovative ideas for translating Arabic into the Hebrew language was Ab¯u Saªid ben Faraj ben Hasdai of blessed memory, of pleasing ways and easy manners.29

Here, then, are most of the Hebrew poets who lived in al-Andalus during Ibn Ezra’s day: Joseph ibn Tzadik, Judah ibn Ghayyat, Levi ibn al-Tabban, Solomon ibn al-Muªallim, Judah Halevi, Isaac ibn Barun, and, of course, the acknowledged leader and writer of these lines himself, Moses ibn Ezra. Judah Halevi had contact at some point in his life with most, if not all of these Hebrew poets, in addition to others not mentioned here, such as Isaac ibn Ezra30 and Joseph ibn Sahal. But when it comes to reconstituting the circle of Granada poets, it is often impossible to say with assurance that a given poem stems from what scholars call the “Granada period” in Halevi’s life. And in fact, one scholar has recently challenged this axiom of Hebrew literary history and contended that Judah Halevi did not, in fact, have a “Granada period,” and that he did not visit Granada until after the Almoravid conquest of Granada or meet with Moses ibn Ezra anywhere except Christian Spain.31 According to this theory, Judah Halevi only met Ibn Ezra after the latter’s heyday, when he was no longer a highly respected resident of Granada but a lonely and impoverished exile estranged from his three bothers. These claims rest on the evidence of rubrics found above the poems in manuscripts only recently made available to western scholars from the Firkowitz Collection in St. Petersburg; Haim Brody and Haim Schirmann constructed their life of Judah Halevi largely on the basis of two manuscripts of Halevi’s collected poems: Mss. Oxford 1971 and Oxford 1970 of the Bodleian Library, the latter manuscript the most authentic testimony to Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an.32 It is not the goal of this study to refute these claims; this has already been capably done by Ezra Fleischer, who examined the claims one by one and disproved them on the basis of the manuscript evidence.33 But our study clearly rejects these claims and in fact could not have been written had they been found at all reasonable. When one remembers that only Moses ibn Ezra remained in Granada after the conquest in 1090 and that Moses never met with his brothers again, rubrics can do very little to change the facts established by Brody and Schirmann. When Judah Halevi addresses both Moses and Isaac ibn Ezra in one and the same poem, or Moses ibn Ezra writes a poem to Halevi teasing him that his return is being anxiously awaited by a “girl from Granada,” or Halevi sends a poem to both Isaac ibn Ezra and Judah ibn Ghayyat from the neighboring was the recipient of two of Moses ibn Ezra’s poems (nos. 87 and 118 in Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Brody) Nothing at all is known of this person. Isaac was the eldest of the four Ibn Ezra brothers. Moses greatly admired his brother’s talents and in Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 77 [41a] notes his “delicacy of expression and sweetness of poetry due to his absolute command of Arabic culture.” But his comments come somewhat earlier than the passages translated here, since Isaac was considerably older than Moses himself and therefore belonged to the previous generation. 31 Yosef Yahalom, “Ginzei Leningrad ve-heqer shirat hayyav shel rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” Peªamim 46–47 . . (1991), p. 31, note 61. 32 Ezra Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot hayyav,” %itIsrael Levin Jubilee Volume (Tel . Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1994), p. 242, note 3. MS Oxford 1970 represents the editorial work of Rabbi H.iyya al-Mughrabi (i. e., “the Moroccan”), a contemporary of Judah Halevi and an acknowledged expert on Halevi’s poetry. Fleischer, ibid., pp. 273–276, suggests that Rabbi H.iyya al-Mughrabi, the editor of Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an, may be the same Rabbi H.iyya al-Dayyan who served on Cairo’s rabbinical court in 1120–1159. In medieval Egypt, as Fleischer explains, Jews from Spain and Morocco were both termed Moroccans (al-Mughrabi) 33 Fleischer, ibid., esp. pp. 246–255.

29 30

6

Introduction city of Guadix thanking them for a Purim gift – one must necessarily believe that the Granada period was in fact a reality in the life of Judah Halevi. Moreover, as we proceed we will see that the city of Granada was a definite presence for the poets connected with this circle and that Granada pervades a number of their poems in terms of images, subject matter, and even rhyme. The evidence attesting to Halevi’s Granada period will be allowed to speak for itself in the following chapters and then summed up in Chapter Eight. On the other hand, it is also true that it is often impossible to ascribe poems written by these poets to the Granada period, no matter how tempting it may be to do so. In examining the circle of poets in Granada, therefore, we will largely be limiting ourselves to the poems that can be connected to the Granada period with at least a reasonable degree of assurance, citing other poems only as examples of parallel literary or social phenomena. Rubrics can be problematic. They vary from one scribe to another and were sometimes added by scribes who simply paraphrased the contents of the poem in question, sometimes incorrectly through an imperfect understanding of medieval Hebrew poetry. One medieval editor of Dunash ibn Labrat’s famous diatribe against wine-drinking parties Ve-ºomer: al tishan (“And he said: Don’t sleep!”) gives a tantalizing rubric ostensibly testifying to contemporary social practices but is actually just a paraphrase of the poem in question, while another rubric informs us that the poet Isaac ibn Khalfun wrote a certain poem “upon taking his medicine,” when in fact he was asking for largesse.34 For this reason, our study, though indeed citing the rubrics found in the major manuscripts, will depend upon the texts of the poems and not the rubrics to establish certain biographical details, such as the recipients or the poems and the circumstances in which they were composed.

* * * A note on translation: the Hebrew poems translated in this study consist of two kinds: strophic “girdle-poems” with shifting rhyme (muwashshah.as) and mono-rhymed poems, the longer ones known as qas.¯ıdas. With their shorter lines and lilting rhythm, the muwashshah.as almost demand rhyme even in translation, and we have indeed tried to give a semblance of the original rhyme-scheme in the translations of the muwashshah.as below. There has also been an attempt to give rhymed translations of the shorter monorhymed poems throughout this book. The qas.¯ıdas, however, generally defy rhyming; the English language simply does not have the rhyming capabilities of Hebrew or Arabic. So the qas.¯ıdas have been provided with prose translations that preserve the line arrangement; in many cases an apparatus of the biblical verses embedded in these poems has also been provided in order to convey an idea of the rich and varied use of the biblical language in these poems

34 The rubric to Dunash’s poem is found in MS T-S 8 K 15/8. Concerning the rubric to Ibn Khalfun’s poem see Ann Brener, Isaac ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Poet of the Eleventh Century (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 56–57.

7

Chapter One

FIRST CONTACTS BETWEEN JUDAH HALEVI AND MOSES IBN EZRA

Our story begins in Granada, a tiny Muslim kingdom nestled into the picturesque mountain range of the Sierra Nevada where it was “furrowed by streams and clothed in trees,” as its deposed king ªAbdall¯ah later recalled,1 and the “melted gold of its rivers,” to quote al-Shaqund¯ı, “flowed betwixt the emeralds of its trees.”2 Just why the kingdom was called Granada no one is sure. Some link the name to the fruit of the pomegranate, though the honor of growing the first pomegranates on Iberian soil goes to the district of Rayy near Malaga, and it was Toledo, not Granada that received the praise of one medieval botanist for its wild pomegranate trees.3 Others suggest a Phoenician origin of the name with no etymological link to pomegranates whatsoever, and point to a nearby village known as “Karnattah” in the earliest sources.4 But at the time in which our narrative begins, ªAbdall¯ah would have had little reason for indulging in nostalgia, and the name of his kingdom would have been an academic question safely left to scholars of a much future generation. Like the other Muslim rulers throughout al-Andalus in this period just before the Almoravid conquest in 1090, ªAbdall¯ah would have been busy squabbling with his brother kings of the Muslim faith, fending off incursions from Christian Spain, and relaxing in the sundry pastimes that were the prerogative of kings.5 True, the Almoravid troops from North Africa did loom large on the horizon, and their leader, Yusef ibn Tashufin, was an increasingly worrisome menace.6 But nevertheless, in these days before the fatal year of 1090, ªAbdall¯ah was still seated on his throne, and the various inhabitants of his kingdom – Muslim, Jew, and Christian – like as not went about their usual business. Granada on the eve of the Almoravid conquests harbored a particularly large Jewish 1 Translation from A. Huici Miranda, s. v. “Gharnata,” Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1965), Vol. 2, p. 1012. ªAbdall¯ah’s memoirs were translated into English as: The Tiby¯an: Memoirs of ªAbd All¯ah b. Bulugg¯ın, Last Zirid Amir of Granada, trans. Amin T. Tibi (Leiden: Brill, 1986); the description of Granada is on p. 48. 2 Al-Shaqund¯ı (d. 1231–1232). Quoted from al-Maqqar¯ı, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 44. 3 The story of this first pomegranate, a gift to ªAbd al-Rahm¯ . an I from his sister in Syria, is related in Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape and Vision, p. 17. The eleventh-century Ibn Bas.s.a¯ l remarks the pomegranate trees of Toledo in his D¯ıw¯an al-filah.a; see ibid., p. 23. 4 Pascual de Gayongos, al-Maqqar¯ı’s nineteenth-century editor and translator, notes in the Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 347, note 69, that a town by the name of “Karnattah” existed before the Muslim conquest of Spain, citing a remark by the ninth-century al-Raz¯ı about “the town of Karnattah, called also the city of the Jews, because peopled by them, and Karnattah is the oldest town in all the district of Elvira.” Gayongos further suggests that Granada might even go back to Phoenician times, deriving the name “Karnattah” from Semitic roots. 5 ªAbdall¯ ah ibn Bulugg¯ın, The Tibyan, trans. Tibi, pp. 130–135; 174. 6 Ibid.

9

First Contacts population. It had had its moments of tragedy, and the events of 1066, when Muslim mobs destroyed the Jewish quarter and killed the powerful Jewish leader, Joseph ibn Naghrella, son of the almost-legendary vizier and poet Samuel ha-Nagid, could not have been too remote for many to remember first-hand.7 But on the eve of destruction in 1090, the Jews were still a powerful influence in Granada, and of all the eminent Jewish families in the kingdom, perhaps none were more so than Jacob ibn Ezra and his four sons: Isaac, Moses, Judah, and Joseph. The Ibn Ezras traced their pedigree back to the days of hoary antiquity. According to the Sefer ha-Qabbalah (“The Book of Tradition”), Abraham ibn Daud’s magnum opus of Jewish history from ancient times down to 1161: There is a tradition current among the members of the community of Granada that [the Ibn Ezras] are descended from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the holy city, from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, not from [the inhabitants of] the villages or the unwalled towns.8 All the Ibn Ezras, Ibn Daud goes on to assure us, were “of royal blood and descended from the nobility, as evidenced by their personal traits.”9 In later times the Ibn Ezras were “among the leaders of Granada,” as Ibn Daud puts it, “holders of high office and men of influence in every generation.”10 Ibn Daud traces their presence in Granada back to the reign of King Habb¯us and his son, Bad¯ıs b. H.abb¯us. This would put the Ibn Ezras in Granada from the time of the second Zirid king, whom al-Maqqar¯ı credits with the fortification and beautification of Granada. Of course, this is not a very long time, but then, Granada was a relatively new city, having apparently been founded only with the breakdown of caliphal rule in Cordoba around 1012–1013.11 7 For an account of “Jewish Granada,” see Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1961), 1: 31–36; Andrew Handler, The Zirids of Granada (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1974), pp. 26, 45, 74, 148–149. Several of the most important sources in both Hebrew and Arabic are conveniently collected and translated in Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources, ed. Olivia Remie Constable (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), nos. 18a-18c, and 19. Ross Brann offers a particularly incisive reading of the events related to 1066 in the first three chapters of his Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Muslim Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002). 8 Abraham ibn Daud, The Book of Tradition, trans. and notes by Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1967), pp. 97. The Hebrew text is printed on p. 71 of the Hebrew section. 9 Ibid., p. 98 [Hebrew text p. 71]. 10 Ibid., p. 97 [Hebrew text p. 71]. 11 According to ªAbdall¯ ah, residents of the neighboring Elvira begged Zawi b. Ziri, the brother of ªAbdall¯ah’s great-grandfather and the founder of the Zirid dynasty, to protect them from the Berber troops looting and pillaging the countryside during the breakdown of caliphal power. For greater protection the inhabitants of Elvira transferred their town to Granada, while the Berber troops, to quote ªAbdall¯ah: “gazed astonished on that lovely plain, furrowed by streams and clothed in trees. They admired the mountain where the city of Granada now stands, entranced by its situation . . . and they were persuaded that if an enemy were to lay siege to it, he would be unable to prevent them from entering or leaving to provision it. So they decided to found a city there, and everyone, Andalusian or Berber, set about building a house, and soon Elvira fell in ruins” (from Miranda, “Gharnata,” p. 1012; in The Tiby¯an, trans. Tibi, p. 48). Al-Maqqar¯ı accepts ªAbdall¯ah’s account, basing his opinion on Ibn Khat.¯ıb, Ibn¯u Jazzi-l-kelb¯ı and “almost every other author who has written on the subject” (Al-Maqqar¯ı, Mohammedan Dynasties, ed. Gayangos, p. 44). Many scholars tend to discount this version of Granada’s beginnings; see for example Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1993), p. 82. Yet even if Granada did exist before 1012–1013 it must have

10

First Contacts At the period in which our narrative begins, all four of the Ibn Ezra brothers would have been comfortably ensconced in Granada, little dreaming, perhaps, of the changes ahead. Isaac was the eldest of the brothers, followed by Moses, Judah, and Joseph.12 Time was to deal favorably with three of the brothers after they left Granada and both Judah and Joseph attained high rank in the Spanish lands under Christian rule. But we have almost no information about their life in Granada and though Ibn Daud calls all four of them “officers,” sarim in the Hebrew, this is a generic term of high respect without any specific, well-defined function: princes, viziers, wealthy individuals and community leaders all come under this rubric in medieval Hebrew sources. This term, moreover, may be more suited to their activities in Christian Spain than in Granada before the great events of 1090. This we have no way of knowing. But in the sources Moses ibn Ezra also bears the high-sounding Arabic title sah.ib al-shurt.a, and this surely must go back to Granada of the pre-Almoravid period since his life following 1090 would have given him little scope for earning honorary titles. His Arabic title from Granada can be translated as “Head of the Police,” and this would ostensibly indicate a very definite position indeed. Yet here, too, as in the case of Ibn Daud’s generic sarim, we are dealing with a less than well-defined term. Whatever its original significance, the title seems to have dwindled into a vague “his excellency” by the eleventh century, and we find other Jews bearing the same title.13 Be this as it may, it is clear that Moses ibn Ezra occupied an important position in the town of his birth, whether by courtesy or through the exercise of official duties, and that the Ibn Ezra brothers were regarded with pride and respect by the Jews of al-Andalus. Moses ibn Ezra was not only a scion of this illustrious family, but on the eve of the Almoravid conquest also the greatest Hebrew poet on Iberian soil. The laurel wreath won early in youth through his virtuoso performance in Sefer ha-ªAnaq (“The Book of the Necklace”) rested firmly on his head.14 Generally speaking, Granada is not one of the Taifa kingdoms most linked to the cultivation of poetry, though al-Shaqund¯ı has praise for Granada’s poets, and its female poets in particular.15 Other kingdoms, such as Saragossa and Cordoba, attracted the most renowned Arabic poets, and some, such as Seville and Almeria, were even ruled by poet-kings of the very first rank.16 Even in the Jewish sources it is not Granada that carries the palm for Hebrew poetry; that prize goes been, as Gayongos remarks in Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 347, note 69, “a very inconsiderable town.” 12 Ibid. 13 Ezra Fleischer discusses the title in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 386, note 39. Other Jews bearing this title in the Hebrew sources include Isaac ibn Barun and one “Ab¯u ªAmar. See also S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society (Berkeley and London: University of California Press) 5: 463; 637, note 217. 14 Sefer ha-ªAnaq is a masterpiece of homonymic Hebrew poetry, organized by topic into ten chapters on subjects ranging from the pleasures of love and wine to meditations on death and old age. It is published in Moshe ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody (Berlin, 1936), pp. 297–404. For a discussion of its literary merits and its value as a model in Hebrew poetry, see Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad hamuslemit, pp. 387–391. Ross Brann writes in The Compunctious Poet (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 61 that Ibn Ezra “won acclaim as a poet’s poet,” and this seems a very fair characterization. 15 Al-Shaqund¯ı, quoted in al-Maqqar¯ı’s Mohammedan Dynasties, p. 151: “And had [Granada] received no other favour from God than that of his having made it the birth-place of so may poetesses as adorned its soil . . . this indeed would be sufficient to honour it, for all these women, and many more whose names have not reached us, may for their wit and literary compositions be placed among the greatest poets of the time.” 16 See A. R. Nykl, Hispano-Arabic Poetry (Baltimore, 1946), Chapter Three. The poet-kings included al-Muªtamid of Seville (Nykl, pp. 134–154) and al-Muªt.asim of Almeria (Nykl, pp. 183–185. For a fulllength discussion of al-Muªtamid’s poetry, see Raymond P. Scheindlin, Form and Structure in the Poetry of

11

First Contacts to Seville and Lucena, both of which are called “the city of poetry” in the sources of the day.17 Nevertheless, Granada was the home of Moses ibn Ezra, the leading Hebrew poet of the time, and it is therefore to Granada that we now turn our attention.

* * * Some time before 1090, the year of the Almoravid invasion of Granada, Moses ibn Ezra received a “calling card” from an unknown poet named Judah Halevi, who described himself as a stranger in al-Andalus, eager to visit the leading lights of Muslim Spain. This calling card, so to speak, came in the shape of a long mono-rhymed qas.¯ıda, or ode, composed in Hebrew according to the best of classical Arabic poetics and beginning with the words: “Stay, O stay just a bit longer, my brothers” (ªImdu ªamodu qat. meªat. ah.einu).18 What, one wonders, were Ibn Ezra’s thoughts upon receiving this poem? As the reigning Hebrew poet of Muslim Spain he was accustomed to receiving friendshippoems from fellow poets scattered across al-Andalus, and he had certainly written quite a few of them himself. But whether he was pleased and intrigued at receiving a tribute from an unknown correspondent, or whether it was with an inward groan at the thought of having to read the rhymes of yet another dabbler in poetry is beyond our ability to say. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that whatever he may have felt upon first receiving this tribute, he surely recognized the hand of a master from the very first line. Through the Hebrew of the young unknown’s poem, Ibn Ezra would have immediately caught the echo in the opening line of what is perhaps the oldest and most famous of all Arabic poems, the “golden ode,” or muaªllaqa of Imr¯u al-Qays: Stay, O friends both! Let us weep, recalling a love and lodging by the rim of the white sands between Ed-Dakhool and Haumal19 These lines represent the locus amoenus of a motif destined to become one of the hallmarks of the Arabic ode for all time: the at.l¯al, or “the weeping over the encampments,” in which a lovelorn speaker laments the departure of his beloved with her tribe. By beginning his poem with a reference to this famous Arabic ode, the young poet immediately established his credentials as a poet worthy of being read with respect and attention, and it must surely have been with a heightened attention that Ibn Ezra proceeded to read the poem in full. The following translation makes no attempt to capture the poem’s rhyme-scheme, in which every line ends with the same rhymeme (-h.einu). We have, however, provided an apparatus for many, though not all, of the biblical citations in the Al-Muªtamid ibn ªAbad (Leiden: Brill, 1974), with extensive bibliography on Arabic poets and poetry of the period. 17 Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 73 [39a]; p. 79 [42b]. 18 ÂÈÁ‡ ËÚÓ Ë˜ „ÂÓÚ Â„ÓÚ. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 273–276 (no. 53). 19 Translated by A. J. Arberry, The Seven Odes (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd), p. 61. Halevi’s deft reference to the ancient Arabic ode has not been appreciated in the research; Y. Yahalom reads these lines in a literal way, as an appeal to Ibn Ezra to stop in his tracks; see idem, “Ginzei Leningrad ve-h.eqer shirat h.ayyav shel rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” Peªamim 46–47 (1991), note 31, p. 61; Ezra Fleischer comments that the opening of ªImdu ªamodu is “nothing but poetic convention” in “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot h.ayyav ve-yetzirato,” Israel Levin Jubilee Volume (Tel Aviv, 1994), p. 250, note 39.

12

First Contacts poem, so that the reader may examine on his or her own the various ways in which the poet weaves these into his own text:

5

10

15

20

Stay, O stay just a bit longer, our brothers so that we and our spirits can bless you. Little did you realize that the day you sent forth the fire of wandering you were also looting our own spoils of war. Don’t lovers have a criminal case against you for traveling on like this and trying us so dearly? How do you find your wandering, after us? For after you – our own strength has perished. As for us – we lay bare our secrets: what is left to hide? You know all there is to know about us and our speech. The night of parting we did not ask for the light of morning, and indeed it came to us against our will. No spirit would have been left in us afterwards, had it not been that we hoped for the day of gathering in our dispersed. Was it to soak the lands with tears that the Chariot of Wandering leads us forth? Our hearts would have despaired of all honor had not the prince of honor dwelt before us. We shall harness the Chariots of Clouds till we reach his tent if Time does not loosen our belt! O Western Lamp! To a stranger in the Land of the West, the memory of him is like phylacteries upon our forehead. Let him command his heavenly orbs to rise, and transform our West into our East. Were he to compose a poem, the heavenly orbs would cry out at its radiance: “How didst thou plunder our splendor?!” Or if the threads of a necklace were to see his rhymes they would say: “Are these not our crystals?” We have set them like wine at the time of love-sickness and the fine memory of their owner like our apples. Were his poem to ring boldly, the prince of troops on the day of battle would say: “Are these not our weapons?” Or to speak softly, it would enslave all hearts till they cried out: “Come, take us!” Who will set forth on a tablet of writing and take down our words and send them? In our folds you will find hidden recesses of love and your reply will be engraved upon our tablet. Are not you most truly named after [Moses,] the faithful messenger? For with both of you comes our freedom from bondage. Sweeten therefore our bitter cry, and turn Marah and the sea into our most fragrant wine With a poem that will suck honey from the rock on the day 13

First Contacts

25

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that our tongues cleave unto our palates. From your West, make the dew of our clouds descend like manna, and send quails for our spirit These, my rhymes, say: “Let us go and bow down before our king, our messiah” Mayhap they will find grace in your eyes; ’tis to you that they plead: “Accept our efforts.” Think not that we sin, in setting our scribblings before you. These, our flowers, have not yet unfurled – may the day of reward soon come for our flowers! The thread of your good memory pulls at us, and until we meet with you we will not restrain our ardor O that I had the wings of a bird, then no winged creature would catch up with the dust on our road Till the very flashes of lightening cried out after us: “Stay, O stay just a bit longer, our brothers.”

Commentary: 1 Stay. . .longer (Nahum 2: 9), where these words come amidst the floods engulfing Nineveh; in our poem, of course, the implied setting is a desert. This is a good example of the way medieval Hebrew poets could take a biblical phrase out of its original setting, and, applying it to new contexts, allow the phrase to function independently of the biblical context. 2 sent . . . fire (Lamentations 1: 13, where the fire is sent by God in his wrath over the transgressions of His people). The use of the biblical words operates in the poem on several levels. The phrase “sent fire” can of course be understood without reference to the biblical source. But if the reader of the poem knows that the phrase comes from Lamentations, then it emphasizes the sense of desolation which the speaker claims to feel over the separation from his friends, giving his grief the ring of sincerity. But at yet a third level, knowledge of the biblical context also heightens the dissonance between the biblical context of true tragedy, and the poetic context of a standard motif. This kind of dissonance can create humor, irony and a wide range of nuances; here it serves to emphasize the poet’s self-awareness of his art, and the fact that his poetry is a manipulation of motifs and language. 4 strength . . . perished (Lamentations 3: 18). 7 No spirit . . . left in (I Kings 17: 17); gathering . . . dispersed (Isaiah 11: 12). A prophetic expression denoting the ultimate redemption of the entire Jewish people; using the expression here to describe a simple reunion of friends creates a gentle humor. 10 harness . . . chariot (Exodus 14: 6); loosen the belt (Job 12:21). Time, the malignant fate of secular Hebrew and Arabic poetry, is here pictured as actively seeking to interfere with the journey. 11 Western lamp (BT Shabbat 22b; Menuhot 86b) the most important light on the candelabra in the Temple in Jerusalem; Land of the West i. e., Muslim Spain. 15 In medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry apples are a remedy for lovesickness; in Hebrew the connection dates back to the Bible (Song of Songs 2: 5). 20 freedom from bondage (Isaiah 61: 1). 21 Sweeten . . . Marah (Exodus 15: 22–27). Marah is one of the desert camping places of the Children of Israel; the name denotes “bitterness.” 22 suck . . . rock (Deuteronomy 32: 13). 23 Manna, quails (Exodus 16: 13–15). 26 scribblings (Lamentations 2: 14). In the biblical context the word means “iniquities.” This is a good example of the way a poet can maneuver the biblical register to create humor in his poem. 29 O that . . . bird (Psalms 55: 7). In Psalms a prayer for escape from enemies; here the phrase is set free of its original context. 30 Stay . . . longer (Nahum 2: 9). The poem ends envelope-fashion with the same line in which he begins; a

14

First Contacts device known in biblical Hebrew poetry, but rare in al-Andalus: for one example see Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, no. 64, pp. 62–63. The envelope-device is frequently found in the poetry of a later Hebrew poet, Meshullam da Pierra, who lived in Christian Spain in the fourteenth century.

Halevi’s first poem to Moses ibn Ezra was all that a poet’s calling card should be: a meticulously constructed qas.¯ıda or “ode“ written in one of the classical meters of Hebrew poetry and in a single running-rhyme that is suitably rich in sound (in this case -h.einu). Like the Arabic qas.¯ıdas on which the Hebrew poets modeled their work,20 the poem is carefully divided into the requisite sections, with a lover mourning the absence of his loved ones in the at.l¯al (lines 1–8), a brief takhallus., or transition (9–10), a panegyric (mad¯ıh.) of the recipient of the poem and his poetic talents (11–17), and a kind of envoi (18–30) praising his own poem and asking the recipient both to accept the poem and to send him one in return. The language of the poem is strictly biblical, as advocated by the Hebrew poets of the day, and creates a veritable tapestry of phrases and terms culled from various parts of the Hebrew Bible.21 The repertoire of Andalusi images is well represented throughout the poem: poetry is likened to finely-strung jewels (l. 14) and to wine (l. 15), the recipient is hyperbolically likened to his biblical namesake (ll. 20–23), and a “Chariot of Wandering” fulfills its sorrowful duty (l. 8b) In his panegyric the young poet contrives to flatter his addressee in a number of ways. He calls Moses ibn Ezra his “Western Lamp” (l. 11), an epithet rich in meaning for it not only provides a flattering comparison to the eternal light of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem but also places Ibn Ezra squarely within the cultural geography of his day. To the inhabitants of al-Andalus, Jew and Muslim alike, the West meant the realms under Muslim rule in Spain. Now, living in the West was perhaps no great thing to the Muslim literati of al-Andalus, who looked towards the hereditary centers of Muslim culture with all the admiration and envy of far-off provincials. One Muslim denizen of twelfth-century al-Andalus, Ibn Bass¯am al-Shantar¯ın¯ı, grumbled over this state of affairs in the introduction to his important anthology of Arabic poetry and prose, al-Dakh¯ıra f¯ı mah.a¯ sin ahl al-jaz¯ıra (“The Treasury of Excellent Qualities of the People of the Peninsula”): The people of these lands refuse but to follow in the footsteps of the Easterners . . . If a crow should croak in those lands, or flies hum somewhere in Syria or Iraq, they would kneel before the latter as before an idol, and treat the crowing of the former as an authoritative text.22 20 The structure of the Hebrew qas¯ıda is described in Israel Levin, Meªil tashbetz, 1: 77–149. In English . see Raymond Scheindlin, “The Hebrew Qas.¯ıda in Spain,” in Qas.¯ıda Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, ed. Stefan Sperl (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 121–136; Ann Brener, Isaac ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Hebrew Poet of the Eleventh Century (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 29–38. 21 The Hebrew poets of al-Andalus regarded biblical Hebrew as the ideal medium for their poetry, partly in response to the challenge of Arabic claims that fas.ah.a (“purity of language”) was to be found only in the Koran. For an excellent survey of this subject see Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet, pp. 23–58. In Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, pp. 203–209 [107v-108r, 111r] Moses ibn Ezra expounded the ideal of biblical Hebrew and indeed advocated (though did not always practice!) strict adherence to the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible in poetry. An anecdote illustrating this principle involving the poet Isaac ibn Khalfun and the grammarian Isaac ben Mar-Saul, several generations before Ibn Ezra’s time, is related in Brener, Isaac ibn Khalfun, p. 28. 22 Quoted from J. A. Abu-Haidar, “The Muwassahat in the Light of the Literary Life that Produced Them,” in

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First Contacts But things were different for the Jewish inhabitants of al-Andalus. For them, living in the West meant living in the very center of Jewish culture and literature. They paid due respect, to be sure, to the sages of such great centers as Babylonia and North Africa, but in everything from linguistics and biblical exegesis to poetry and medicine, the Jews of al-Andalus saw themselves as second to none. The “East,” on the other hand, referred not to the ancient centers of Iraq and Syria, but the lands under Christian rule in Spain – a sorry place indeed with few claims to cultural refinement or taste.23 Thus when Halevi apostrophizes Moses ibn Ezra as his “Western Lamp” he is giving due recognition to the dazzling center of Jewish culture in al-Andalus even though he himself, as he freely admits, is a “stranger in the Land of the West”: O Western Lamp! To a stranger in the Land of the West, the memory of him is like phylacteries upon our forehead. (l. 11) No sooner, however, does he address his “Western Lamp” with the reverent language due sacred objects than he turns the tables, so to speak, and reinvests the West with its primary, non-metaphorical meaning, teasingly requesting Ibn Ezra to “command his heavenly orbs to rise, and transform our West into our East” (l. 12). As though he hadn“t just undertaken an arduous journey for the very purpose of leaving the East behind him! Continuing with the poem, we find Halevi taking special pains to praise Ibn Ezra’s poetry (13–17; 24), using extravagant compliments that are at the same time lightly tongue-in-cheek and eminently respectful. He paints a tantalizing picture of the hypothetical poem that Ibn Ezra might deign to write, using the full range of motifs available to him from Arabic poetry:

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Were he to compose a poem, the heavenly orbs would cry out at its radiance: “How didst thou plunder our splendor?!” Or if the threads of a necklace were to see his rhymes they would say: “Are these not our crystals?” We have set them like wine at the time of love-sickness and the fine memory of their owner like our apples. Were his poem to ring boldly, the prince of troops On the day of battle would say: “Are these not our weapons?” Or to speak softly, it would enslave all hearts till they cried out: “Come, take us!” (ll. 13–17)

Studies on the Muwassah and the Kharja, ed. Allan Jones and Richard Hitchcock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 116. Translated by Abu-Haidar from Ibn Bass¯am al-Shantar¯ın¯ı (d. 1147) al-Dakh¯ıra f¯ı mah.a¯ sin ahl al-jaz¯ıra, ed. Ihsan ªAbbas (Beirut, 1979), p. 12. On the subject of Andalusi Muslim rivalry with the Eastern centers see also R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1907), pp. 327–328; and P. Cachia, “Intellectual Life: Poetry and Belle-Lettres,” in A History of Islamic Spain, ed. W. Montgomery Watt (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967), p. 72. 23 On the subject of East versus West in Andalusi Jewish culture see Haim Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, with notes by Ezra Fleischer, (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1995), 1: 399, 431; and Ross Brann, “Judah Halevi,” in The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), esp. pp. 273–275.

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First Contacts In these lines Halevi likens the brilliance of Ibn Ezra’s as-yet-unwritten poem to the moon and the stars (much to their disgruntlement!), its rhymes to precious jewels, and its therapeutic value to apples, the ultimate remedy for love-sickness in a tradition dating back to the Song of Songs (2:5) and exploited in numerous poems by the luminaries of medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry.24 The battle-ringing comparison of poetry to weapons of war (l. 16) harkens back to the h.amasa poetry of ancient Arabic odes and thus provides a nice echo to the Arabic motif with which he began his own poem. And all this about a poem not as yet written! These lines convey both Halevi’s reverence for the recipient of his panegyric – the great poet Moses ibn Ezra – and a sense of humor and independence that belie his years. Having praised Ibn Ezra’s poetry he then dares to ask for a poem in return, using a series of images based on that “other” Moses, the one of biblical fame: 20

Are not you most truly named after [Moses,] the faithful messenger? For with both of you comes our freedom from bondage. Sweeten therefore our bitter cry, and turn Marah and the sea into our most fragrant wine With a poem that will suck honey from the rock on the day that our tongues cleave unto our palates. From your West, make the dew of our clouds descend like manna, and send quails for our spirit (ll. 20–23)

These four lines are dense with allusions to the biblical Moses and the entire drama of Exodus: Moses is God’s “faithful messenger”25 who brought the Children of Israel out of bondage; the bitter “waters of Marah” (Exodus 15:21–25) become a playful allusion in line 21; the heaven-sent “quails” and “manna” (ibid. 16: 13–28) are humbly requested in line 23. Through these allusions to Exodus the poet and his recipient are recast as figures in a biblical drama that turns a poem by Ibn Ezra into all the desert miracles wrapped into one. Life without a poem by Ibn Ezra becomes a sojourn in a waterless desert; life with a poem from his hand – salvation. These are charming extravagances indeed! In begging for a poem in return, and likening his own poem to flowers “not yet unfurled” (l. 27a), Halevi strikes exactly the right note between modesty and a bold claim for attention. It is, then, a wonderful poem for an up-and-coming young poet to send to one whom he recognizes as his “king and messiah” (l. 24b) and the undisputed arbiter of Hebrew culture. And apparently Moses ibn Ezra was suitably impressed, for in response to the young poet’s request he replied with a poem of his own, a qas.¯ıda of twenty-two lines beginning with the words “The children of Time” (“Yaldei yamim”)26 in which he marvels over a youth bearing “mountains of wisdom upon his back” (l. 12), invites him to a “garden of love and friendship . . . whose nard sends forth its fragrance” 24 So, for example, Hebrew poets such as Samuel ha-Nagid (993–1056) and Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021/22– 1053/8) dashed off improvisations on the subject of apples and love. For another example by Judah Halevi connecting the two subjects, see his D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 19 (no. 17). 25 An epithet traditionally applied to Moses in rabbinical sources. 26 ÌÈÓÈ È„ÏÈ. Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 22 (no. 17). .

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First Contacts (ll. 19–20), and, a bit more prosaically, to an “imposing house in which to dwell” (l. 22). Before doing all this, however, he launches into an introduction straight out of the arsenal of Arabic odes a dirge against “Time,” the malignant Fate that stalks through so many Hebrew and Arabic poems from the period.27 Using a traditional variation of this figure, he bewails the “Children of Time” who have laid siege to his own heart and happiness (ll. 1–6). The poet’s heart” the target of the warlike “Children of Time” is here a metonym for the poet himself, personified in a way that imbues the lament with an epic grandeur:

5

10

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The Children of Time mustered their army against a heart annihilated by sorrow And against the little that was left of it, Separation drew forth his sword. Let [Separation] wander where he will; he always returns to the heart again. He [i. e. Separation] conspired against him mightily and made a siege against him His sole refuge is the blood of his speech; the blood of his eyes his fortress The writing of his beloved supported his arm when disaster roused his sorrow [In] a letter resembling the face of Dawn spread across the lines of night Lines of poetry more precious than gold. one of which would put ten thousand to flight. He spun silk from words; wisdom is his weft and purity his warp Lo, every poem is a corpse compared to his; only his has the breath of life; And had he not endowed it with his majesty it would have been like a vessel desired by none. How can a charming lad so young in years heap mountains of wisdom upon his back? Or a mere youngster fend off the mighty when just a lad still in bud? Lo, from Seªir he shines forth to illumine the length and breadth of the world And proudly peers forth from the tip of the Pleiades and not from some peephole A man like me in the darkness of his intellect saw him with the eye of his heart

27 Arabic panegyrics beginning with a complaint against Time include one by Ibn ªAmmar (1031–1086) to al-Muªtad.¯ıd, the King of Seville. In Hebrew we find, for example: a panegyric by Solomon ibn Gabirol to his patron,Yequtiel ibn Hassan, in Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 85 (no. 139); by Isaac ibn Khalfun to Abraham ibn ªAta, in Brener, Isaac ibn Khalfun, 71–74; and by Judah Halevi to his friend, Isaac ben Baruch, in D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 7 (no. 7). See also Levin, Meªil tashbetz, 1: 102; 168–169; 212.

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First Contacts

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Through hearing of him he understood his wisdom and saw the treasures of his heart A passerby might ask “Wherefore does his chariot tarry?” Pray bid him run to the garden where love and friendship perfume the lawn; To a garden whose nard sends forth its fragrance — there let him recline Drinking the nectar of ripened love sipping freely from its marrow In an imposing house when every other house is closed against his coming.

Commentary: 2 drew . . . sword (Judges 8: 20). In the biblical story it is Gideon who draws his sword. 3 A difficult line in the Hebrew, and even more difficult to translate. But the biblical allusion is to Lamentations 3: 3, in which the subject is the wrath of God. In the poem it is a personified ’separation,” and not God, whose wrath has been roused. 4 conspired . . . mightily (I Kings 16: 20). In the Bible it is the evil Zimri, seven-day king of Israel, who does the conspiring. 6 supported his arm (Exodus 17: 12). Moses’ hands were supported by Aaron and Hur to influence the course of the battle against Amelek. Thus the biblical Moses merges into Moses ibn Ezra; the Amelekites into the “Children of Time;” and the battle into something more spiritual, with the poem by Judah Halevi taking the ’supporting” role of Aaron and Hur. This is a wonderful example of a line in which meaning is created only through knowledge of the biblical context. 8 more . . . gold (Isaiah 13: 12). The words are used here without any reference to their biblical context, which is grim indeed; one . . . flight (Leviticus 26: 8 and Deuteronomy 32: 30). In the Bible the words come in a strictly military sense. 11 endowed . . . majesty (Numbers 27: 20). God commanded Moses to endow Joshua ben Nun “with some of his majesty” to qualify him for leadership; vessel . . . none (Jeremiah 48: 38), where the undesirable “vessel” is the Moabite nation. 12 so . . . years (Isaiah 65: 20). The biblical words literally mean “an infant of only a few days.” Judah Halevi is of course very young, but still! This is a good example of poetic hyperbole. 14 Seªir (Genesis 33:2). Here, Christian Spain. 16 eye . . . heart. The “eye of the heart,” which is not a biblical expression, comes in another of Ibn Ezra’s poems, Bein ha-hadasim (Shirei ha-h.ol, no. 74), translated in full below. 18 Wherefore . . . tarry (Judges 5: 28). Sisera’s mother wonders what delays her son’s chariot after the battle against the Israelites. The poet creates humor here by adapting this phrase into a reference to Halevi’s “chariot of wandering,” purportedly on its way to Granada (cf. ªImdu ªamodu, l. 10). 19 Cf. Song of Songs 6: 2. 20 nard . . . fragrance (Song of Songs 1: 12). 22 an . . . house (Jeremiah 22: 14). Ibn Ezra issues his invitation blithely disregarding the biblical context, where the “imposing house” is constructed by injustice!

In beginning his ode with a dirge against “Time,” Moses ibn Ezra responded to Judah Halevi’s poem measure for measure with a time-honored theme from Arabic poetry. Just as Halevi began his poem with a love-prelude (nas¯ıb), so Ibn Ezra began his with a complaint against malicious Fate, in the person of Time. Because Halevi had proved his knowledge of Arabic poetry and motifs, Ibn Ezra knew that he could trust his young recipient to appreciate these opening lines for what they were: a magnificent Hebrew rendition of an ancient Arabic motif, and not a complaint with biographical overtones.28 28

In an effort to situate the meeting between Judah Halevi and Moses ibn Ezra after the Almoravid invasion,

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First Contacts Like any good Hebrew qas.¯ıda, Ibn Ezra’s is divided into three distinct sections. Following the introduction in lines 1–5, a line of transition leads into praise of the poem’s recipient (l. 17) and thence to the dedication of the poem, which Ibn Ezra uses to invite the young poet to Granada. Ibn Ezra is profuse in his praise. He first lauds Halevi’s poem for its physical beauty, likening the white paper to the dawn and the black lines of poetry to night (l. 7). Poetry as an artifact – an object of physical beauty – is a theme that appears in numerous Hebrew and Arabic poems from the period and will be discussed in greater detail below in Chapter Six; here it is sufficient to note that Ibn Ezra compares the poem to a finelyworked object in gold (l. 8). Ibn Ezra then turns to the verbal beauties of the poem, describing the poet as having “spun silk from words” on the loom of “wisdom” and “purity” (l. 9). Then, in lines 12–15, the panegyrist turns from praise of the poem to praise of the poet himself. Using a term from traditional Judaism to name the lands of Christianity (Genesis 33:2), he describes the young poet as having come from Seªir – that is, from Christian Spain – to illuminate the poetry of al-Andalus:

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Lo, from Seªir he shines forth to illumine the length and breadth of the world And proudly peers forth from the tip of the Pleiades and not from some peephole

So dazzling is this new star in the firmament of poetry that Ibn Ezra can only perceive him with the “eye of his heart,” and describes himself as a man of “dark intellect” in a way that not only praises his young recipient but also echoes the black-and-white images used to describe the poem’s beauty in line 7 and imbues the poem with a unified color-imagery. From this line it also becomes eminently clear that the two poets, Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi, had yet to meet. Yet it is just as clear from the former’s words about Seªir that Ibn Ezra had some knowledge of the young man apart from what Halevi reveals in his poem. There, after all, Halevi only mentions that he is a “stranger” in the West, and not his place of origin. One can easily imagine the excitement and interest that Halevi’s beautiful panegyric aroused in the breast of the older poet and see him wringing all he could out of whoever it was that gave him his information. Ibn Ezra’s poem must have fulfilled its recipient’s wildest dreams. In an echo of Sisera’s mother in Judges 5:28, the poet wonders “wherefore does [Halevi’s] chariot tarry?” and invites him to come with all possible speed to Granada, metaphorically opening the doors of his house and garden as wide as he can, and promising him full (and free!) hospitality:

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Pray bid him run to the garden where love and friendship perfume the lawn; To a garden whose nard sends forth its fragrance –

and in Christian Spain, Yahalom gives these words a biographical twist, as though “Halevi is trying, as it were, to stop Ibn Ezra along the road.” See Yosef Yahalom, “Ginzei Leningrad ve-h.eqer shirat h.ayyav shel rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” note 31, p. 61. Ezra Fleischer refutes this reading most effectively on the basis of known facts concerning the Ibn Ezra brothers, their time in Granada, and the text of the poems themselves. See Ezra Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot h.ayyav ve-yetzirato,” p. 247–255. See also idem, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” Kiryat Sefer 61 (1986–1987), p. 907, note 55.

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First Contacts there let him recline Drinking the nectar of ripened love sipping freely from its marrow In an imposing house when every other house is closed against his coming. (ll. 19–22) It is surely no coincidence, then, that this delightful poem of invitation has as its rhymesound the word “Boº”, or “Come!” in English. Whether it is part of another, longer word, as it is in every line but 11 and 22, or stands on its own as the very final word of the poem as a whole, an entreaty of “Boº!” – “Come!” – echos throughout the poem in a way that must have gladdened the young poet’s heart and fueled his desire to visit the great poet of Granada.

* * * Despite this graceful gesture it was nevertheless to be some time before Judah Halevi could avail himself of Ibn Ezra’s kind invitation, and the road to Granada still stretched before him. But before continuing on with the next stage in Halevi’s journey to Granada, let us stop to look at this first exchange of poems from a more comprehensive point of view, and to remark on a few of the difficulties that have cropped up in the research over the past century or so. There can be no doubt that Ibn Ezra’s Yaldei yamim (“The Children of Time”) is a reply to Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu (“Stay, O stay”), and yet Haim Brody and Haim Schirmann both dated Yaldei yamim to a somewhat later stage in the first contacts between Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi. But as Ezra Fleischer has convincingly demonstrated, Yaldei yamim is in fact a direct reply to ªImdu ªamodu. This point is made abundantly clear in the manuscripts themselves. In the two primary manuscripts of Halevi’s poetry29 – the ones used by Haim Brody – we find brief headings in JudaeoArabic before many of the poems, usually just a few words explaining the circumstances surrounding the composition of a poem or naming the person for whom it was written. The rubric over Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu reads: “What was written to Ab¯u Harun ibn Ezra [i. e. Moses ibn Ezra] with these qas.¯ıdas,”30 while over Ibn Ezra’s Yaldei yamim, which immediately follows, we find: “And Ab¯u Harun, may he rest in Eden, replied to him in the same way and spoke these twenty-two lines.”31 . The relationship between these poems is thus clear from the manuscript evidence. Only, what does it mean, that Moses ibn Ezra “replied in the same way”? Brody puzzled over the question in his commentary to Yaldei yamim, remarking that it would seem to imply that Ibn Ezra replied using the same formal features of Halevi’s poem, that is, the same rhyme and meter.32 Such contrafactums were common between Andalusi poets and known in Arabic as muª¯arad.a: one poet composed a poem in a given rhyme 29 This refers to MSS Oxford 1970 and 1971 of the Bodleian Library. For further information concerning these manuscripts see Introduction, note 32. 30 MS Oxford 1970: ‰Ï‡ „ȇˆ˜ ÚÓ ‡¯ÊÚ Ô·‡ Ô¯‰ Ô·‡ ‰· ·‡ËÎ ‰Ó. 31 Ibid.: ‰Ï‡ ÌÈ˙· ·¢Î χ˜Â ˜Ï„ Ï˙Ó Ú¢ Ô¯Á ·‡ ‰·‡Âß‚Ù 32 Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 44. .

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First Contacts and meter, and the recipient then composed a poem in reply using the same rhyme and meter as the first.33 And yet, as Brody goes on to remark (almost indignantly!), such is not the case here: Ibn Ezra replied to Halevi using an entirely different meter and rhyme. Thus, while Ibn Ezra’s poem is a reply in terms of content, it is not what we might expect in terms of form. In an effort to solve this conundrum, Ezra Fleischer suggested that “perhaps it was not thought proper for a veteran poet to respond in this fashion to one so much younger than he.”34 Perhaps. After all, Judah Halevi and Moses ibn Ezra had not yet even met. But it may be possible to solve the problem from a different angle. Let us take a look at another qas.¯ıda by Moses ibn Ezra, one that begins with the words Bein ha-hadasim and is written in the same rhyme and meter as Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu. The Judaeo-Arabic rubric above the poem in the manuscript notes that it is dedicated to “Abun and Joseph ben Majnin;” we bring a full translation of the poem below:35

5

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Has our breeze been blowing amongst the myrtles – Or does it bear a greeting from our brothers? Or perhaps it has breezed by Abun and Joseph, since after dying, it has revived our spirit. Faces since turned away, and the splendor of their visages from time to time appear before us We hunger for the sight of them, yet they dwell within our innermost being They penetrate our innermost thoughts, yet recall to mind their fond memory, and their doctrine drops down like our rain Though they have left, their light dispells the darkness that swirls around us. Though they have wandered on, their memory is like a stream of honeycomb upon our tongues and palates Though they have gone afar, there are moments when they send forth the scent of our perfumes and spiced wine. The pleasure of seeing their handwriting perfumes the scent of our frankincense and apples Their name is engraved upon our hearts – indeed upon the doorposts of our gates and doors. But in living without them, Time continues to chastise and provoke us. How can we fear the fury of the Daughters of Days, when they are food for our souls and our security? Or be afraid of trouble, when we have made the counsel of their wisdom our barricades and bolts? Their wisdom will lead us to the waters of sagacity and purity, and within the circles of righteousness gently bring us

33 On the art of muª¯ arad.a in Muslim Spain see S. M. Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry (Oxford, 1974), pp. 45 ff; Tova Rosen-Moked, Leºezor shir (Haifa, 1985), pp. 65 ff. The topic will be explored in detail below, in Chapter Two. 34 Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” p. 907. 35 ÂÈÁ¯ ‰·˘ ÌÈÒ„‰‰ ÔÈ·. Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 75 (no. 74). .

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First Contacts 15

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The genius of the East ne’r towered over the West until they shot forth like stars in our East. We saw with our heart’s eye these pious men, and indeed from them comes our booty and plunder. We rise proudly over Time through their love, yet within us, the separation lays us very low The soul falls short of being able to bear it, even were our strength the strength of stones. What of Time – that gives pain though its hands bind up, and separates and restores – when it has forgotten us? And put an end to every hope in the world, apart from that of gathering in our wanderers and our dispersed. We languish without a friend, and if we desire a brother to be our refuge – it proves our downfall So that we silently sigh, and decide that our speech will be in our thoughts Those who are separated weep blood from the eyes: we shall let it drop on our garments and sprinkle our life’s essence Our bones have dried up: would that the soft rains of friendship drizzled down and made us flourish! For every moment during the course of our wandering is years – and our years are like our eternities. Who can know whether Time’s hidden secrets yet holds out the promise of our bosom friendship? Or whether it will be slow in renewing the days of pleasantry, or in restoring our days of comfort? Let us go and journey to their dwellings: memory of them will serve as provisions along our road.

Commentary: 1 breeze . . . blowing (Isaiah 40: 7). A fine example of biblical words used solely for their linguistic value. Here they come in diametric contrast to the rather depressing context in Isaiah; bear . . . greeting (Psalms 72: 3); another good example of biblical words used solely for their linguistic value. 2 There is a word-play between “our breeze” in 1a and “our spirit” in 2b, since both are conveyed through the word ruh.einu. 3 Faces . . . away: word-play: panim (“faces”) panu (“turned away”). 5 doctrine . . . rain (Deuteronomy 32: 2); a very clever use of Moses’ famous words; the dissonance between the biblical setting of the words and their usage here also creates a bit of humor. 6 light . . . darkness swells (Job 3: 5). In Job, the words come from what is perhaps the ultimate expression of man’s grief in misfortune. Again, the difference in register is so acute that the biblical words not only create humor in their new setting, but even make the poet seem like a commentator on his own poem, wryly acknowledging that his poem – dare we say it? – is in fact, just a poem. 7 stream of honeycomb (Proverbs 16: 24). Here the biblical words fit neatly into their new context even if we do remember their original setting. 8 gone afar . . . wine: word-plays with the letters resh, quf and h.et: rah.aqu (“gone afar”) reyah. (“scent”) riqh.einu (“our spiced wine”). 10 engraved . . . gates (Deuteronomy 6: 9 and elsewhere) In the Bible, it is of course the name of God – and not that of Abun and Joseph – whose name receives this honor. Comparing one’s addressees to God is hyperbole indeed, but too common in the medieval panegyric to be considered blasphemous or even particularly audacious.

23

First Contacts Once again this is a good example of the way register creates humor in the poem and lightens compliments otherwise too ponderous to bear. 14 waters . . . purity (Psalms 23: 2). From the famous psalm beginning “The Lord is my shepherd . . . he leads me beside the still waters.” 15 shot . . . stars (Numbers 24: 17). In the Bible the phrase is uttered by Bilam, the prophet “whose eyes were opened.” Through this ingenious use of biblical language the poet thus stakes a claim – tongue in cheek – for the sincerity of his praise. 16 heart’s eye: Ibn Ezra also refers to his “heart’s eye” in Yaldei yamim, line 16. 18 strength . . . stones (Job 6: 12). The implication is that the speaker suffers more than Job ever did by the absence of his friends. Once again, knowledge of the biblical context adds to the extravagance of the speaker’s professions of friendship. 19 pain . . . binds up (Job 5: 18). In Job it is God Almighty who exercises these functions. This is a telling example of the way in which secular poetry (in both Hebrew and Arabic) often endows Time with powers otherwise attributed to God alone. 20 gathering . . . dispersed (Isaiah 56: 8). 23 blood . . . sprinkle (Isaiah 63: 3). Here the biblical context is not only unconnected, but indeed best forgotten. 24 This line draws from both Ezekiel 37: 11 and Isaiah 66: 14, where “flourishing bones” come through Redemption, and not through “friendship” as in the poem.

Like Halevi’s poem to Ibn Ezra, Bein ha-hadasim is a panegyric written in the best of classical Arabic tradition and beginning with a lover’s lament. In fact, Ibn Ezra brings it as a good example of a nas¯ıb (“love-prelude”) in his Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, though he modestly refrains from mentioning the author.36 The opening lines in this poem employ a device which Ibn Ezra particularly favored in his own poetry, the device of hitammut37 in which the speaker feigns ignorance in order to ask a question: Has our breeze been blowing amongst the myrtles – Or does it bear a greeting from our brothers? Or perhaps it has breezed by Abun and Joseph, for it has revived our drooping spirit (ll. 1–2) The question, of course, is strictly moot; the speaker only asks it in order to establish a correspondence between the renown of the absent Abun and Joseph and the “fragrance” of their great reputation, a common motif in both Hebrew and Arabic poetry from this period.38 Ibn Ezra weaves the motif of fragrance into the poem in a number of ways: the memory of his friends is like a stream of honey-nectar (l. 7) that sweetens even his perfumes and wine (l. 8); the mere pleasure of seeing their handwriting on a newlyarrived letter makes even frankincense and apples that much more delightful (l. 9). Ibn Ezra’s poem, like Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu, conjures up the beloved absent friends in his mind’s eye (ll. 3–7, 16, 22), but dwells more heavily on the foreboding presence of Time (and on their substitute, the “Daughters of Days” in line 12), referring to these evil forces five times (11, 12, 17, 19, 26) to Halevi’s one (l. 10). Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 275 [142a]. Known in Arabic as taj¯ahul al-ª¯arif. For examples in Hebrew see David Yellin, Torat ha-shirah hasefaradit (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978), pp. 289–295; for Arabic examples see ibid., p. 288; Magda al-Nowaihi, The Poetry of Ibn Khaf¯aja, pp. 31; 119–120. 38 In Arabic, see examples from Ibn Khafaja’s poetry in Nowaihi, ibid., pp. 138–139; 152–153. In Hebrew see, for example, Isaac ibn Khalfun’s panegyric to Samuel ha-Nagid, in Shirei ibn Khalfun, ed. Aaron Mirsky (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1961), p. 47, l. 17. Yellin cites a number of other examples in Torat ha-shirah ha-sefaradit, pp. 21–22. 36 37

24

First Contacts There are, in fact, a number of striking similarities between Ibn Ezra’s Bein hahadasim and Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu. The two poems not only have the same meter (hashalem ha-mequtzar) and rhyme (-h.einu), but nineteen of the same rhyme-words. Judah Halevi began his poem with the same rhyme-word Ibn Ezra chose to begin his (ah.einu, “our brothers”), and ends his poem on this word too. This is because he composed his poem in envelope-fashion, beginning and ending with the same line: (“Stay, O stay just a bit longer, our brothers”). But the rhyme-word of his next-to-last-line is identical to the last rhyme-word in Ibn Ezra’s poem (orh.einu, “’our road”). The two poem also use certain of the same expressions. Halevi expresses the hope of being reunited with his friends in the language of national aspirations (”gathering in our dispersed”, l. 7b), like a medieval Isaiah yearning for the ingathering of the exiled; Ibn Ezra does the same in l. 20b of his own poem. Significantly, both poems also play with the various meanings of the words East and West (cf. Ibn Ezra, ll. 5 and 15 and Halevi, ll. 11–12, and 23). It seems highly possible, therefore, that Halevi modeled this first poem to Ibn Ezra on the model of Bein ha-hadasim. Yet, as noted, Moses ibn Ezra dedicated this qas.¯ıda not to Judah Halevi, but to two other individuals altogether: Abun and Joseph ben Majnin.39 How, then, might the poem have come to Halevi’s attention? Here we are forced to deal in conjecture, but it may be that Ibn Ezra composed the poem following a visit with Abun and Joseph ben Majnin, who were apparently inhabitants of Christian Spain on a visit to al-Andalus40 : this would explain Ibn Ezra’s geographic references in line 15: The genius of the East ne’r towered over the West until they shot forth like stars in our East. The West, let us recall, refers to Muslim Spain; the East to Christian Spain. In the second hemistich (15b), however, the East is simply that portion of the skies in which the sun rises every day. If Moses ibn Ezra – a “Westerner” par excellence and the ultimate exponent of Andalusi culture – has these divinities from the East lighting up the skies of al-Andalus, he can only be indulging in the kind of exaggeration that is so common to the medieval panegyric in order to pay a graceful compliment to his two addressees. One need not take this compliment too seriously (and if Abun and Joseph knew anything about poetry, they surely did not!). Poetic license goes a long way in medieval Hebrew poetry, and was it not Ibn Ezra himself who deemed “falsity the best part of poetry?”41 The poems ªImdu ªamodu and Bein ha-hadasim are clearly related to each other, yet how can we be sure that it was Halevi who modeled his poem on Ibn Ezra’s? How can we know that it was not Ibn Ezra who later used ªImdu ªamodu as a model for his poem? Poets were free to use other poems as their models and indeed often did so, as we shall see in the very next chapter. There is, indeed, no direct evidence that it was Judah Halevi 39 Nothing is known of the individual called here “Abun,” apart from the fact that Ibn Ezra dedicated several other poems to him and wrote a lament at his death. He may or may not be the poet Abun whose liturgical poem is published in Schirmann, Ha-shirah ha-ªivrit, p. 341. Joseph ben Majnin is scarcely better known; he makes a brief appearance as the subject of a two-line improvisation probably composed at a wine-drinking party. See below, Chapter Five, p. 80. 40 Brody reaches the same conclusion in his commentary on the poem (Moshe ibn Ezra: Shirei ha-hol, 2: . 148). 41 See Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 117 [62a]. The saying is attributed to Aristotle (The Metaphysics), and Ibn Ezra indeed cites it here as a general aphorism.

25

First Contacts who was modeling his poem on Ibn Ezra’s, but if we accept this sequence as a working hypothesis it does answer most, if not all, of the problems mentioned before. So, for example, we noted above that Brody and Schirmann both puzzled over the question: why did Moses ibn Ezra not play by the rules of the game and reply to ªImdu ªamodu with a poem in the same rhyme and meter? The answer, then, is that it was not Ibn Ezra who was responding to a challenge-poem but Judah Halevi, and that the challenge-poem was Ibn Ezra’s Bein ha-hadasim. The rules of the game were preserved after all. Thus when Ibn Ezra replied to Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu he was free to compose a poem using new rhymes and meter, and this he did in Yaldei yamim. To sum up, Judah Halevi did indeed initiate the relationship with Moses ibn Ezra by sending him the poem ªImdu ªamodu, only he did so not quite out of the blue as is generally assumed, but after seeing the poem Bein ha-hadasim which Moses ibn Ezra wrote for two friends named Abun and Joseph ben Majnin, probably residents of Christian Spain on a visit to al-Andalus. With all this in mind, it is worth taking another look at the two poems that comprise the first direct contact between Judah Halevi and Moses ibn Ezra. In lines 10–11 of Yaldei yamim we find Ibn Ezra praising Halevi’s poem with the following words: 10

Lo, every poem is a corpse compared to his; only his has the breath of life; Had he not endowed it with his spirit it would have been like a vessel desired by none. (ll. 10–11)

This is praise indeed, and can be taken in a general way as lauding Halevi’s poem over every other poem ever written – an exaggeration, to be sure, but then, exaggeration was the bread and butter of the medieval panegyric. However, if we accept that Halevi modeled his poem on that of Ibn Ezra, then the “vessel” in question – the poem’s form: its rhyme and meter – was none other than Ibn Ezra’s to begin with, and these lines thus become praise for Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu at the expense of his own poem, Bein ha-hadasim. It is as though he were saying, “We both used the same vessel, but, kid, you used it better!” The hypothesis that it was Halevi who modeled his poem on Ibn Ezra’s, and not the other way around, also solves another difficulty, namely, the somewhat obscure line in the beginning of Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu – a line over which Brody admits to being puzzled: Little did you realize that the day you sent forth the fire of wandering you were also looting our own spoils of war (malqoh.einu). (l. 2) The general meaning is of course clear, and the idea of love as war is common in medieval poetry, but the image of losing one’s heart in “the spoils of war” is not common, and not even biblical. It is, however, found in Ibn Ezra’s poem to Abun and Joseph, and indeed, in the very same language:

26

First Contacts We saw with our heart’s eye these pious men, and indeed from them comes our booty and spoils of war (malqoh.einu). (l. 16) The intertextuality of these lines is beyond doubt. It is as though Halevi were saying to Ibn Ezra via the images of love-as-war: little did you know that while you were busy taking Abun and Joseph as your “spoils of war,” you took me captive as well! And indeed, Ibn Ezra could not have known – could never have guessed – that his poem to Abun and Joseph would travel as far as it did, or fall into such capable hands. As a way of capping our discussion, let us bring one more example of a problem that is solved by the presumed relationship between the two poems: In ªImdu ªamodu, Judah Halevi praised Ibn Ezra’s poetry with the following words: Were he to compose a poem, the heavenly orbs would cry out at its radiance: “How didst thou plunder our splendor?!” Or if the threads of a necklace were to see his rhymes they would say: “Are these not our crystals?” (ll. 13–14) At first glance, there is nothing remarkable in these lines: medieval poets in both Hebrew and Arabic often praised the “brilliance” of a poem in terms of the heavenly orbs and sparkling jewels and crystals.42 The very word for “rhyme” in both Hebrew and Arabic is a synonym for the sparkling beads in a necklace; Moses ibn Ezra indeed remarked on this fact in his Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, noting that the word naz.m in Arabic, or h.aruz in Hebrew, was “borrowed from the linking of pearls in a strand, one after the other.”43 If, then, our hypothesis is correct, and Halevi indeed modeled his ªImdu ªamodu on Ibn Ezra’s Bein ha-hadasim, the older poet must have laughed at coming across these lines and said, along with the mock-indignant necklace in line 14: “Are these not our crystals?” Indeed they were! Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu not only makes use of Ibn Ezra’s rhyme and meter but, as mentioned above, of nineteen of his very own “crystals” – that is, nineteen of the rhyme-words themselves. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that Moses ibn Ezra was pleased with Halevi‘s poem, for it was in the wake of ªImdu ªamodu that he sent Yaldei yamim and invited its author to Granada. And it must have been a happy young poet, indeed, who received this charming poem in reply. We can almost picture Judah Halevi tucking the precious invitation into his pocket as he continued along his journey south, building graceful (and distinctly Moorish-looking!) castles in the air as he made his way towards Granada.

42 43

See the examples brought by Doris Behrens-Abouseif in Beauty in Arabic Culture, pp. 51, 96. Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 25 [14b].

27

Chapter Two

JUDAH HALEVI’S LETTER TO MOSES IBN EZRA

It was probably not very long before Moses ibn Ezra received yet another sign of life from the aspiring young poet, still on the road to Granada. This time the communication took the form of a letter written in the ornate rhymed-prose fashionable among the Jewish and Muslim literati of the day,1 and couched in an ornate Hebrew mosaic of biblical words and phrases. As further evidence of his poetic abilities the young unknown also attached a Hebrew strophic poem written in an intricate rhyme-scheme with a panegyric to Moses ibn Ezra himself and beginning with the words Ah.ar galot sod (“After revealing the secret”).2 Now this was not, of course, the first time that Moses ibn Ezra was hearing from his unknown correspondent, and ªImdu ªamodu must have been fresh in his mind. But there can be no doubt that the rhymed letter which now reached him, together with the accompanying poem, clinched the dazzling impression already created by that first ode to the local prince of poets. The letter in particular is a charming work, and for our own purposes as good as a textbook: in it we learn not only about the rules and conventions governing the composition of Hebrew poetry in al-Andalus, but also about the social background that gave rise to much of that poetry. Let us, then, read our way through this letter in an English translation that attempts to capture something of the sporadic rhyme-scheme of the original:3 1 On the popularity of rhymed-prose compositions (sajª) amongst members of the Arabic literati throughout the Muslim world, see Abu-Haidar, “The Muwassahat in the Light of the Literary Life,” pp. 117–119; and on the use of sajª in al-Andalus see Cynthia Robinson, In Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence, 1005–1134 A.D. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 11, 76 and passim. Halevi himself composed seven other rhymed letters, published in his D¯ıw¯an, ed. Brody, 1: 207 (to Aaron al-Amani); 1: 211 (to Samuel ha-Nagid of Egypt); 1: 214 (to Nathan ben Samuel); 1: 217 (to the sages of Narbonne); and three to David of Narbonne in 1: 219–225. Two rhymed letters by Moses ibn Ezra have also come down to us, and are published in Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 285 (to Hananel ben Yeshuaª) and ibid. p. 290 (to Josiah ben Bezaz). 2 „ÂÒ ˙ÂÏ‚ ¯Á‡ (translated in full below) is published in Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 135 (no. 92); re-published with corrections by Abramson at the end of his “Iggeret rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” p. 409. Fleischer established the definitive text for the poem’s hitherto problematic third strophe on the basis of MS Firkowitz, B, 44.1, fol. 39v and published it in “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” p. 909. 3 This letter (shalom rav / ve-yeshaªyikrav) has a long and interesting publishing history in many ways illustrative of the progress of Geniza research over the last century. The letter, or at least the first half of it, was first published by Israel Davidson in Ginzei Schechter 3, p. 319 ff. (New York, 1928), who discovered it in the Geniza in MS Taylor-Schechter Misc. 35/46. Some forty years later, Shraga Abramson discovered the second half of the letter in another Geniza fragment, MS Taylor-Schechter 35/19, and published both parts in “Iggeret rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” in Sefer Haim Schirmann (Jerusalem, 1970), pp. 397–411. Even so, the text of the letter was still less than complete, with numerous indecipherable words and lines missing from both the middle and the end. It was only in 1986 that a complete text of the letter was published, thanks to the efforts of Leib Haimovitch (Arie) Vilsker (1919–1988), a researcher at the Saltykov-Schedrin State

29

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra

5

Blessings of peace and salvation / to the Light of the West, the scholar of Hebrew and Arab nations. / A tower of strength on the day of battle / a blessed shade when the desert winds rattle / a good and pleasant name: / Rabbi Moses of fame. / The father of generosity / the heart’s luminosity / a cloudless morning who sends patronage pouring /and covers with produce the face of the land / who has joined his fathers hand in hand / to wage battle for the thousands / and ten thousands. / For just as silver hath its mine / so help is found in perilous times. / The spirit of God hath clothed him / and the soul of patronage robed him. / May my Western Lamp remain aglow / his well-being prosper and forever grow.

Let us stop for a moment. The preamble, short as it is, provides us with further proof that Halevi was a careful student of Andalusi Hebrew poetry, young and untried though he was. Already in the first line we find the young poet paying tribute to the cultural superiority of Muslim Spain, again calling Moses ibn Ezra the “Light of the West, as he did in his first poem.4 Following the exordium Halevi begins to praise Moses ibn Ezra according to the best of Andalusi poetics, lauding the same qualities for which patrons are always praised in medieval Hebrew panegyrics: his wisdom, his good name, and especially – his generosity.5 The subject of generosity takes up lines 4–8 and is expressed according to the usual motifs of medieval poetry in both Hebrew and Arabic, with the patron compared to a cloud and his generosity to a shower of rain. Indeed, according to this letter Ibn Ezra outdoes the heavens in munificence for he gives generously, rain or shine:6 thus Halevi calls him “a cloudless morning / who sends patronage pouring” (l. 4). In line 7 we read: “For just as silver hath its mine / so help is found in perilous times.” This is both another reference to Ibn Ezra’s generosity and a clever word-play: in Hebrew the word “help” is ezra, and thus an allusion to the recipient’s name. That “silver hath its mine” is a truism from Job 28:1; by phrasing his own truism about Ibn Ezra’s generosity with these words, the poet imbues his own words with the undeniable truth of a biblical axiom. We continue reading and learn that this letter comes 10

15

From a lowly youth / whose heart has been, in truth, / by friendship raised / and by the fire of love set ablaze. / He ascends from Seªir to bask in the light / of the great masters – the heavenly lights: / the sages of Western Spain, / whose memory cuts my heart in twain. / So I harnessed the chariot of friendship in their wake – / time weighs heavily on me for their sake! – / and set my face / towards God’s holy place / and sought them at a leisurely pace / till I reached the edge of their land’s / border but was not allowed to cross on o’er. /

Public Library in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), who published his findings in two Yiddish articles in Sovietisch Heimland, the only forum available to him during these years (ibid. 1987, no. 4, pp. 136 ff.; ibid. 1988, no. 3, pp. 130 ff.). Finally, in 1987, Ezra Fleischer published the text of the letter in its entirety in an article written in memorium to Vilsker, in which he honors the memory of the valiant scholar fettered by the obstacles of Hebrew research under Soviet rule. See Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav.” The translation is based on the text of the letter published by Ezra Fleischer in ibid., pp. 898–900. The translation in its entirety is provided in Appendix One. 4 Cf. Halevi’s poem ªImdu ªamodu, line 11. 5 On the elements of praise in the Hebrew panegyric, see Levin, Meªil tashbetz, I: 81–95; Brener, Isaac ibn Khalfun, pp. 31–37. 6 This motif is found in the poetry of earlier Hebrew poets as well, such as Isaac ibn Khalfun and Solomon ibn Gabirol; for examples see Levin, ibid. p. 94 and Brener, ibid. p. 34.

30

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra Let us pause once again. In line 11 Judah Halevi writes that he “ascends from Seªir” – that is, from Christian Spain7 – and then in line 14, that he is setting out for “God’s holy place.” Now, this is the language of pilgrimage, and anyone familiar with Halevi’s Songs of Zion can be excused for thinking that “God’s holy place” can mean only one thing – Jerusalem. But this is not the case here. In the context of his letter, Halevi’s “holy place” is Muslim Spain, the acknowledged center of Hebrew creativity and intellectual life. Thus Halevi uses the language of pilgrimage to describe his journey not to the Land of Israel but to the tiny Muslim kingdom of Granada, the home of Moses ibn Ezra. What we have, then, is a portrait of the young poet in search of all that is bright and creative in contemporary Hebrew culture – the “heavenly lights” of Muslim Spain (l. 12) – just as young artists from later times would be drawn to the bright lights of New York or Paris. Unfortunately, however, Halevi’s plans have gone awry, for in lines 15–16 we learn that he “reached the edge of their land’s border / but was not allowed to cross on o’er”. Something – exactly what, we do not know – kept the young “pilgrim,” so to speak, from completing his journey to Moses ibn Ezra in Granada.8 But here, too, the young poet shows his commitment to the world of poetry, for rather than giving us the matter-of-fact information that would so delight historians today,9 he expresses the obstacle in terms of a literary motif par excellence : the ever-ubiquitous “Time”:

20

25

Yet Time had not yet vowed to destroy me / and in my alien home he nourished me / and with the songs of friendship encouraged me / and with the wine of love made me satisfied / after I’d wandered far and wide. / I learned to compose poetry over cups of wine / with pleasant singers of the vine. / They began to compose / a poem modeled after one of those / written by the Prince of Hosts. / The poem began Leyl mah.shavot lev aªirah and they made a great beginning / but were unable to get the ending. / So they ordered me, to wit: / “Look, we started – you finish it!” / And I said to them: “God forbid that I expand on it! / I will not boast of what I do not know / lest my audience mock me so. / I ran on

7 8

On the use of Seªir as an epithet for Christian Spain, see Chapter One, p. 20. Though we have no way of knowing exactly why he was unable to approach Granada, there was surely no lack of armed conflicts in the period leading up to the fateful year of 1090 and the Almoravid conquest of al-Andalus. One need only glance through the pages of al-Maqqar¯ı’s chronicles of Muslim Spain to find pitched battles without end between Muslims and Christians as Alphonso VI – King of Leon, Castile, Galicia and Navarre – fought for primacy over the Iberian peninsula against a host of petty Muslim kingdoms. It was in these years that Alphonso’s troops conquered Toledo (May 25, 1085), threatened and then evacuated Valenica, laid siege to Saragossa, and then raised it. Then, too, the Berber troops of Yusuf ibn Tashufin were on the move during these years, landing in Algeciras for the first time in 1086 at the request of the panic-stricken Muslim princes of al-Andalus, and helping to defeat Alphonso’s troops at the Battle of Zallaka on October 23, 1086. They then returned to North Africa, only to be recalled once again in the spring of 1090. Depending on when Halevi’s journey to Granada took place, the obstacles might even have been caused by the presence of Ibn Tashufin’s troops after their return to al-Andalus for the [uninvited] third, and final time. The conquest of Granada took place on November 10 1090. See Reinhart Dozy, Spanish Islam, trans. Francis Griffin Stokes (London: Frank Cass, 1972), esp. pp. 690–708. Translations from the Arab historians are found in al-Maqqar¯ı, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. Pascual de Gayangos, esp. 2: 274–295. See also Andrew Handler, The Zirids of Granada (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1974), pp. 84–140; Watt, A History of Islamic Spain, pp. 95–102. 9 Indeed, realia is not the hallmark of rhymed-prose compositions (sajª) in any case. As Abu-Haidar notes, with the “excessive concentration on rhyme and all the other trappings of rhetorical artifice. . . Arabic writing had practically stopped to be functional” and then provides us with a wonderful example concerning “the Blind Poet of Tudela.” See Abu-Haidar, “The Muwassahat in the Light of the Literary Life,” p. 118.

31

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra

30

foot and now am weary; / If I race with horses – they’ll leave me bleary! / Furthermore, I have a heavy tongue / and the culture of Dishan and Dishon :/ a stammering people with faces bold / and more foolishness than the sea can hold. / The perils ahead you did not foresee; / ‘tis no small thing you ask of me! / The rhymes we sought / are very few and far apart. / This I know cannot do; / there’s nothing further to pursue. / Is there anyone who actuallyboasts / of imitating a poem by the Prince of Hosts? / How can a wretch and aweakling / come after the king?”’ /

Stopping again for a moment, we thus learn that although our young poet has not been permitted to cross into Granada, he has ended up in good company all the same. We find him somewhere in Muslim Spain, carousing with a group of Hebrew poets over goblets of wine10 and busily engaged in the composition of secular poetry: a situation that, in the following chapters, we will encounter time and again. Here the convivial group is struggling to write a poem modeled on one that Halevi tells us was written by the “Prince of Hosts” – that is, the reigning Hebrew poet – and that begins with the words Leyl mah.shavot lev aªirah (“Nightly I rouse the musings of my heart”).11 This is a Hebrew friendship-poem famous for its unusually difficult rhyme-scheme. The Hebrew poets with whom Halevi has fallen into company are thus trying to write a contrafactum of that poem using the same rhymes and meter as the model poem.12 Only, they are finding it rough going, and at some point in their efforts they turn to the newcomer and challenge him to finish it. Now, all this took place a thousand years ago, and today, with the privilege of hindsight, we know that no poetic challenge could ever be too hard for Judah Halevi. But at this point in time Halevi is young and unknown and thus reports the events with a very becoming air of modesty. In line 23 he writes that “they ordered me, to wit: / “Look, we started – you finish it!” / And I said to them: “God forbid that I expand on it! / I will not boast of what I do not know / lest my audience mock me so.” And then he gives a whole list of reasons why he cannot possibly finish the poem, ranging from his youth and inexperience to the impossibility of competing with the unnamed author of the poem, whom he terms “The Prince of Hosts” in line 21, and the “king” in line 33.13 Then, in line 27, he blames his “heavy tongue,” a delightful allusion to Moses’ self-avowed lack of eloquence in Exodus 4:10. To clinch his protest, Halevi reminds the company that he comes from the lands of “Dishan and Dishon” – that is, 10 Thus Fleischer also understands line 14 of the letter in Hebrew (ll. 19–20 in our translation). See Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” p. 900. 11 ‰¯ÈÚ‡ ·Ï ˙·˘ÁÓ ÏÈÏ. The poem was published (with an incomplete text) in Moses ibn Ezra,Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 274 (no. 258). A complete text was later published by Yonah David in Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik (New York: American Academy of Jewish Research, 1982), p. 36, on the basis of MS Silvera of the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York. It was on the basis of this MS that Menahem Schmelzer attributed the poem to Joseph ibn Tzadik rather than Moses ibn Ezra. See his Yitzh.aq ibn Ezra: Shirim (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979), p. 151. Ezra Fleischer also attributes the poem to Ibn Tzadik in his “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” pp. 902–904. There is, however, reason to support Brody’s original attribution to Moses ibn Ezra, and the subject will be discussed below, pp. 35–37. 12 Such contrafactums, known in Arabic as muª¯ arad.a, were a well-known feature of Arabic literary life, and will be discussed in detail below, pp. 37, 43–44. 13 The identity of this exalted figure of course depends on who actually wrote Leyl mahshavot. Ezra Fleischer . would see these “royal” epithets as referring to Joseph ibn Tzadik; Haim Brody and Haim Schirmann, to Moses ibn Ezra.

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Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra from Christian rather than Muslim Spain14 – and is, therefore, just a country bumpkin. But turning back to the letter, we see that his protests are to no avail:

35

40

But they urged me to the point of shame / and to do my best I now took aim. / I knew it pointless to delay / after everyone had had his say. / So I pulled myself together: / Perhaps. . . who knows whether / I’ll fulfill my friends’ behest? / Still, my own two cents let me express!15 / And when I saw that the rhymes which I desired / could not be arranged as I aspired / I got angry at them / and outsmarted them / in Moses’s name – / Thus were the mighty conquered and the unruly tamed! / They submitted to me after much trouble / till I bound them fast and double / and made a poem out of them in this wise / as my lord can see with his very own eyes. / I did not keep all the first rhymes as they’d been strung / but did what is possible in the Hebrew tongue./ Some of the rhymes I then exchanged / and some I kept as first arranged.

Thus we come to the end of the story, and learn that Halevi did in the end succeed in finishing a poem that his more experienced colleagues found too difficult. In line 33 he is even getting into the spirit of things, saying: “So I pulled myself together: / Perhaps . . . who knows whether / I’ll fulfill my friends’ behest? / Still, my own two cents let me express!” And in lines 38–39 there is an amusing image of the frustrated young poet conjuring his rhymes in the name of Moses – Moses ibn Ezra, that is, the recipient of this letter, and not the biblical Moses – thereby forcing them into submission and finishing his poem. The final lines of the letter, only recently restored through the research of the Russian scholar Arie Vilsker and published by Ezra Fleischer,16 appear to be words of thanks for the poem Yaldei yamim, which Halevi had already received from Ibn Ezra in reply to his own ªImdu ªamodu. In the manner of medieval Hebrew poets, Halevi praises not only the beauty of the language “more pleasant / than a bundle of myrrh” (l. 46) but also the physical beauty of the poem itself.17 Like Ibn Ezra in Yaldei yamim (ll. 7–9), Halevi uses images of light and darkness to express the beauty of the paper and the written word, and compares the poem to gold and precious jewels: 45

50

Only I changed the subject of the proem / into a reply to your delightful poem / whose words are so eloquent / and its speech more pleasant / than a bundle of myrrh; / ‘tis worth its weight in the gold of Ofir / more valuable than onyx or sapphire. / Its background is of silver chased / between black lines, dawn shows its face /. . . ‘twill be my comfort in indigence / my medicine in illness / a tender sprig of pleasantness / . . . Verily I rejoice in your words of praise; / indeed you delight me in all your ways! / So kind have you been to your young wight, / leading him forth to bask in your light; / and let it be known I’ve found grace in

14 In Genesis 36:21 Dishan and Dishon are the sons of Seªir, that is, of Esau, the traditional rabbinical symbol of the Christian world and hence, in the present context, an eponymic metaphor for Christian Spain. 15 Not a literal translation! The Hebrew has ahaveh deªai: “Let me give my opinion”. . 16 See note 1 above. 17 Poetry as an artifact, an object of physical beauty, is a motif that appears in numerous Hebrew and Arabic poems from the period and will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Six.

33

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra your sight. / For the sceptre of love did you not extend to me? / And look upon me with kind generosity? [. . . .] Halevi is at pains to thank the older poet for his poem in reply, using the language of the Scroll of Esther to emphasize his gratitude. In Yaldei yamim Moses ibn Ezra offers the young poet the hospitality of a “garden of love and friendship” and “an imposing house in which to dwell;” in his letter Halevi thanks Ibn Ezra for extending towards him “the sceptre of love,” a neat allusion to Esther 5:2 that turns the poet of Granada into a veritable King of Persia and his offer of hospitality into royal favor indeed. The final lines, untranslated and largely conjectural, are nevertheless clear enough at crucial points to show that Judah Halevi is still anxious to reach Granada, whatever the obstacles. There is a reference to “roundabout roads” and “a straight [or direct] path,” but whether these are real or metaphorical is unclear. Ezra Fleischer regards them as being very real indeed, and sees these final lines as Halevi’s request to Ibn Ezra for help in overcoming whatever obstacles kept him from reaching Granada.18 Such, then, was the rhymed letter which Moses ibn Ezra received from Judah Halevi. Yet much as it must have delighted him, perhaps he was even more impressed by the poem that Halevi attached to his letter, the one that he composed at the urging of his booncompanions over wine and beginning with the words Ah.ar galot sod (“After revealing the secret”).19 As noted in the body of the letter itself (l. 22), the poem which the young poets sought to emulate begins with the words Leyl mah.shavot lev aªirah ( “Nightly I rouse the musings of my heart”). This challenge-poem is written in the form of a girdle-poem, or muwashshah.a to use the Arabic term,20 one of the two basic forms used by both Hebrew and Arabic poets in al-Andalus, and apparently invented in al-Andalus itself by Arabic poets in the tenth century.21 Like the qas.¯ıda, or ode, the muwashshah.a could be utilized as a vehicle for such important genres as love-poems and panegyrics. Unlike the qas.¯ıda, however, which was recited before its audience, the muwashshah.a was meant to be sung with musical accompaniment, and, as Stern puts it, to be “an ornament of the courtly assemblies.22 The Arabic sources are rich with descriptions of such performances and the singing-girls, wine-bouts, and luxurious surroundings which 18 19 20

Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” p. 908. For bibliographic references, see note 2, above. The classic work on the muwashshah.a is of course Samuel Miklos Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, ed. L. P. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974). The research has come a long way since Stern noted in his seminal article from 1948 that “A bibliography of the muwashshah is easily drawn up – as for all practical purposes it consists of one entry only: M. Hartmann, Das arabische Strophengedicht – I. Das Muwaˇssˇah. (Weimar, 1897).” See Stern, “Les Vers finaux en espagnol dans les muwaˇssˇah.s hispanoh´ebra¨ıque,” Al Andalus 13 (1948), pp. 299–346. Today the bibliography on the muwashshah.a is enormous – and growing. See the bibliography compiled by Richard Hitchcock, The Kharjas: Research Bibliographies and Checklist no. 20 (London: Grant & Cutler, 1977) and the supplement published by Richard Hitchcock and Consuelo Lopez-Morillas (London: Grant & Cutler, 1996). For a close look at the Hebrew muwashshah.a in al-Andalus, see Tova Rosen-Moked, Leºezor shir (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1985) and Israel Levin, Meªil tashbetz, 3: 217–407. 21 The “invention” of the muwashshaha is attributed by the twelfth-century Ibn Bass¯ am of Cordoba to . Muh.ammad b. Mah.m¯ud al-Qabr¯ı the Blind, in the tenth century. See Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, pp. 64–65. 22 Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 42. Ibn San¯ a al-Mulk lists other genres treated by the muwashshah.a, such as laments, invectives and ascetic poetry, but as Stern notes, panegyrics and love-poems are by far the primary genres.

34

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra formed part and parcel of the muwashshah.a experience. So, for example, we find one delighted prince tearing his clothes in frenzy at hearing one of the most famous of all muwashshah.as, promising the author that he will “walk home in gold” – an offer which the experienced poet prudently declined.23 The muwashshah.a is characterized by stanzas of shifting rhyme (in Arabic: ghus.n or bayt) interspersed with a set number of lines in rhymes that remain the same throughout the poem (simt. or qufl). Such poems generally contain five stanzas. At its simplest the rhyme-scheme will be bbbA/A cccA/A dddA/A eeeA/A fffA/A. But variations can be, and often are, quite complex and demanding.24 Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the muwashshah.a, and certainly the one that has catapulted it into the front ranks of literary research, is the use of spoken, colloquial Arabic, or Romance-Arabic, in the final lines of the poem. These lines, known as the kharja, were called by one authority on the muwashshah.a, Ibn San¯a al-Mulk of thirteenth-century Egypt, “the spice of the muwashshah.a ; its salt and sugar; its musk and amber.” According to the “rules” of the muwashshah.a, as formulated by Ibn San¯a al-Mulk, the transition to the kharja should be effected by a jump and by suddenly passing from one subject to another; in addition, it should be a phrase put in the mouth of some other person, animate or inanimate. The most common thing is to put it into the mouth or love-lorn girls, or drunkards of either sex. The strophe immediately preceding the kharja must contain an expression like: ‘he said’, ‘I said’, ‘she said’, ‘I sang’, ‘he sang’, or ‘she sang’.25 Ibn San¯a al-Mulk remarks that the kharja is best spoken by “boys or love-lorn girls, or drunkards of either sex,” but as countless muwashshah.a s will testify, it is generally the “love-lorn girl” who speaks the kharja. In fact, this is her only chance! Outside the kharja, medieval Hebrew poetry rarely allows women to speak at all.26 As we have seen, Judah Halevi does not name the author of Leyl mah.shavot, referring to him only as the “Prince of Hosts” and the “king.” Haim Brody, who edited the magnificent d¯ıw¯an of Moses ibn Ezra, attributed Leyl mah.shavot to Moses ibn Ezra on the basis of MS Schocken 37; an extremely important manuscript for medieval Hebrew poetry, but rather late, as it dates to the seventeenth century.27 Both Shraga 23 24

Anecdote related in ibid. p. 44. See Ezra Fleischer, “Tah.anot be-hitpath.ut shir ha-eyzor ha-ªivri,” Studies in Hebrew Literature and Yemenite Culture, ed. Judith Dishon and Ephraim Hazan (Ramat Aviv: Bar Ilan University Press, 1991), pp. 111–160. On the Arabic terminology see Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 13. 25 From Stern’s translation of Ibn San¯ a’s D¯ar al-t.ir¯az fi ªamal al-muwashshah.a¯ t, in Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 33. The Arabic text relating to the kharja is reprinted in ibid., pp. 158–160. For further information on Ibn San¯a al-Mulk, see ibid., pp. 73–74. 26 The exceptions are wedding poems, where the bride is sometimes allowed to sound the praises of her groom. Interestingly enough, in most of these wedding poems the bride still sounds like a girl straight out of the kharja. 27 The rubric in MS Schocken 37 reads simply: Á˘ÂÓ ‰ÏÂ, or: “a muwashshaha by him.” The poem comes . not with the rest of Ibn Ezra’s muwashshah.as, but at the end of the d¯ıw¯an altogether. As Fleischer notes, the copyist of MS Schocken 37 clearly regarded Leyl mah.shavot as written by Moses ibn Ezra, as did the copyist of MS Oxford 1971. See Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” p. 902, note 25.

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Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra Abramson and Haim Schirmann accepted the attribution to Moses ibn Ezra without question. However, there are eminent scholars who attribute Leyl mah.shavot to Joseph ibn Tzadik, basing their opinion on MS Silvera, which was written in the days of Isaac ibn Ezra (i. e. the twelfth century) and is thus one of the earliest, and probably most reliable, manuscripts to come down to us in the field of medieval Hebrew poetry. The first to raise the gauntlet in favor of Joseph ibn Tzadik was Menahem Schmelzer, who remarked that Leyl mah.shavot is in fact included amongst Ibn Tzadik’s poems in MS Silvera, the rubric before the poem simply remarking: “And this too is his.”28 Agreeing with this attribution, Yonah David published Leyl mah.shavot in his collection of Ibn Tzadik’s poems, and Ezra Fleischer sanctioned the attribution to Ibn Tzadik also on the basis of MS Frankfurt 12, a manuscript indeed cited by Brody but according to Fleischer insufficiently utilized.29 From all this we see that the authorship of Leyl mah.shavot has been the subject of intense scholarly debate for several decades now, with the evidence largely revolving around the Arabic rubrics in the manuscripts. Yet it seems that there is still one detail that has gone unnoticed in the war of the rubrics, and that is, that the name of Joseph ibn Tzadik may indeed be alluded to in the body of Leyl mah.shavot, and if this is so, then the poem was unquestionably written for him, and not by him. Panegyrists frequently made subtle or teasing references to the name of their addressee; indeed, we have already seen that Judah Halevi linked Moses ibn Ezra to the biblical Moses on more than one occasion, and also slipped in a charming pun on the name “Ezra”. And we will see similar examples time and again in the pages to come. No poet, however, would make a reference to his own name in a secular Hebrew poem from al-Andalus; this practice was relegated to sacred poetry alone. To be sure, scholars have indeed noted that the name Joseph appears in line 8 of Leyl mah.shavot.30 The editor of Joseph ibn Tzadik’s poems, Yonah David, solved this problem by saying that the poem had been written by Joseph ibn Tzadik for another Joseph, Joseph ibn Migash. Now, it is unclear just why Yonah David pounced on this particular Joseph as the poem’s addressee.31 There was certainly no lack of “Josephs” in al-Andalus; the name of Joseph ibn Ezra, the brother of Moses, comes instantly to mind, as does Joseph ibn Majnin, one of the two recipients of Ibn Ezra’s Bein ha-hadasim, back in Chapter One. And in fact, it seems most unlikely that a poem like Leyl mah.shavot, with its highly erotic allusions, was written for one very soon to become known as the “Light of Israel,” and to reign over the famed rabbinical academy in Lucena.32 We have 28 ‰ˆÈ‡ ‰ÏÂ. This terse comment is very common in the manuscripts. See Menahem Schmelzer, Yitzhaq ibn Ezra: Shirim (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979), p. 151. 29 The rubric in MS Frankfurt 12, as Fleischer notes, reads: ‰Ïχ ‰ÊÚ‡ ‰ÏÂ, or: “This too is his, may God protect him.” Further on, the copyist specifies the name as “Ibn Tzadik.” Schirmann regarded this second note as being by the hand of a different copyist, an opinion with which Fleischer does not agree. See Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” pp. 903–904. 30 Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav,” p. 904, note 38; Yonah David, Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik, p. 11. 31 Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik, ibid. And see note 43, below. 32 Goitein refers to this title in A Mediterranean Society 5: 457. On the career of Joseph ibn Migash, see Avraham Grossman, “Legislation and Responsa Literature, in The Sephardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992), 1: 194–195; Eliav Shochetman, “Jewish Law in Spain before 1300,” An Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law, ed. N. S. Hecht, B. S. Jackson, S. M Passamaneck, D. Piattelli, A. M. Rabello (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 282. Eight responsa by Ibn Migash were

36

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra four panegyrics for Joseph ibn Migash by Judah Halevi, and another one that is definitely by Joseph ibn Tzadik, and none of these makes even the slightest erotic allusion of the kind frequently found in so many poems – and especially in so many muwashshah.a¯ s! – from this period.33 What has not been noticed, however, is that the poem also appears to allude to Joseph ibn Tzadik’s name again, just a little further on in line 11, where the poet praises the tzedek, that is, the “righteousness” of his addressee. Can this be mere coincidence? The presence of both of these words, Joseph and tzedek, and the fact that they occur in the same strophe, make this extremely unlikely. If so, then the poem was definitely written for Joseph ibn Tzadik and not by him, and the scholarly arguments about manuscript rubrics, learned as they are, recede in importance. In point of fact, however, the authorship of the poem does not materially affect the incident under discussion. What is important is that Leyl mah.shavot unquestionably posed a considerable challenge to potential imitators due to the difficult rhymes and highly complex rhyme-scheme of the double simt., the repetitive “girdle-like” element in the poem. It was this which caused the poem to serve as a challenge-poem for the assembled poets and which enabled Judah Halevi to demonstrate his talents to such spectacular effect.34 It was not the identity of the poem’s author that made the poem ripe for challenge but its complicated rhyme-scheme and rhyme-sounds, and it is this subject to which we will now turn our attention. The rhyme-scheme in the Hebrew challenge-poem can be given as aaaa/BBBC/DDDC/ eeee/BBBC/DDDC, and so on, for five strophes altogether, with the added difficulty of slight variations between the “B” and “D” sounds throughout the poem.35 The following translation does not pretend to capture the complexity of the rhyme-scheme in the Hebrew challenge-poem, but only to give an approximation of its meaning and an echo, perhaps, of its musicality:36

5

Nightly the musing of my heart begin Recalling wandering friends and kin I shake and tremble deep within: Will I ever see the face again Of Orion and Pleiades? To you, fault-finder, I will not incline My heart is broke beyond doc’s cure, but there’s physic in the wine!

published by Israel Ta-Shema and Hagai ben Shamai in “Shemonah teshuvot h.adashot le-Rabbi Yosef ibn Migash,” Kovetz al-yad 8 (1975), pp. 165–186. 33 Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 87 (no. 62), 141 (no. 95), 173 (no. 114), 191 (no. 130). Halevi also composed a wedding-poem for Joseph ibn Migash, printed in ibid. 2: 21 (no. 21), and rhymed with the bride-groom’s name. Ibn Tzadik’s poem for Joseph ibn Migash is printed in Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik, ed. Yonah David, p. 31 (no. 6). As noted, there is nothing in any of these poems that can possibly be interpreted as the least bit erotic, and Leyl mah.shavot, as we will shortly see, is highly erotic indeed. 34 In his letter to Moses ibn Ezra (ll. 40–41), Halevi says that he bound the rhymes “fast and double,” echoing a phrase from Job 41: 5 that refers to the impossibility of binding the mighty Leviathan. 35 The rhymes of the simts (the B and D elements “girdling” the poem) can be transliterated as il/il/il/di . al/al/al/di, with the “il” sound (the B element) occasionally turning into “ul”. The most thorough discussion of this exceedingly intricate rhyme-scheme is by Shulamit Elizur, Shirat ha-h.ol ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit (Ramat Aviv: The Open University, 2004), 2:88–89. 36 ‰¯ÈÚ‡ ·Ï ˙·˘ÁÓ ÏÈÏ Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 274 (no. 258). .

37

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra

10

15

20

25

Let me quench this raging fire Through love of Joseph and his desire His virtues surely range much higher Than gold and silver can inspire Tzedek37 and perfection in him combine Grace and good deeds, all merits divine. Long have his forefathers been renowned And for holy wisdom rightly crowned Their great fame is shouldered all around38 Their learning in his heart is found A joyful fawn, and like the sun doth shine: Ask what you will! God’s grace is thine. No mansion’s better than his tent For him alone does Time relent And like a bridegroom give consent In his sea of wisdom to rest content Like clouds without measure you quicken fruit and vine May one so exalted on my bed recline! Wisdom lovingly calls out his name In a poem that answers just the same. She’ll fulfill her lover’s claim – So let the messenger proclaim: Please, messenger, show the friend the way so that he can recline With me tonight: I’ll tease him with my curls and these breasts of mine39

In terms of content, this poem is a panegyric of the most conventional kind. It opens with the “shepherd of the stars,” a well-known figure in Arabic and Hebrew poetry from the period, who scans the heavens in lovesick, sleepless nights and sighs over the stars shining together in the Pleiades, reminding him of absent friends.40 The theme can be a ponderous one, and indeed is drawn out and lengthy in qas.¯ıdas without number, but 37 “Righteousness” in Hebrew. The translation has left the word in Hebrew in order to draw attention to a possible reference to the name of Joseph ibn Tzadik. 38 Numbers 7: 9, where the reference is to the Levitical role in bearing the Torah scroll. 39 The kharja reads:

È„Ú ˙È·Â ÏÈ·Òχ ÛÈÎ ÏÈÏÎÏÏ Ï˜ ÏÂÒ¯ ‰Ïχ· È„‰ ¯ÈÊ χτ ‰ÚËÚ χ·χ ÈÏÚ Ï‡‚Áχ ÛÏÎ

S. M. Stern gives a literal translation of the kharja in “Four Famous Muwaˇssˇah.s from Ibn Busra’s Anthology,” Al-Andalus 23 (1958), p. 354: “Please messenger, show the friend the way to come and spend the night with me! I shall give him my locks behind the curtains for torment, and shall add my breasts.” 40 The Pleiades is generally a metaphor for the companionship of the poet himself and his friend; thus in the poem ªAyin nediva, (“A generous eye”) by Judah Halevi, the stars shining together in the night sky remind him of his own days together with his friend (D¯ıw¯an, 1: 137, no. 94, line 29). Ibn Ezra has thus subtly altered the motif here since his panegyric is, most unusually, dedicated not to one but to two friends: Joseph ibn Majnin and Abun. For further examples of the “shepherd of the stars” motif in Hebrew poetry, see David Yellin, Torat ha-shira ha-sefaradit, pp. 34–35. Cynthia Robinson refers to the motif in Arabic poetry in a discussion of “the lyrical world of lovesickness,” in In Praise of Song, p. 102.

38

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra here the tone lightens quickly enough as the speaker learns that “there’s physic in the wine!” The poet thus takes his cue from the form of the poem, infusing the motif with the light and hedonistic tone so common to the muwashshah.a. In line 5 another standard figure in medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry makes his appearance: the “fault-finder,” whose sole aim is to plague the lover and stir up trouble.41 In addition to the “physic in the wine,” the speaker also finds consolation in “Joseph” (ll. 7–8), whose presence makes him forget the absent friends mourned in the opening lines, and whose merits take up the rest of the poem till the end.42 The speaker first praises Joseph’s family pedigree

15

Long have his forefathers been renowned And for holy wisdom rightly crowned Their great fame is shouldered all around43 Their learning in his heart is found

and then duly passes on to his wisdom (ll. 16, 22) and generosity (l. 23); the standard virtues in medieval poetry. All this is framed by erotic images – lines 7–8, and most noticeably, line 24 – but then this, too, is standard procedure in the medieval panegyric. In the final strophe Wisdom becomes a feminine figure, and an amorous one, too, as she “lovingly calls out” the name of her beloved in a light-hearted parody of Proverbs 8:1: Does not Wisdom call, and Understanding put out her voice? She stands up at the top of high places by the way, where the paths meet. She cries out at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in of the doors. To you, O men I call, and my voice is to the sons of man. In the poem, on the other hand, it is not “the sons of man” to whom Wisdom calls out 41 The “tale-teller” and other enemies to love in medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry have interesting parallels in Troubadour poetry, a phenomenon that has given rise to a considerable body of research. One particularly helpful work is Patrizia Onesta, “Lauzengier-Wash¯ı-Index; Gardador-Custos: The ’Enemies of Love’ in Provencal, Arabo-Andalusian, and Latin Poetry,” trans. Karla Mallette, Scripta Mediterranea XIX-XX (1998–1999), pp. 119–142. A. R. Nykl offers the following equivalents in his Hispano-Arabic Poetry), pp. 78; 394: the “Watcher”: raq¯ıb (Arabic.)– gardador (Provencal); the “Slanderer” w¯as.¯ı (Arabic) – lauzenjaire (Provencal). For specifics on the “duties” of these figures in Arabic poetry, see A. J. Arberry’s translation of Tawk al-h.am¯ama by ªAli ibn H.azm (994–1063), The Ring of the Dove (London: Luzac and Company, 1953), Chapters 16, 18–19. The figure known as the ªad.¯ıl in Arabic appears to correspond to the meriv in Hebrew poetry; and for our purposes is translated here as the “Fault-finder.” The meriv is by far the most common of these enemies to love in Hebrew poetry, but there is also an occasional “Slanderer” or malshin, which appears to correspond with the Arabic w¯as.¯ı, or Provencal lauzenjaire. 42 Such “consolation” is a frequent means of passing from the exordium to the praise of the addressee; see Rosen-Moked, Leºezor shir, pp. 183–184. 43 Praise of the addressee’s learned forefathers is standard in the Hebrew panegyric, yet Yonah David nevertheless points to these lines as proof positive that the poem must have been written for Joseph ibn Migash. Interpreting line 15 as an allusion to the Levitical duty of bearing the Torah on their shoulders (Numbers 7: 9), he notes that such praise could only apply to Joseph ibn Migash, whose family was Levitical. “Such praise,” writes David, “cannot possibly be applied to Ibn Tzadik,” who did not come of a Levitical family (Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik, p. 11; p. 17, note 47). True enough. Yet what if line 15 does not refer precisely to the Levities, but to those who bear the “burden” of learning in general? In another, undoubted poem written in praise of Ibn Tzadik, Judah Halevi indeed lauds his addressee’s “dignity and Torah” (misrah ve-torah; D¯ıw¯an 1: 118, no. 83, line 11.) Thus it seems that these lines cannot bear evidence against our own position that Leyl mah.shavot was written in honor of Joseph ibn Tzadik.

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Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra but one man in particular: her beloved Joseph ibn Tzadik, and her words are far more provocative as she promises to “fulfill her lover’s claim” (l. 27). This happy situation is a not-uncommon one in the muwashshah.a, where love’s demands often find fulfillment – at least in the last few lines.44 As already noted, the difficulties of the rhyme-scheme made this poem a prime favorite for poets bent on poetic challenge. Over time no less than five poets – two in Arabic, and three in Hebrew (and one of them twice!) – set themselves the challenge of composing poems on this model.45 Moses ibn Ezra, no stranger to the art of poetry and perhaps the composer of the Hebrew challenge-poem himself, must surely have been impressed by the poem which Halevi attached to his letter: Ahar galot sod. We give it here in a woefully inadequate translation that tries, as in the translation for Leyl mah.shavot, to convey a hint of the poem’s content and musicality, and that further, in this case, tries to show how at least the C hyme – the basic end-rhyme in the simt., the girdle-like element of the poem – remains the same in both poems. According to the “rules” of muª¯arad.a (“poetic imitation”), the rhyme-scheme of the stanzas (but not the rhyme-sound), had to remain the same; the simt.s, on the other hand, were obliged to retain the same rhyme-sounds as well:46

5

10

After revealing the secret, what’s left to hide? A glass to my left, my love to my right Fault-finder, hush! I care naught for your spite I’ll just turn to the left if you turn to the right. If the joys of Eden and Gilead you wish to combine, I’ll give my life up to pleasure – today I’ll not pine. See the gazelle from the wine glass sip: My fruit and wine there lip-to-lip. Preach what you will! I care not a snip Pray leave me for now – enough of your gossip! You witch-doctor, I hear the flute’s joy ring out with the wine; The gazelle gives me nard – fault-finder, stop! – Cease your whine. O obscure poem, reveal the secret inside

44 For a good study of love’s fulfillment in the kharja, see Yosef Yahalom, “Love’s Labors Won: The Materialization of Love in Hebrew Girdle Poems,” trans. Ann Brener, in Circa 1492: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Colloquium: Litterae Judaeorum in Terra Hispanica, ed. Isaac Benabu (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University and Misgav Yerushalayim, 1992), pp. 189–204. 45 It was S. M. Stern who first drew attention to the fact that the poem Leyl mahshavot lev aªira is in fact a . muª¯arad.a itself; an imitation of an Arabic poem by Ibn Baq¯ı (a contemporary of Judah Halevi). See Stern’s now-classic article, “H.iquei muwashshah.ot ªaravi’im be-shirat sefarad ha-ªivrit,” Tarbiz 18 (1957). Tova Rosen-Moked surveys this entire “family” of girdle-poems in Leºezor shir, pp. 67–70. As just noted, the first poem in the group was apparently the one composed in Arabic by Ibn Baq¯ı, and subsequently imitated by Halevi in Hebrew, and by Ibn Quzman in Arabic. In Egypt, Aaron ben Joshua ibn al-Amani, Halevi’s friend and admirer, composed a religious poem presumably on Halevi’s model, and Abraham ibn Ezra, a younger contemporary of Halevi, at some point composed not only one but two different religious poems on the same model. On these two poems by Abraham ibn Ezra, see Ezra Fleischer’s article on the development of Hebrew girdle-poems, “Tah.anot be-hitpath.ut shir ha-eyzor,” pp. 132–133. 46 „ÂÒ ˙ÂÏ‚ ¯Á‡. For publishing details see note 2 above. As in the translation of Leyl mahshavot, the B and . D rhymes of the simt.s have gone to the wall here too.

40

Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra

15

20

25

My soul, and the prince’s name confide: This [poem] is a bell for his robe of pride A return for the embroidery his own hand inscribed. Deck thyself with the golden crown and embroidery fine Of this poem from the West, beyond praise divine. Heyman’s his name when Wisdom calls – Moshe’s the trustiest of them all! The delight of my breasts are at your beck and call; There’s manna in my lips withal. A drop of honeycomb and beauty are in my dress confined; Unfasten the loops and fondle the breast that like a girl’s mine. For love of him she’ll then complete A song of love with praises sweet. To lie in her lap like a bundle of myrrh she does entreat The Faithful Messenger, and then repeat: Please, messenger, show the friend the way so that he can recline47 With me tonight: I’ll tease him with my curls and these breasts of mine

Considering the circumstances under which this poem was composed – we recall that Halevi was in company with some “pleasant singers of the vine”48 – it is not surprising to find his muwashshah.a beginning with a virtual panegyric to love and wine. The tale-teller makes an appearance in line 4, only to be shooed away in an amusing use of Abraham’s words to his nephew, Lot, when he found the desert too small for them both (Genesis 13: 8–9). In line 11, the tale-teller is also called a “witch-doctor,” the same epithet that the unfortunate Job flings at his own “friends” when these come to wag their fingers at him (Job 13: 4).49 Love and wine – not moralizing – are the order of the day: carpe diem reigns supreme. The panegyrical section begins in the third strophe, where the praise of the addressee and the role of the poem echo the situation in the first two strophes. Here it is the poem and not the wine which induces the panegyrist to reveal the name “inside his soul” (ll. 13–14) – that is, the name of his addressee, Moses ibn Ezra – just as the lovesick speaker in lines 1–12 revealed the “secret” (l. 1) of his own love for the “gazelle” (l. 7). In calling his poem “a bell for the robe” of his addressee (l. 15), Halevi is employing a metaphor for a “thank-you poem” that he was later to use in other panegyrics as well; the metaphor derives from the bells used to decorate the hem of the High Priest’s robe (Exodus 39: 25–26), and is a lovely way of referring modestly to his own poetry as an ornament on something perfect and complete without it.50 In this case, that something 47 48 49

The kharja is of course the same as the one in the challenge-poem, Leyl mah.shavot. See note 37 above. See Halevi’s letter, line 20. In the Bible, Job follows this up with an exasperated: “O that you would altogether keep silent! and that would be your wisdom” (Job 13: 5). 50 The phrase reappears in Halevi’s Ha-reyah mor (“Is that the scent of myrrh”), l. 5; see Chapter Seven. . In medieval Arabic culture, as Doris Behrens-Abouseif writes, “ornament is an essential attribute of beauty. Ab¯u ºl-ªAlaºal Maªarri, moaning Aleppo’s loss in the death of a great intellectual, said that the city was now without “anklet or bracelet,” meaning without culture. For something to be without ornament was equivalent

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Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra perfect and complete is nothing less than Ibn Ezra’s Yaldei yamim,51 as the young poet makes clear in the following lines. 15

This [poem] is a bell for his robe of pride A return for the embroidery his own hand inscribed. Deck thyself with the golden crown and embroidery fine Of this poem from the West, beyond praise divine.

Employing the language of metaphors commonly used to describe the art of writing, Halevi glories in “this poem from the West” (l. 18) which he describes as a “golden crown and embroidery fine” (l. 17) – a beautiful thank-you note indeed, and one which Ibn Ezra must certainly have prized.52 From praise of Ibn Ezra’s poem Halevi then moves on to praise of Ibn Ezra himself, focusing on the subject of his wisdom. As in his earlier efforts, Halevi makes the most of his addressee’s name and links him up with his biblical namesake. Thus when Wisdom calls out in line 20, she pronounces Moses ibn Ezra the “trustiest of them all:” a rather slangy translation for God’s praise of the biblical Moses in Numbers 12:7 (be-khol beyti neºeman). The name Heyman by which Wisdom calls him in line 19 is a reference to a figure known in the Bible for his great wisdom (I Kings 5: 11), and identified in the Babylonian Talmud as Moses.53 But we find yet another reference to Heyman in the Bible (I Chronicles 6: 18), and since there he is listed as one of the Levitical poets, this line is also an allusion to Ibn Ezra’s renown as a poet. As in Leyl mah.shavot, here, too, Wisdom’s a lusty wench, promising her beloved the garden of her delights (ll. 21–24)54 and inviting him to lie in her lap “like a bundle of myrrh” (Song of Songs 1:13). Entreating the “Faithful Messenger” – another reference to the biblical Moses55 – she then recites the highly amorous invitation in the kharja. Both poems – Leyl mah.shavot and Ah.ar galot sod – feature a feminine figure of Wisdom, enticing and seductive, whose role is to demonstrate just how intimately connected the addressee is with that highly desirable quality. But it seems that Halevi integrates “Lady Wisdom” into his poem with more finesse than the author of Leyl mah.shavot. Ibn San¯a al-Mulk, as we recall, decreed that the kharja was best spoken by “boys or love-lorn girls, or drunkards of either sex,” but in Leyl mah.shavot it is not the love-sick Wisdom who speaks the kharja, but a messenger. The invitation is issued in her name, but not in her voice: 25

Wisdom lovingly calls out his name In a poem that answers just the same.

to its being barren or desolate” (Beauty in Arabic Culture, p. 124). 51 Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 53 (no. 40), lines 43–45 and 1: 58 (no. 43), lines 27–28. In the first of these Halevi calls his poem bells for the addressee’s “robe of wisdom, robe of awe, robe of purity”. 52 As noted above, Haim Brody and Haim Schirmann both regarded Yaldei yamim as a reply to Halevi’s rhymed letter and accompanying poem, Ah.ar galot sod. But, as Fleischer points out, these lines make it clear that Halevi had already received a poem from Moses ibn Ezra. And that poem, of course, is necessarily Yaldei yamim, for as we have also seen, Yaldei yamim is a thank-you poem for Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu. See Ezra Fleischer, “Le-qorot rabbi Yehuda Halevi bi-neªurav, 906–907. 53 BT Bava Batra 15a. 54 The seductive invitation in line 24 draws on Ezekiel 23: 3. 55 Cf. ªImdu ªamodu, l. 20, where Ibn Ezra is also called the “faithful Messenger.”

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Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra She’ll fulfill her lover’s claim – So let the messenger proclaim: Please, messenger, show the friend the way so that he can recline With me tonight: I’ll tease him with my curls and these breasts of mine. In Ah.ar galot sod, on the other hand, Wisdom, again appropriately love-lorn, is indeed permitted to speak the all-important kharja, just as Ibn San¯a al-Mulk counseled: 25

For love of him she’ll then complete A song of love with praises sweet. To lie in her lap like a bundle of myrrh she does entreat The Faithful Messenger, and then repeat: Please, messenger, show the friend the way so he can recline. With me tonight: I’ll tease him with my curls, and these breasts of mine.

* * * Contemporary readers, with their reverence for originality and perhaps less respect for the dictates of form, may look somewhat askance at the practice of muª¯arad.a, or poetic imitation. What, they wonder, can be the point in all this? Hartmann called the muª¯arad.a a “trifling verbal game”56 and Schirmann himself sounds more than slightly apologetic in his discussion of the pastime. Yet there can be no doubt that the practice of muª¯arad.a was regarded favorably by medieval poets and critics alike. As Stern concludes: It is plain. . . that such imitations do not come, by any means, under the heading of ’plagiarism’. On the contrary: it was a well-established literary practice, the successful accomplishment of which accrued to the honour of the poet. Hartmann’s conception of the muª¯arad.a therefore completely misses the mark.57 Poets regarded these imitations as both a compliment to the author of the first poem and as a way of challenging other poets. It gave the poet the means of proving his mettle and displaying his mastery over rhyme and meter; indeed, Halevi used the language of mastery to describe his own feat: And when I saw that the rhymes which I desired / could not be arranged as I aspired / I got angry at them / and outsmarted them / in Moses’s name – / Thus were the mighty conquered and the unruly tamed! / They submitted to me after much trouble / till I bound them fast and double / and made a poem out of them in this wise / as my lord can see with his very own eyes. (ll. 37–41) Hercules could hardly have tamed the Gorgon monster with more gusto than Halevi here completes his own show of prowess, binding his rhymes “fast and double” (Job 56 57

S. M. Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 46. Ibid. Tova Rosen-Moked provides a good survey on the subject of muª¯arad.a in Leºezor shir, pp. 76–79, reaching a conclusion similar to Stern’s.

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Judah Halevi’s Letter to Moses ibn Ezra 41: 5) in a way that presents his poetic feat as equal to binding the Leviathan – a feat which the Book of Job deems impossible. Far from being ashamed of sending his idol a poetic imitation, our young poet clearly expected the poem to rebound to his credit. And this it undoubtedly did. For when we eventually catch up with Halevi, we will find him comfortably ensconced in Granada, rubbing shoulders with the cr`eme-de-la-cr`eme of Andalusi Jewish society and trading poems with the best of its poets.

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Chapter Three

FIRST CONTACTS WITH JUDAH IBN GHAYYAT

Moses ibn Ezra was not the only person to receive a “calling card” from Judah Halevi, and he may not even have been the first. Yet another well-known Hebrew poet was living in Granada at the time, Judah ibn Ghayyat, and to this poet, too, Halevi directed a long and carefully-composed qas.¯ıda. Like Ibn Ezra, the name Ibn Ghayyat was well-known among the Jews of al-Andalus. One of the most respected scholars of al-Andalus, Isaac ibn Ghayyat (1038-1089),1 presided over the renowned academy in Lucena in the years prior to the great Alfasi and had in fact been the teacher of Moses ibn Ezra, who speaks of him with deep reverence.2 Isaac ibn Ghayyat was also a gifted liturgical poet.3 Scholars have suggested that Isaac and Judah ibn Ghayyat were father and son, and although we have no direct evidence for such a relationship it does seem a reasonable assumption.4 Be this as it may – son of the renowned Isaac or not – Judah ibn Ghayyat was definitely one of the up-and-coming young men about town and a privileged member of Granada’s Jewish elite. In later years he was to rise to great prominence, to the point of being mentioned by his contemporaries in the same breath at Joseph ibn Migash, the reigning head of the academy in Lucena and the leading spiritual figure of Spanish Jewry.5 As a poet, however, he is rather harder to judge.6 Very few of Judah ibn Ghayyat’s poems have come down to us, and apparently he was not the most prolific of poets. Rabbi H.iyya al-Mughrabi, the editor of Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an, included Ibn Ghayyat’s poems in a special collection devoted to poets who did not write many poems, only this collection 1 On the career of Isaac ibn Ghayyat see Uriel Simon, “The Spanish School of Biblical Interpretation,” The Sephardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992), pp. 123–124. It was Isaac ibn Ghayyat who gave refuge to Joseph ha-Nagid’s wife and son following the pogrom against the Jews of Granada in 1066, as we learn from Abraham ibn Daud in The Book of Tradition, pp. 80–81 (in Hebrew pp. 60–61), and from Moses ibn Ezra in Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 67 [35b]. 2 Ibn Ezra writes in ibid., p. 73 [39a]: “I studied with him, and received from him, and what little I know is a drop in his ocean, and a spark from his sun.” 3 For a selection of liturgical poetry by Isaac ibn Ghayyat, see Haim Schirmann, Ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bisefarad u-provance (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1954), Vol. 1, pp. 301–325. 4 Abraham ha-Bedarsi, a Hebrew poet of sorts from thirteenth-century Provence, seems to regard Isaac and Judah ibn Ghayyat as father and son in Ha-h.erev ha-mithapekhet, which was published in H . otem .tokhnit (Amsterdam, 1865), p. 14, line 134. In Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit, p. 509, Fleischer appears to agree with this opinion. 5 See the letter written by one “Jacob” to Halfon ben Nethanel in 1128-1129, in Fleischer and Gil, Yehuda . Halevi u-venei h.ugo, Document no. 11, pp. 302–306. Further evidence of Ibn Ghayyat’s prominence at this period is found in an elegant letter addressed to him by an unknown writer, and published in Nehemiah Allony, “Kovetz iggerot sefaradiot mi-ha-meah ha-shteym-esreh,” Sefunot 16 (1980), p. 73. 6 Ibn Ghayyat’s poetry receives but tepid praise in Gate Three of Judah Alharizi’s Tahkemoni, ed. Y. . Toporovsky (Tel Aviv: Mah.barot le-sifrut, 1952), pp. 42 and 44, and less than half a line in ha-Bedarsi’s Ha-h.erev ha-mithapekhet (p. 14, line 134).

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat has unfortunately not come down to us.7 More important, at least for the present study, is that Judah ibn Ghayyat was also destined to become one of Judah Halevi’s life-long friends, receiving over the course of his lifetime no fewer than nine poems from the great poet – two of them for his wedding.8 No other addressee of Halevi’s poems, with the possible exception of Moses ibn Ezra, was to win such flattering marks of Halevi’s esteem and affection.9 The longevity of their friendship is further reflected in two letters discovered by S. D. Goitein among the fragments of the Cairo Geniza. The first of these is a letter in Judaeo-Arabic informing H.alfon ben Nethanel Halevi of Egypt,10 one of the great India merchants of the day and an important figure in the latter years of Halevi’s life, that a large sum of money was being forwarded to Judah Halevi in care of Judah ibn Ghayyat in Granada.11 The second letter, which Goitein dates to no later than the summer of 1125, was written by Judah Halevi himself and sent from Toledo to this same H.alfon ben Nethanel, now in Spain. The body of the letter deals with the ransoming of a Jewish girl from the clutches of someone whom Halevi refers to as the “wicked woman” – and whom Goitein identifies as Queen Do˜na Urraca. But before buckling down to the business of collecting the ransom, Halevi writes that he is taking the opportunity to “rush” him a letter which he is sure to enjoy: My lord and master, may God make your honored position permanent. I received this letter from our master and teacher Judah b. Ghiyath, lord of mine and admirer of yours, may God elevate you both, and decided to rush it to you so that you may enjoy it – may God let me enjoy your company.12 As Fleischer comments, one senses Halevi’s genuine delight in being able to show Ibn Ghayyat to such advantage before his important friend from Egypt.13 But all these things – the ransoming of captives, the poems of friendship and wedding poems – belonged to the future. When Judah ibn Ghayyat received his first poem from Judah Halevi the two 7 Fleischer, in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 509, note 117. Some of Ibn Ghayyat’s poems were printed by Haim Schirmann in Yediªot ha-makhon 2: 186–194; 6: 228. Judah ibn Ghayyat’s poems were collected by Dalia Nir and published in her MA thesis (Tel-Aviv University, 1974). 8 The poems for Judah ibn Ghayyat are printed in the following order in Judah Halevi’s D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody: 1: 43 (no. 34); 1: 53 (no. 40); 1: 60 (no. 45); 1: 151 (no. 100); 1: 174 (no. 115); 2: 191 (no. 1); 2: 263 (no. 37). This last poem is addressed to Isaac ibn Ezra as well as Judah ibn Ghayyat. The two wedding poems printed in 2: 58–59 (nos. 57 and 58) are addressed to a bridegroom named Judah, whom the research commonly identifies as Judah ibn Ghayyat; see for example Fleischer, in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 510, note 120. 9 Fleischer, ibid., p. 506. 10 Halfon ben Nethanel has figured increasingly in the research over the past decades thanks to the findings . of S. D. Goitein. See idem, A Mediterranean Society, 5: 453, as well as the Index in Volume 6, s. v. H.alfon ben Nethanel. Fleischer and Gil provide a highly detailed Index in Yehuda Halevi u-venei h.ugo,s. v. H.alfon ben Nethanel, pp. 628–629. 11 The letter was published by S. D. Goitein in “Rabbenu Yehuda Halevi bi-sefarad leªor kitvei ha-geniza,” Tarbiz 24 (1955), pp. 134–138. It was written by Isaac ben Baruch in Almeria, and sent to H.alfon ben Nethanel in Tlemcen, North Africa. The sum involved 150 gold dinars; a princely sum indeed, as Goitein notes, and an indicator of Halevi’s financial standing in these years. 12 The letter was published by S. D. Goitein in Tarbiz 25 (1956), pp. 403–405; English translation from idem, A Mediterranean Society 5: 463. Goitein, ibid., p. 462, dates this letter on the basis of the death of Queen Do˜na Urraca, which occurred on March 8, 1126. The letter has been republished with notes in Fleischer and Gil, Yehuda Halevi u-venei h.ugo, pp. 319–321 (Document 17). 13 Fleischer and Gil, ibid., pp. 118–119.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat had never even met, though clearly they knew of one another through a mutual friend, or friends.14 Halevi’s poem to Judah ibn Ghayyat begins with the words Ma-li leravot (“Why should I soak the land?”),15 and as in his first poem to Moses ibn Ezra, here too he begins with a lament over lost love. There are other similarities between these two introductory qas.¯ıdas, including a distinct echo from ªImdu ªamodu in the opening line of the poem to Judah ibn Ghayyat.16 But despite the similarities, it is probably a good thing that ªImdu ªamodu went to Ibn Ezra and Ma-li leravot to Ibn Ghayyat and not the other way around! The very first line of Ma-li leravot contains a form that is not attested in the Bible,17 an offense against grammar that surely would have left Ibn Ezra shaking his head. In Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara Ibn Ezra takes poets to task over this very issue – this “worst mistake,” as he calls it – and cautions them to: Go wherever the language [of the Bible] goes, and stop where it stops, too. You must imitate it and not create something new [. . . .] The worst mistake is found amongst those who conjugate nouns in the manner of verbs.18 Fortunately, however, Ma-li leravot did not end up in Ibn Ezra’s hands, and it was the unlucky Solomon ibn Gabirol, and not Halevi, who eventually fell victim to his criticism.19 The poem begins with a beautifully-drawn at.l¯al, one of the finest in the Hebrew tradition:

5

Why should I soak the land with my tears, irrigating soil that I have not sown? Upon passing the foundation of the gazelle’s house I ask: “Where is he?” but do not ask:“Where is my soul?” I will embrace the hill of my lover’s tents and bitterly weep their desolation; it weeps at my burning despair He departed and left his traces in the shreds of my heart; my traces are amongst the remains of his dwelling. The walls cry out bitterly: “What, are you still here? For whom?” and to them I reply: “A bit more, and I’ll hew out my grave.” The courtyards of my beloved are grown over with weeds; I weep over them and they melt at my weeping Since the day your gazelle wandered your dust is my food, and

14 Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehudah Halevi: Birurim be-qorot hayyav,” p. 256, note 61, suggests that this friend . was one Joseph ben La’ir, the addressee of another poem by Judah Halevi, Al ba-h.alom leyl (D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 19, no. 15). This poem, a panegyric in qas.¯ıda-form, was apparently written in the same period that found Halevi penning his rhymed letter to Moses ibn Ezra and complaining of unknown problems on the road to Granada. Here, too, Halevi speaks of having left Christian Spain for the Muslim West, and blames his late arrival on “Time,” who “twisted his roads” (ll. 41–45). This is followed by a request in l. 48 to send his greetings to “Rav and his pupils” – a reference, according to Fleischer, to Judah ibn Ghayyat. 15 ˙Â¯Ï ÈÏ ‰Ó. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 151 (no. 100). 16 Cf. l. 8 of ªImdu ªamodu “Was it to soak the lands with tears / that the Chariot of Wandering leads us forth?” 17 È˙ÚȯÊ, from the root “to sow.” 18 Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, pp. 203–209 [107v-111r]. 19 Ibid.

47

First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat

10

15

20

25

30

where the buck treads, there I seek out my rest I will go and see the place of embracing, in which my soul perished, perhaps there I shall find what I have lost But there was naught to be found there apart from the ravens of parting, which turned my heart black by taking my token Henceforth, when hearing the ravens of parting I will ask “Is that my heart, or the ravens of separation?” Love is the law and I accept the wishes of my beloved, or his betrayal, but parting is not part of my code The walls of my heart yearn for the walls of his tent since the day I inquired of them, though they refuse to answer me. If only I could give him my heart as the stones of his lodging place; perhaps it would soften his heart People say: “Does your love know of your anguish?” And to them I reply: “How can he not know, when he plowed with my heifer?!” Has not my soul been banished with him, and conspired with my heart to hasten my doom? If the blood of his face was spilt yesterday by my eyes, will he, to exact payment for his cheeks, pour out my gall? Or if I sinned in stealing his roses somewhat, should I have to pay with my heart for my theft? My wrath waxes against a poem that says “Gazelles can’t be held guilty!” and my complaint [is against] its author Who sets the bastions of learning on their foundations and researches every part of his judgments; yet my question understands not. He is Rabbi Judah, the very core of the foundation of learning; his name is known in Yeshaª, and from him comes my glory. Let me beseech his pupils, who chiseled his image on my heart and his renown on my soul O Reapers on the fields of wisdom! Be gentle with me till I glean a little of their fallen stalks, and bundle my sheaf together Though separation stretches between me and you, is not my heart in your hands, and your image before me? Had Time not used its plumbline on my thoughts, I would have hastened unto you in the folds of this letter. Memory of you is a song over the daughter of the vine, and the wind from your land has become my sweet fruit. Pray entreat the lion’s whelp for me, that I might bow down before him, and he take pleasure in my bowing down. Truly will I hold that which is most important only when I behold Rabbi Judah amongst you, to whom I am beholden Never yet have I beheld him, apart from his good name, but the candle of his memory shines through my darkness Nor was your city truly called Rimon [“Pomegranate”], till it contained Judah, the glory of my learning. I will go up into the pomegranate of my beloved, and hold on to his boughs; 48

First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat is not the juice of the pomegranate my medicine? How many cities might I justly exchange for it, were it not for the lion’s whelp living within it! The day I give my soul into his hands, then will I truly know that my wares have fared well. 1 soak the land (Isaiah 34: 7). 5 What . . . grave (Cf. Isaiah 22: 15). Lines 5b–6a have a three-fold word-play: eh.tzov (“I will dig”) – h.atzerot (“courtyards”) – h.atzir (“weeds”). 7 dust . . . food (Isaiah 65: 25). 12 The walls . . . yearn (Jeremiah 4: 19). 14 plowed with my heifer (Judges 14: 18) spoken by an angry Samson when he realizes that the Philistines have learned the answer to his riddle through “plowing” with his wife. 17 pour . . . gall (Job 16: 13). 17 sinned in stealing (Job 33: 27). 18 Gazelles . . . guilty (apparently a line from a poem by Judah ibn Ghayyat; see discussion below). 20 Yeshaª- another name for “Judah,” based on the Arabic meaning of the name. Halevi also calls him this in the poem Lifnei keruv shilesh (“Before the cheub made a third”), l. 49; see Chapter Seven. 21 Let me beseech (Proverbs 26: 25). In Proverbs spoken against deceit. Here, in favor of sincerity. This is an excellent example of the way in which a poet can take a biblical phrase and change or even reverse its orignal meaning by fitting it into the new context of his poem. 22 glean . . . my sheaf. This line turns the sheaves which Ruth gathered in the fields of Boaz into metaphors of learning and wisdom. 24 used its plumbline (Amos 7: 7). In Amos it is a stern God who uses the “plumbline;” here it is “Time”; folds of the letter: This phrase also appears in Halevi’s first poem to Moses ibn Ezra ªImdu ªamodu (“Stay O stay,”), l. 19. 25 song . . . vine: that is, a joyful song to be sung over wine. Line 25 has a triple play on words: zimra (“song”) bat zemora (“the daughter of the vine”) and zimrati (my sweet fruit”). 26 lion’s whelp (Genesis 49: 9); a frequent nickname for Judah. 27–28 beheld . . . the words translated as “hold” or “behold” reflect a four-fold word-play with the Hebrew root Ê¢Á‡. 30 will go up . . . boughs (Song of Songs 7: 9, where the lover wishes to ascend a palm tree, not a pomegranate); nectar of the pomegranate (Ibid., 8: 2).

The at.l¯al with which this poem begins is one of the longest in medieval Hebrew poetry, and certainly in the poetry of Judah Halevi, who rather eschewed such stern classicism.20 In fifteen lines the poet recreates in beautiful biblical Hebrew the world of the ancient bedouin tribes: the abandoned campsites, lonely tents, and desert traces where only the foraging beasts still roam. The poem’s love imagery blends in beautifully with this setting: the beloved is termed a gazelle (ªofer) or a buck (tzevi), and the landscape that the speaker “embraces” is in the shape of a hill (3a), inevitably calling to mind the human form. Through word-play – and a clever use of Isaiah 65: 25 – the beloved essentially becomes one with the desert itself: Since the day your gazelle (ªoferkhem) wandered your dust (ªafarkhem) is my food and where the buck treads, there I seek out my rest (l. 7) The sense of isolation and loneliness created by the landscape and the plight of the abandoned lover is heightened through the presence of the “ravens of separation,”21 frequent symbols in medieval Arabic and Hebrew poetry but here especially prominent through the use of pronounced word-play: 20 21

See Fleischer, in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 517. On the “ravens of separation” in Hebrew poetry, see Yellin, Torat ha-shirah ha-sefaradit, p. 24.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat

10

But there was naught found there apart from the ravens (ªorvei) of parting, which turned my heart black (le-ªorev) taking my treasure (ªarubati) Henceforth, when hearing the ravens (ªorvei) of parting I will ask “Is that my heart, or the raven (ªorev) of separation?”

There is a strong narrative element in this at.l¯al, with dialogue, imagery, and memory all creating a story-line of lost love and despair. The dialogues play an important structural role in moving the poem from at.l¯al to panegyric, though at first they appear to be little more than a sounding board for the speaker’s feelings. The first two dialogues occur only in the speaker’s thoughts as he challenges, and is challenged by, the physical remains of the abandoned campsites: the foundations (l. 2) and walls (ll. 5; 12) of his beloved’s crumbling dwelling. But by the time we reach the third dialogue (l. 14) we are dealing with what purports to be real dialogue with real people and not with inanimate remains, thus leading us out of the desert into a world where people and deeds are what matter, and hence closer to the poem’s very raison d’ˆetre: praise for the poem’s recipient. Only – we’re not quite there yet! The road to praise leads first through a courtroom scene. The crime? Stealing roses from the garden of the beloved’s face. The accused? The lover’s eyes. The penalty? Nothing less than the lover’s heart. The issues at stake are phrased in strict legal terms: If the blood of his face was spilt yesterday by my eyes, will he, to exact payment for his cheeks, pour out my gall? Or if I sinned in stealing his roses somewhat, should I have to pay with my heart for my theft? (ll. 16–17) The accused is anxious to defend himself and to place the blame for his theft where it belongs: on the irresistable beauty of his beloved. But alas! precedent is against him:

20

My wrath goes out against a poem that says “Gazelles can’t be held guilty!” and my complaint [is against] its author Who sets the bastions of learning on their foundations and researches every part of his judgments; yet my question understands not. He is Rabbi Judah, the very core of the foundation of learning; his name is known in Yeshaª, and from him comes my glory.

Thus the author of this precedent is Rabbi Judah, and from here the poem is all about praise. True, the speaker seems to disagree with Judah’s “decision,” but this is a deft compliment to Judah himself, since the poem has set up an equation between the “gazelle” and the subject of all the praise – Judah ibn Ghayyat. This transition is interesting for a number of reasons, and not the least because it appears to make a reference to another poem; one written by Judah ibn Ghayyat which includes the words: “Gazelles can’t be held guilty!” This poem has not come down to us, but the idea is a familiar one in medieval Hebrew poetry; and indeed we came across a similar line in ªImdu ªamodu, with the abandoned lover demanding: 50

First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat Don’t lovers have a criminal case against you for trying us so dearly? (l. 3) This reference to a poem by Ibn Ghayyat was a clever touch on Halevi’s part, for it proves his esteem for, and knowledge of, the latter’s poetry. What author can resist having his words quoted? It is a compliment indeed, and all the more striking for the barrage of conventional praise that follows. Yet even in the midst of the conventional praise there is a certain continuity of imagery that both unifies the poem as a whole and creates important contrasts. In line 20 Ibn Ghayyat is called “the foundation of learning,” an epithet that is scarcely original but that resonates well with the images in the first part of the poem. It creates, moreover, a striking contrast with the desolation characterizing that earlier part (ll. 2; 4–6). One senses that this foundation will never be abandoned or threatened by the inroads of time, or his courtyards overgrown with the weeds of scholarship. Memory is another important factor in creating unity and contrast. The at.l¯al as a genre is all about memory; indeed what is the at.l¯al but memory re-enacted? Only, in the at.l¯al memory evokes loss and desolation; in the panegyric it is a candle that lights up the dark (l. 28), and a joyous song over wine (l. 25). In the at.l¯al memory is linked to love evanescent; in the panegyric to love eternal, unthreatened by Time. Although the praise-part of the poem seems to move us out of the past and into the present world of reality, it is, of course, no less a created lyrical world than the at.l¯al, and the poet’s “memory” of the poem’s addressee has little, if anything, to do with strict biographical truth. And in fact, it is very clear that Judah Halevi had not actually met Judah ibn Ghayyat when he wrote the poem; he had only heard of him: Never yet have I beheld him, apart from his good name, but the candle of his memory shines through my darkness (l. 28) This is important internal evidence for placing the poem at the beginning of the relationship between the two poets, that is, prior to Halevi’s visit to Granada. That Granada was Ibn Ghayyat’s home we know from other sources, such as Ibn Ezra’s Kit¯ab almuh.a¯ d.ara,22 and Halevi here refers to Granada with a charming word-play on the city’s name:

30

Nor was your city truly called “Pomegranate”[rimon], till it contained Judah, the glory of my learning. I will go up into the pomegranate [rimon] of my beloved, and hold on to his boughs; is not the juice of the pomegranate rimon my medicine? (ll. 29–30)

Halevi calls the city of Granada by the Hebrew name Rimon or “Pomegranate,” the meaning of the city’s name in Spanish. Linguistically speaking this is a false etymology, since the name Granada was apparently derived from another word altogether,23 but in 22 23

Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 79 [42b]. See Chapter One, p. 1.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat terms of poetry it was a happy choice indeed, as we shall see in the poems to come. There are two ways of understanding Halevi’s words in line 29, neither of which cancels the other out. If Granada can truly be called a “pomegranate” only because it contains Judah ibn Ghayyat, then Ibn Ghayyat is like the seeds of the pomegranate fruit; its best and most fertile part. But the word “pomegranate” can also refer to the finials that ornament the Torah scrolls (rimonim in Hebrew), and this would make Ibn Ghayyat the finishing touch of the Torah scroll – an elegant reference to his stature in the world of traditional Judaism, and a high compliment indeed. Either way, Judah ibn Ghayyat thus becomes an integral part of the pomegranate: that is, the city of Granada, which Judah Halevi now expresses a wish to visit. He does so using the language of Song of Songs 7: 8–9, substituting a pomegranate for the palm tree which the lover there wishes to climb: 30

I will go up into the pomegranate of my beloved, and hold on to his boughs; is not the juice of the pomegranate my medicine?

With this, the drama of love that began in the at.l¯al comes full circle: the city of Granada becomes as much the focus of a love-quest as the abandoned campsites in the first part of the poem. The identification of Granada with the site of love’s longings is further emphasized through the reference to the medicinal value, so to speak, of the “juice of the pomegranate” (l. 30b), a remedy for lovesickness according to the Song of Songs (8: 3). In her study of the Arabic poetry of al-Andalus, Cynthia Robinson characterizes love as being “the filter through which friendship was seen,”24 a fact with which Judah ibn Ghayyat seems to have been perfectly acquainted. This we learn from the panegyric which Ibn Ghayyat sent to Halevi in reply, for it is a long – very long! – and enthusiastic poem using the same rhyme and meter as the one which he had just received, and it rivals Halevi’s poem in expressing affection. for his unknown friend. We will not translate all fifty-two of Ibn Ghayyat’s carefully scanned and rhymed lines, but instead quote selected parts of particular interest, including the lovely opening:25 Amongst the branches doves moan just as I moan:26 Why do you sound so bitter – is it because of my sighs? If weeping over the pain of the heart and spirit can help me – then O jackals and ostriches: come to my help! (ll. 1–2) The opening line of Ibn Ghayyat’s poem to Judah Halevi evokes a leafy world of trees and doves, the latter moaning sorrowfully as doves often will in medieval Hebrew and 24 25

Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 169. ÌÈÂÈ ˙ÂÓ‰ ÌȇÙÚ ÔÈ·Ó. The poem is copied in MS Oxford 1970, in the third section, which Rabbi H.iyya calls ¯‡˘‰ ‰ÁÓ‰ (“The Remaining Camp”). See Fleischer, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 509, note 117. It is printed in Haim Brody and Meir Wiener, Mivh.ar ha-shirah ha-ªivrit (Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1922), pp. 189–191. 26 Psalm 104: 12; a hymn to creation in the Bible, with birds “singing among the branches.” Here the context is not praise but sorrow, and the birds therefore become “doves.”

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat Arabic poetry, generally over the separation of loved ones.27 But if the first line places us in forest or garden, the second line carries us into the desert world of jackals and ostriches, also symbols of human mourning in a tradition going back to the Hebrew Bible.28 It is, therefore, not a sense of place which the poem seeks to establish, but images of desolation and sorrow. Whether we are in a garden or the desert, forest or wasteland, the denizens of that landscape have no other function than to serve as a personification of the speaker’s feelings. Thus by the third line all traces of a specific location vanish, and the lamentation dissolves, quite literally, into tears for the next six lines (ll. 3–8): Lo, my tears respond even before I call them and stand to attention even before requesting them Like the image of pearls or the blood of the innocent on my cheeks though indeed my tears come from my liver [ . . . .] In line 8 we learn the cause for all this mourning: the loss of the speaker’s youth, “stolen by Time” (l. 8). Like the lament over separation, lost youth is also a popular topic in medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry, and it appears in both with a wonderful disregard for biographical truth. Here our speaker develops the theme along accepted lines, using obligatory motifs that pitch the “the snow of his locks” (l. 7) against his hair “once black as night” (l. 15), and the “sweetness of [youth’s] honeycomb” against the poison of “old age” (l. 9).29 The laments continue at length amidst conventional images of misspent youth until, in line 25, the poem shifts into something truly extraordinary. This is nothing less than a Hebrew example of the Arabic rah.¯ıl, or “journey,” in which the poet-speaker is seen racing across the landscape in images that evoke the ancient desert warrior astride his noble steed. While this journey is a vital part of almost every Arabic panegyric in the classical tradition, it was not adopted into Hebrew poetry along with the at.l¯al and other prominent themes of Arabic poetry. In fact, the following lines may be the only example of the rah.¯ıl in Hebrew:30 25

I will measure with my feet valleys31 not of my purchase; and the river of lands not of my inheritance With my horse like an eagle and my chariot like a storm I will swallow the land;32 the end of the earth is my goal I will think as though on the wings of eagles33 I am borne, and the wind harnessed to my chariot Before I pitch my tent it will have journeyed far,

27 28 29

See Yellin, Torah ha-shirah ha-sefaradit, pp. 24–25 See for example: Isaiah 13:21; ibid. 34:13; ibid. 43:20; Micah 1: 8; Job 30: 29. The last word of line 9 is È˙¯··; we have translated it here as though it read È˙¯‚·. There is no manuscript evidence for this reading, but it does make better sense. 30 These lines appear to have been overlooked in the research; Levin notes quite simply that “there is no description of the journey through the desert” in the Hebrew panegyric; see Meªil tashbetz, 1: 129. 31 Psalm 60: 8. 32 Job 29: 34 33 Exodus 19: 4.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat

30

and not till I make camp will the chariots of my travel be reigned in The wandering of Cain has been decreed on my soul, though the blood of my brother does not cry out from the ground34 Those who bear their encampments from city to city ask: where is my dwelling, and whither my place of rest?

In Arabic poems the rah.¯ıl usually presents a highly detailed description of desert fauna and flora, rich in metaphors that evoke the sights, sounds, and scents of the echoing landscape. Our Hebrew rah.¯ıl is lacking in these descriptive elements, but in other ways it conforms to the standard motifs of the theme. So, for example, the poet-speaker is seen as a loner, cut off from kith and kin and the usual ties that bind people to society (l. 25). That this is the necessary condition of his proud soul and not the punishment of a criminal, is emphasized through the reference to the wandering of Cain in line 29; a reference which gives the Arabic rah.¯ıl a uniquely Hebrew dimension. Another element common to the Arabic rah.¯ıl is the emphasis on the rapidity of the poet-speaker’s steed, whether horse or camel, and the hardships and length of the journey before him. Thus the speaker likens his horse to “an eagle,” and his chariot to “a storm” that “will swallow the land” (l. 26). His goal is nothing less than “the end of the earth,” and such is his determination that he “will have journeyed far” before he even thinks of reigning in his mighty steed (l. 28). So strenuous is his journey that hardened nomads wonder at his endurance (l. 30). The rider’s determination to ride hard and fast is linked in the Arabic qas.¯ıda to the desire to reach his patron and pour out the rich stores of his panegyric. And our Hebrew rah.¯ıl is directed towards the same goal. Because the beloved and the addressee are one and the same in the lyrical world of poetry, it is not surprising to find the journey taking on the character of a love-quest. The landscape is the landscape of the at.l¯al, only in the rah.¯ıl it is hope and not memory that spur our rider on:

35

O chariot that races like a cloud,35 lead me on gently; and to the house of my beloved take the quickest route! I will embrace its stones, and grovel in its dust,36 and water its ruins with the tears of my desire Perhaps there my soul will search out he whom it loves;37 there give him my hidden loves and heart Perhaps I will search out the place of Judah’s dwelling, and there break the implements of my journey and exile. I will rejoice in his loves and bask in his choice fruits, and the dew of his mouth will extinguish the flame of my desire and thirst!

Once the journey is complete and the noble addressee reached at long last, the poem can fulfill its primary function, and that, of course, is panegyric: 34 35 36

Genesis 4: 10. Isaiah 19: 1. Psalm 102: 15, in which it is Zion that is so ardently desired. Using these biblical words in the present context thus transfers the desire for Zion onto desire for the poem’s addressee. 37 Song of Songs 3: 1.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat

40

Who is this, that has come out of Edom38 on the thoughts of dream, robbing my sleep and taking me ransom?39 He is more pleasant than a bundle of silver and purest myrrh;40 he is my delight and the subject of my praise! He scattered his lights like a bright star41 on the wings of his dawn and removed the veil from the cloud of my fog and darkness He has outdone his own reputation for intelligence, which amazes my wisdom and astounds my comprehension Ever since the day his perfumed winds started blowing, his dwelling is within my heart, and his life is my dwelling.

Here our poet blends the biographical world with the lyrical, as Judah Halevi “comes out of Edom” – that is, Christian Spain – to walk straight into the poet’s dreams, like the taif or “phantom” lover of Arabic poetry.42 But phantom or not, Judah Halevi still comes in for his full share of conventional praise, with the standard emphasis on his great wisdom (ll. 38-39) and exalted reputation (l. 40), as well as on the beauty of his writing (ll. 42–45) and the powers of his poetry to “revive dying joys” (ll. 46–48). The final lines of the poem provide another interesting biographical detail; one that corroborates what we have already noted above: namely, that at the time of exchanging these poems, the two poets had not yet met:

50

O messenger that brings the embroidery of his right [hand’s] own writing Take thou the tidings of my heart; not just a reply: Your pleasant memory has planted the trees of love in my heart; take from their fruits my offering and my produce Before ever having seen you, in the shade of my heart’s walls you have dwelled, not in the shade of my threshold and wall I have sworn not to lodge another in his place, but if I have not answered him – then he will be clear of my oath!43

The end of the poem finds the poet assuring his addressee that he dwells “in the shade of my heart’s walls,” obviously regarding this as far superior to walls of a more concrete kind (l. 51). Whether Halevi – a wayfarer in a foreign land, and his invitation from Ibn Ezra perhaps not yet in his pocket – quite agreed with this preference is not altogether certain. There is much to be said for the sturdy walls of a house in some situations! but this caveat notwithstanding, one imagines that he was thrilled with Ibn Ghayyat’s magnificent poem in reply. 38 39

Isaiah 63: 1; Edom is of course Christian Spain. I Samuel 17: 18. The bibical context is infinitely more prosaic; there it is a matter of giving a token in exchange for corn and grain. 40 Exodus 30: 23. 41 Isaiah 14: 12. 42 In his edition of The Mufaddaliyat (Oxford, 1921), p. 2, Charles James Lyall explains the taif as the .. “Phantom, i.e. of the beloved. This is a constantly-mentioned convention of these amatory preludes.” On the figure of the taif in Hebrew poetry, see Levin, Meªil tashbetz 1: 19. and idem, “Ha-bekhi ªal h.arevot ha-meªanot,” pp. 401–407. 43 Genesis 24: 8.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat

* * * This exchange of poems is interesting as a study in classicism. Judah Halevi is not known for his classicizing tendencies; in fact, very few of his qas.¯ıdas can be considered classical at all. Fleischer writes that Halevi “treated the ancient and ponderous traditions of Arabic poetry rather lightly,” a fact that he attributes to Halevi’s wonderful sense of humor, which is apparent in so much of his secular poetry.44 All this is certainly true. But if any of Halevi’s poems can compete for the title of “most classical,” surely it is Ma-li leravot.45 Other Hebrew poets wrote at.l¯als: Samuel ha-Nagid and Moses ibn Ezra are the two that come most readily to mind.46 But for all their classicizing tendencies, neither can boast of an at.l¯al as long or developed as the at.l¯al in Halevi’s poem to Judah in Ghayyat. True, here too the at.l¯al remains in what Levin calls “the ornamental framework” that characterizes the Hebrew examples of the theme, and is certainly far less detailed (and significantly shorter) than the at.l¯als in Arabic poems. Nevertheless, it may well be the fullest example of its kind in Hebrew. As an exercise in classicism, even more can be said of Judah ibn Ghayyat’s poem in reply. It is not only that here we have the one and only example of a Hebrew rah.¯ıl – a classical Arabic theme par excellence – but that the entire structure of the poem corresponds with known Arabic models. Thus we have a poem that begins with a lament for lost youth (ll. 1–24), continues with a rah.¯ıl, or the journey through the desert (ll. 25–35), and from there shifts into praise of the addressee (ll. 36–52). This is the very same structure found in panegyrics by such masters of Arabic poetry as al-Mutanabb¯ı and Ibn Khaf¯aja, to name only a few. If Judah ibn Ghayyat was indeed the son of Isaac ibn Ghayyat, then the son attained what the father never did, and that is a good command of Arabic literature and poetry. In Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara Moses ibn Ezra remarks that despite the beautifully polished Hebrew of his teacher, Isaac ibn Ghayyat, his poems in quantitative meters were somewhat marred by his poor knowledge of Arabic.47 But Judah ibn Ghayyat’s was a different generation, and from a sociological point of view his qas.¯ıda throws quite an interesting sidelight on the processes of acculturation. If neither poet leaned towards classicism, the question, then, is why did they indulge in it here? As a newcomer from Christian Spain, necessarily suspected of being less than proficient in the art of writing good poetry, Halevi may have felt it necessary to counter this suspicion at the outset by writing a poem according to all the rules, after which Ibn Ghayyat answered in kind. Or perhaps the two young poets simply regarded their compositions as a kind of enjoyable literary exercise, one that allowed them to “show their stuff,” so to speak, and to prove their mastery of the standard motifs. Or maybe it was just because they had not yet met, and until they could take each other’s measure it seemed prudent to err on the highbrow side of things. Certainly these qas.¯ıdas are 44 45

Fleischer, in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 517. Perhaps the most serious competitor for this title would be Halevi’s ªAyin nedivah (“A generous eye”) in D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 137–141 (no. 94). 46 For examples of atl¯ . als in the work of other Hebrew poets, see D¯ıw¯an Shemuel ha-Nagid (Ben Tehilim), ed. Dov Yarden, p. 200 (no. 62), ll. 1–10; and Moshe ibn Ezra: Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 90 (no. 91), ll. 1–9; p. 278 (no. 260), ll. 1–12. 47 Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 73 [39a]. It is interesting to compare this remark with his comment (ibid., p. 77 41a) about his brother Isaac, whose excellence in poetry Ibn Ezra attributed to his “absolute command of Arabic culture.” See Chapter Four, p. 64.

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First Contacts with Judah ibn Ghayyat nothing like the poems which Judah Halevi subsequently wrote for Ibn Ghayyat during the Granada period soon to commence. There, among the good fellowship of his friends in Granada, classicism gave way to poems that were certainly no less learned, no less sophisticated and rigorous, and yet infinitely more light-hearted in nature, as we shall see in the following chapters.

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Chapter Four

A STAR IS BORN: JUDAH HALEVI IN GRANADA

The Hebrew circle of poets that Judah Halevi now joined in Granada was in many ways a reflection of Andalusi society, and Andalusi court society in particular. It is not just that these Hebrew poets adopted Arabic meters and rhyme-schemes in their poetry, or put their hand to such genres of poetry as wine-poems and erotic love songs, or peopled them with the lovely gazelles or querrelous fault-finders so endemic to Arabic poetry. They did all this and more, and the ways in which Hebrew poets wove Arabic models, themes, and motifs into the fabric of their own poetry has long been a staple of scholarship. But in many ways, it also seems that these poets fashioned a kind of group persona, modeled, whether consciously or not, on certain paradigms of self-representation prevalent in what might be seen as parallel Muslim groups amongst the courts of the Andalusi kings. Thus it is not just the poems written by members of the Granada circle that we will be looking at in the coming pages, but also the ways in which the poets represented themselves and their world by means of their poetry. If we look through the chronicles of the Muslim kings or the great collections of Arabic poetry that have come down to us from al-Andalus, we immediately become aware of one of the most ubiquitous institutions of court life, and that is the king’s “booncompanions” or nad¯ıms, as they are known in Arabic. Now, royal boon-companions were not an invention of Muslim Spain. We find them in the sources going back to ancient Parthia four hundred years before Islam, and firmly entrenched at the legendary court of Har¯un al-Rash¯ıd in ninth-century Baghdad.1 They followed strict codes of etiquette and behavior, and as the companions of princes they drew a princely salary. There is a tremendous bibliography on the subject of royal boon-companions; from the medieval sources listed by one scholar of this institution it seems that just about everyone at all involved in statecraft or court life had something to say on the subject.2 One knowledgeable insider, the ªAbbasid vizier Niz.a¯ m al-Mulk (d. 1092), observed that the “boon-companion is the reflexion of his ruler. If he is affable, liberal, patient, gracious, the ruler is likely to be so too.”3 Elsewhere he describes the boon-companion’s duties: serving as companion and unofficial body-guard to the king, lending an ear to the king when he was inclined to frivolity, and, no less important, repeating “all sorts of things – bad and good” – that other courtiers might prefer not to say.4 1 Anwar G. Chejne, “The Boon-Companion in Early ªAbbas¯ıd Times,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 85 (July-September 1965), p. 330. 2 Ibid., p. 328. 3 Niza . ¯ m al-Mulk, Siy¯aset n¯ameh, trans. by H. Darke as The Book of Government or Rules for Kings (New Haven, 1960), p. 94. Quoted from Chejne, “The Boon-Companion in Early ªAbbas¯ıd Times,” p. 331, note 38. 4 Ibid., p. 331.

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A Star is Born Other activities of the boon-companions depended on the character of the individual king and the nature of his court, and we meet them in a variety of contexts: playing chess, carousing over wine, hunting in the field, even whipping up dishes in the king’s own kitchen.5 But in eleventh-century al-Andalus, perhaps the place we most often meet with them is in the nightly drinking sessions held in the palace; intimate gatherings with the ruler himself presiding as host. Indeed, as Cynthia Robinson remarks, these evening sessions “featuring the choicest of wines, and the most beautiful of androgynous cupbearers, came, during the latter decades of the eleventh century, to be the quintessential sign of taifa kingship and nobility.”6 There, in the intimate setting of the majlis al-uns, or the “majlis of intimate friendship,” as they are called in the Arabic sources,7 the boon-companions recited their poems or improvised them on the spot, slave-girls sang muwashshah.as to the strains of music, and one and all debated the merits of various poems or reeled off exemplary verses on given topics. Luxury and elegance are the key notes in the anecdotes describing these evening sessions of wine, poetry and good fellowship; many of them seem to transport us straight into the pages of A Thousand and One Nights and the courtly wonders of H¯ar¯un al-Rash¯ıd. And no wonder: as Robinson has pointed out, “the private, hermetic world of the Taifa majlis was a conscious re-creation of what eleventh-century Andalusian society perceived as having been characteristic of ninth-century Baghdad.”8 While the boon-companions in al-Andalus were not primarily poets, or at least not usually,9 they often formed circles of poets linked together by ties of friendship both to each other and the king. Much of the literature produced at the Andalusi courts was aimed at, and characterized by, the theme of “loving friendships” between members of these circles. Kings were lauded for their valor in war, noble character, and generosity; nad¯ıms praised each other for their knowledge, elegance, literary talent, and pleasant ways. Cynthia Robinson, who examines the poems of “loving friendship” between royal boon-companions, characterizes them as being formulated in terms of “pure and devoted friendship”10 and cites examples from the circle of poets led by Ibn Shuhaid (992–1035), who combined the roles of royal boon-companion, vizier, and poet during the tumultuous years of the early fitna, the breakdown of Caliphal power.11 Robinson notes that these poems are almost always described in terms of affection and “love” between two male members of the aristocracy, and . . . based on equality in status, probably wealth, noble lineage, education and intelligence. Al-Fath.’s discussion of Ibn Shuhaid’s majlis indicates that it had a regular group of habitues, all bound to one another 5 6

Ibid., pp. 329–333. Cynthia Robinson, “Seeing Paradise: Metaphor and Vision in taifa Palace Architecture, Gesta 36, no. 2 (1997), p. 150. 7 Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 75. 8 Cynthia Robinson, “Ubi Sunt: Memory and Nostalgia in Taifa Court Culture,” Muqarnas: An Annual of the Visual Culture of the Islamic World 15 (1998), p. 24. 9 Robinson notes that most of the boon-companions also served the Taifa rulers in some official capacity; see In Praise of Song, p. 78; pp. 97–98, and esp. note 26. 10 Ibid., p. 112. 11 For a thorough discussion of this interesting personality and the times in which he lived, see James Dickie, “Ibn Suhayd: A Biographical and Critical Study,” Al-Andalus 29 (1964), pp. 243–310. The members of Ibn Shuhaid’s literary circle are listed on p. 260.

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A Star is Born by sentiments of this nature. . . . In a garden-like world of pleasures, whose eternity and potential equivalence to heavenly paradise is implied in sleepless s¯aq¯ıs or “cupbearers,” albeit never overtly asserted, Ibn Shuhaid and his companions construct their “courtly” personae which praise, and are praised, in lyric verse, rhymed prose and song.12 Elsewhere, Robinson refers to these poems between poets as virtual “love-letters,”13 as indeed they are, right down to their allusions to love-sickness, sleepless nights, stargazing lovers, and jealous watchers. In these poems it is as though the speakers were transforming themselves into the lyrical “I” of their own love-songs and wine-poems to create a world bound solely by the ties of noble friendship. All this will probably sound familiar to anyone who has read even a sampling of the Hebrew panegyrics included in the earlier chapters, with their abundant allusions to love’s sweet agonies. In many ways, then, it seems that it was not only in the evening drinking-parties of the Muslim elite that, to quote Robinson, the “private, hermetic world” of ninth-century Baghdad was recreated. Our Hebrew poets took elements of the majlis al-uns to create a literary persona of their own, refracting them through the prism of their own needs and requirements, imitating here, rejecting there – adapting, changing and sifting – but always with an eye to the paradigm of the elite courtly model. We are not always in a position to say to what extent the Hebrew poets absorbed the practices of the majlis al-uns, just as we can not always be sure how much of what we read in the Arabic poems reflect actual events or places. Even when the Arabic poems are preceded by anecdotes – as they frequently are – purporting to unfold the circumstances in which a given poem was composed, we are left in doubt, as Robinson puts it, “as to whether the gathering took place in a palace, in a garden, in a palace within a garden . . . or perhaps only in the drunken imagination of the audience who hears the composition as it is improvised or sung.”14 What is clear, however, is that whatever the reality, our Hebrew poets showed a desire to recreate the “majlis of intimate friendship” within the realm of their own poetic world and to represent themselves as loving friends and boon-companions. If Hebrew poets without king, court, or castle could cast themselves into the role of royal boon-companions, this is largely due to the unique nature of Andalusi Jewry and to the values espoused by at least a segment of its upper classes. One might assume that what made good nad¯ım material in Muslim society would not be so auspicious in Jewish society, and vice-versa, yet there are in fact striking parallels between the two groups that transcend religious differences and speak of a commitment to a larger social agenda. And indeed a variety of circumstances combined in al-Andalus to produce a type quite likely, as Ezra Fleischer puts it: to surprise those accustomed to the more traditional type of Jewish scholar. Spain was undoubtedly a great center of Torah study, and its academies were known the world over. The great sages of al-Andalus play an important role in the history of 12 13 14

Robinson, In Praise of Song, pp. 112–113. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 85.

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A Star is Born Jewish law, and many members of this great community no doubt devoted their energy to traditional studies. Nevertheless, the educated classes did not shy away from secular studies, and they combined an amazing knowledge of Torah and Jewish law with a no less amazing knowledge in the secular branches of learning. Many of these scholars belonged to the upper classes, and their opinions, attitudes, and lifestyle were no different from anyone else around them. Many were closely acquainted with the reigning poets of their day, and not a few of them composed poetry themselves: not just religious poetry, but secular poetry as well, including poems of the most daring kind in terms of both language and content.15 Fleischer’s portrait of the educated Jew in Andalusi society rightly emphasizes the fusion of traditional Jewish learning with the secular branches of knowledge cultivated in aristocratic Arabic society.16 This is a point certainly born out by the brief biographies in Ibn Ezra’s Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, where our poets are praised time and again for their mastery of both Hebrew and Arabic, and for their prowess in both Jewish law and such fields as linguistics and medicine. Like the Muslim poets of al-Andalus, the Hebrew poets were highly literate and highly educated individuals, and at certain vital points in the curriculum their education ran in parallel courses.17 The study of Holy Scripture was of course central to elementary education for both Muslims and Jews, but in al-Andalus there was a striking tendency to expand the curriculum in the direction of poetry and belles-lettres.18 According to one medieval authority, the ninth-century Ibn Qutayba, any Muslim with pretensions to culture had to be familiar with “accounts concerning the prophets, kings and scholars, their genealogies and ancestors; [and] history of the Arabs.”19 So while Muslim pupils were studying the Koran and Islamic law and traditions, Jewish children were studying the Bible and the works of the sages – and both were also absorbing the poetry and literature prized by Andalusi society. Poetry was a vital element in the medieval curriculum under Islam, with pedagogues appreciating the ability of poetry to foster language ability among children and build character through examples of what society considered noble behavior. As one king urged the royal tutor, “make them recite poetry and they will attain nobility and lofti-

15 Ezra Fleischer in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, pp. 483–484; this section written entirely by Fleischer. 16 On the subject of Jewish educational interests in al-Andalus, see Shelomo Morag, “Living Traditions of the Hebrew Language,” in The Sefardi Legacy, ed. Haim Beinart (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992), esp. 104–105; David Romano, “The Jews’ Contribution to Medicine, Science and General Learning,” in ibid., esp. pp. 240–249. 17 The Muslim curriculum throughout the Middle Ages included Arabic language and grammar, rhetoric, literature, commentary, law and traditions of the Prophet; many students also privately studied philosophy, astrology, astronomy, geometry, medicine and natural sciences. See Bayard Dodge, Muslim Education in Medieval Times (Washington: The Middle East Institute, 1962), p. 29. 18 ªAbd al-Rahman ibn Khald¯ un, Muqaddima, trans. Franz Rosenthal (Bollingen Series, 1958), 3: 263. The . educational program espoused by the influential Ibn al-ªArabi of Seville, a contemporary of Judah Halevi, included language, poetry and arithmetic; disciplines which he saw as enhancing and improving the study of Koran, not displacing it. See Avner Gil’adi, Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval Muslim Society (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 56. 19 Ibn Qutayba, Kit¯ ab al-maªarif (“The Book of Knowledge”), cited in Wen-Chin Ouyang, Literary Criticism in Medieval Arabic-Islamic Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), p. 64.

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A Star is Born ness.”20 Muslim scholars, linguists, and professional scribes all recognized the value of poetry and it was taught side by side with penmanship and the study of the Koran as early as the ninth century.21 All this struck a responsive chord among the Jews of al-Andalus, or at least amongst the classes from which our poets would have sprung. Just as Arabic poetry was seen as having a propaedeutic value for the study of Islam,22 Hebrew poetry was considered a tool for elucidating the sacred texts of Judaism and for learning Hebrew grammar and lexicology. As a youth in the famed Jewish academy in Lucena, Jonah ibn Janah. would read the poems of his teacher, the noted poet Isaac ibn Mar-Saul, and then talk them over with him – a pedagogical method that obviously paid off, considering Ibn Janah.’s subsequent achievements in the field of Hebrew grammar.23 Moses ibn Ezra quotes Aristotle’s maxim that “no philosopher can do without knowledge of poetry” and goes on to discuss the desirability of teaching children poetry at a young age “when the plaster is fresh and the wood soft.”24 The twelfth-century Joseph ibn ªAknin, a contemporary of Judah Halevi, counseled the age of ten as the ideal time to start teaching children the art of poetry (hokhmat .ha-shirah); that is before beginning Talmud at fifteen, but after learning the Bible, Mishna, and the finer details of Hebrew grammar from books that he specifically names.25 We might also add that the thirteenth century Joseph ha-Ezovi, also bade his son “to ponder poetry and know its ways” in a long didactic poem that he wrote on the occasion of his son’s marriage.26 He lived, to be sure, in Perpignan, but like the other Jews of Provence he was subject to the cultural hegemony of al-Andalus and hence his educational ideas fall neatly into the Sefardi sphere of culture. But the Jews of al-Andalus did not devote all their attention to Hebrew studies: they also studied Arabic language and literature and indeed valued them greatly: witness Ibn Ezra’s disparaging remarks about the poetry of his otherwise esteemed teacher, Isaac ibn Ghayyat, whose deficiencies he ascribed to poor Arabic. His brother, Isaac, on the other hand, came in for praise as a poet due to his knowledge of Arabic culture.27 With such training and education, how could our Hebrew poets not look to the royal courts or fashion a group persona in their image? Royalty has ever set the fashion, and there were too many parallels between the two groups of poets – Jewish and Muslim – for the Hebrew poets not to model themselves upon the courtly paradigm. True, there 20 ªAbd al-Malik b. Marwan, cited in Ibn ªAbd Rabbihi, Al-ªiqd al-far¯ıd (“The Unique Necklace”), 7 vols., ed. Ahmad Amin, Ahmad al-Zayn, and Ibrahim al-Ibyari (Cairo: Lajnat al-Taºlif wa al-Tarjama wa al-Nashr, 1948), 5: 274. This quotation comes from Ouyang, Literary Criticism, p. 64. The great Arabic philosopher, Averroes (1126–1198), is noted as having studied philology, poetry and Islamic law by Josep Puig in “Materials on Averroes’s Circle,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51/4 (1992), pp. 244–245. 21 Ouyang, Literary Criticism, p. 64. 22 Dodge, Muslim Education in Medieval Islam, pp. 31–42. 23 Jonah ibn Janah, Sefer ha-riqmah (“The Book of Embroidery”), ed. W. Wilinski (Berlin, 1921), p. 226. . 24 Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, pp. 137 [73b]; 141 [74b–75a]. 25 Ibn ªAknin unfolds his ideal curriculum in Marpeh nefashot, while explaining his “seventh condition” for teachers. Printed in Assaf, Meqorot le-toldot ha-h.inukh, 2: 38. 26 The relevant lines from Ezovi’s poem, Qeªarat ha-kasef, (“The Silver Bowl”) are published in Assaf, Meqorot le-toldot ha-h.inukh, 2: 49. The entire poem is published in J. Ch. Wolfius, Bibliotheca Hebreae (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1715–1733), pp. 1136–1137. The poem has also been translated into English by J. Friedmann in “Joseph Ezobi’s Silver Bowl,” Jewish Quarterly Review O. S. 8 (1895), pp. 535–538. The poem had a long and interesting history; several aspects are discussed in Ann Brener, “Portrait of the Rabbi as Young Humanist: A Reading of Elijah Capsali’s Chronicle of Venice,” Italia 11 (1994), esp. pp. 49–51. 27 See above p. 50.

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A Star is Born was no sovereign – no ruler to whom the Hebrew “boon companions” could pay homage – but if we look back at Halevi’s rhymed letter to Ibn Ezra, is it just coincidence that he calls Ibn Ezra the “king”?28 Perhaps this, and not the identity of the “king” in this letter, is a more fruitful question than that which has previously been raised in the research. Within the Muslim milieu of boon-companions, the king was not only the actual head of state but also a full participant in the courtly pleasures of the majlis. “Indeed,” as Robinson remarks, “the sovereign is often praised as the very origin of the pleasures, literature, brotherhood, and sweet agonies of this noble love.”29 Such being the case in the Muslim milieu, surely our Jewish “boon-companions” found it appropriate to deem their leading poet “king,” if only to impart a truer sense of majlis to their own particular circle.

* * * Up until the arrival of Judah Halevi there were, at the very least, five afficiendos of Hebrew poetry in Granada: Moses ibn Ezra, his three brothers Isaac, Joseph and Judah, and of course Judah ibn Ghayyat, whom we met back in Chapter Three. In the eyes of at least one expert on the subject, the famed Arabic poet Ab¯u Nuw¯as (d. ca. 814), this would have meant a majlis made-to-order.30 Isaac, the eldest of the four Ibn Ezra brothers, was a highly talented poet and in Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara the author admiringly notes his brother’s “delicacy of expression and sweetness of poetry,” which he attributes to “his absolute command of Arabic culture.”31 Joseph and Judah ibn Ezra, if not poets themselves, certainly played the role of appreciative audience, as we shall see further on. In addition to these poets-in-residence, Judah Halevi also had contact during this Granada period with several other poets living elsewhere in al-Andalus, such as Joseph ibn Sahal of Cordoba, and Solomon ibn al-Muªallim of Seville. Judah Halevi had certainly paved the way for his meeting in Granada, establishing his credentials as rising-young-poet as carefully as any diplomat preparing for a visit of state. Is it just a coincidence that his portfolio, so to speak, could boast a sample of all three major poetic genres: a long qas.¯ıda or ode, a letter in rhymed-prose, and a muwashshah.a, complete with Arabic kharja? Probably not. In terms of both form and content, these three works would give eloquent testimony to the qualifications of the aspiring young poet and admit him into the hallowed ranks of fellow-poet and boon companion. In fact, it might not be out of place to compare him with one Ibn Sharaf, an Arabic poet who, having properly completed his poetic training, now took the next step and sent in a “job application” to al-Muªtad.id, king of Seville, in the form of five qas.¯ıdas.32 These poems, as Robinson describes them, are composed entirely on lyrical themes in the language of amor de lonh in a way that is strikingly reminiscent of Halevi’s 28 When the other poets urge him to complete the poem modeled after Leyl mahshavot, Halevi reports . himself as having replied: “Is there anyone who actually boasts / of imitating a poem by the Prince of Hosts? / How can a wretch and a weakling / come after the king?” The research concerning the identity of this “king” is discussed in Chapter Two, pp. 35–37. 29 Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 172. 30 Ab¯ u Nuw¯as named five as the ideal number of guests at a majlis; see Chejne, “The Boon-Companion in Early ªAbbasid Times,” p. 330. 31 Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 77 [41a]. 32 Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 94.

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A Star is Born poems to Ibn Ezra and Ibn Ghayyat. Be this as it may, Halevi’s calculations seem to have paid off, for he apparently received a hero’s welcome in Granada. It is not that we have any direct evidence of his reception there. There are no postcards to family and friends back in Castile, no bills for red carpets – nothing, in short, to resemble the information which the Geniza so generously provides about Halevi’s visit to Egypt some fifty years later.33 But we do have a poem by Moses ibn Ezra that seems to belong to the very beginning of the visit to Granada: a panegyric in honor of Judah Halevi that has only recently come to light, and that begins with the words Siftei nitzanim (“The lips of flowers”). This poem is a muwashshah.a with an Arabic kharja, and it places us immediately in the kind of charmed space reserved for gatherings of boon-companions. The rhyme-scheme of this poem is unusually intricate, with composite rhyme in the strophes as well as the simts, the “girdle-like” elements of the poem. Unlike the two muwashshah.as which we saw in Chapter Two, this muwashshah.a begins with the girdlelike simt. (AB/AB) and thus becomes what the Arabic poets called “a complete poem” (t¯amm) rather than a “bald” one (akraª).34 The rhyme-scheme in the original can be given as AB/AB and then followed by cd/cd/cd/AB/AB efefefAB/AB ghghghAB/AB for five strophes altogether. The translation below only partially captures the rhymescheme of the simt.s, the poem’s fixed, girdle-like rhymes:35 The lips of flowers smiled / to see the dawn arise For they wished to drink / the tears that night-time cries.

5

10

Golden secrets flowered bright / amidst the silvered field Starry forms shone forth their light / their glow is not concealed And upon the mouth of night / their secret was revealed. Over hearts than stone much harder / an evil wind does rise I grieve that from the day they loved / they’re driven, like a leaf that dries. A wind wafted over a rose / to rob its fragrant leaves – Or Judah, I suppose, / on whom all splendor cleaves: There on high it roves / to learn about his deeds. His actions all do challenge / the very sun on high And his deeds shine forth / in the darkness of the skies.

33 In Egypt we learn of details ranging from the rivalry among the Jews of Alexandria to receive the illustrious guest to the chickens served at one of the dinners. All this information comes from the various letters and documents discovered in recent years in the Cairo Geniza. For more information concerning Halevi’s reception in Egypt, see Fleischer and Gil, Yehuda Halevi u-venei h.ugo; in English see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 5: 458—462. A list of the documents pertaining to Judah Halevi from the Cairo Geniza is given on pp. 454–455; nos. 10–23 deal specifically with Halevi’s stay in Egypt on the way to the Land of Israel. See also Yosef Yahalom, “Judah Halevi: Records of a Visitor from Spain,” in The Cambridge Geniza Collections: Their Content and Significance,” ed. Stefan C. Reif (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 123–135. 34 Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 15. 35 ÌÈˆÈ È˙Ù˘. The poem was published unvocalized by Menahem Schmelzer in Yitzhaq ibn Ezra: Shirim . (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979), Appendix 3, pp. 154–155 (no. 7). On p. 152 Schmelzer notes that “this poem was without doubt written in honor of Judah Halevi. . . . perhaps this poem is also connected to the well-known literary contest in which the young Judah Halevi showed his poetic prowess” [trans. mine]. The poem survives only in MS Silvera fols. 33r–33v.

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A Star is Born

15

A shining star from Seªir is he / for when Wisdom’s day did wane He roused the wind of tea- / ching, trembling at God’s name, For the glory of every city / he passed through all of Spain! On seeing Wisdom’s breasts / much shrunken in their size He replenished Learning’s river / with his words so wise.

20

Tell me: is he in God’s secret / that his wisdom’s so divine? Or learn from Heyman the poet, / or see a holy sign? Onyx and sapphires exit / from his mouth to every line. His poems give praise / which even Orion would prize The princes ponder all his words / to learn to their surprise.

25

I’m sick of the voice that har- / dens his heart about love true Just because old age’s stars / are shining much in view; My giddy soul, Fault-finder, / thus says this much to you: This is the law of kings / the sovereign and wise: To give my heart to love / and all else to despise.36

In the very first strophe of the poem (ll. 1–5), we find ourselves in an enchanted garden just as dawn is breaking, when all the world is reawakening to life and beauty. Night and dawn are still intermingled; the stars may have faded from the skies, but the flowers themselves become stars, unfurling their petals to reveal “golden secrets”37 and shed a silvery glow upon the rills. It is not the heavenly lights but the flowers that are the “starry forms” shining forth in line 3, and whose “glow is not concealed” in line 4; images that draw on a lovely metaphor generated by the similarity between the Arabic word for “light” (nur) and one of the words for flower (nawr).38 In Hebrew and Arabic poems without number, stars blossom in flower-beds and flowers shine in the heavens in a never-ending cycle that blurs the boundaries of creation to create a new, poetic world not beholden to the laws of physical life: the world of the majlis al-uns, the majlis of intimate friendship. In such an enchanted garden it is only natural to find Nature coming alive: flowers have lips that smile, or grow thirsty (ll. 1–2), the night has a “mouth” (l. 5), the wind prowls around like a robber (l. 8). But then comes a discordant note, all the more effective against the background of harmony and beauty: Over hearts than stone much harder / an evil wind does rise I grieve that from the day they loved / they’re driven like a leaf that dries (ll. 6–7) Human hearts become the only lifeless things in this garden, inanimate objects harder “than stone” and dried up like leaves. But then the addressee of the panegyric, Judah Halevi, comes to restore harmony: 36 37

My thanks to Dr. Haviva Ishay of Ben-Gurion University for her expert help in deciphering the kharja. For analysis of various garden images in both Hebrew and Arabic poetry see Yehuda Ratzhabi, “Perah.im be-shiratenu ha-sefaradit,” Be-orah. madaª, ed. Tzvi Malachi (Lod: Habermann Institute for Research of Hebrew Literature, 1986), pp. 373–402. On the image of flowers hiding secrets see pp. 389–390. 38 For images of flowers as stars see ibid., pp. 392–394.

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A Star is Born

10

A wind wafted over a rose / to rob its fragrant leaves – Or Judah, I suppose, / on whom all splendor cleaves: There on high it roves / to learn about his deeds.

The wind bearing the scent of the beloved friend and his good deeds is a well-established motif in both Hebrew and Arabic poetry; indeed we have already encountered it in Ibn Ezra’s Bein ha-hadasim, which the poet dedicated to his friends Abun and Joseph ibn Majnin.39 Interestingly enough, the main elements from the first part of the poem – the enchanted garden, the transition from night to dawn, and the “wind” as means of that transition – all find a parallel in an Arabic qas.¯ıda composed in 1053 by the poet Ibn Ammar in honor of the king of Seville, al-Muªtad.id, and renowned in the annals of Arabic poetry as a model of its kind. Because of the intriguing similarities, we bring the first six lines in A. R. Nykl’s beautiful translation:40

5

Pass the glass round: the breeze has softly risen, The stars dropped their reign, gave up their journey, The dawn brought to us it camphor-like whiteness, When the night took away fro us its dark amber: The garden seems a fair maiden dressed in a robe Embroidered with flowers, covered with pearls of dew, Or a youth, who blushingly glories in the roses, And is proud of the down-like shade in the myrtles. A garden in which the river forms a curved wrist, Glistening on a wide cloak of green herbage, Rippled by the east wind: – one would imagine It to be Ibn Abbad’s sword scattering an army!

In both poems, the transition (takhallus.) to praise is created through means of the wind, and so swiftly effected as to create the utmost surprise in the reader or audience. One moment we are in an enchanted garden at dawn, the next we are blown by the winds of takhallus. into praise of the poem’s addressee, each according to the approach characteristic of the language: martial praise in the Arabic poem; praise for wisdom and learning in the Hebrew. In both, it is just such a transition – swift and totally unexpected – as Moses ibn Ezra himself prescribed to the aspiring young poets in Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara.41 There is a beautiful unity of imagery in Siftei nitzanim: stars fade from the skies to reappear glittering in the flower-beds, and the poem’s addressee is likened to a “star shining out of Seªir” that lights up the darkened heavens. In fact he outshines the heavenly lights themselves, for in line 21 we learn that “real” stars like Orion are dimmed by his poetic talents. The wry allusion in line 24 to the poet’s old age – a conventional motif from the period – is also framed in terms of “stars;” the white hairs shine “much in view” against the blackness of the speaker’s hair. The black-and-white color imagery of this motif also echoes the color motif from line 20, which deals with the beauty of 39 40 41

See Chapter One, p. 13. A. R. Nykl, Hispano-Arabic Poetry, pp. 154–155. Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, pp. 279–281 [44a–44b].

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A Star is Born the poem-as-artifact: the poet’s words fall onto the paper like black and white jewels – “onyx and sapphire” – the latter the epitome of dazzling white, thanks to the biblical prooftext from Exodus 24:10. In yet another set of images, the wind that wafts through the roses (l. 9) is transformed into praise of the poet’s good name (ll. 10–11), only to be transformed yet again into a metaphor for his great learning (l. 14). A poem that begins like an old French reverdie with the awakening of nature at dawn is thus transformed into a beautifully composed panegyric incorporating all the standard elements of that genre in the most organic of ways. Up till line 13, there is nothing to indicate that this panegyric comes from any particular period in the life of either poet, or that the poem was even necessarily addressed to Judah Halevi; line 9 mentions only “Judah,” and there were other Judahs on the scene as well, including the poet’s own brother, Judah ibn Ezra, and of course Judah ibn Ghayyat. But the following lines seem to indicate that it was Judah Halevi, and no other, who was the recipient of this poem:

15

A shining star from Seªir is he / for when Wisdom’s day did wane He roused the wind of tea- / ching, trembling at God’s name, For the glory of every city / he passed through all of Spain!

The reference to Seªir – Christian Spain in medieval parlance – immediately takes us back to the first exchange of poems between Judah Halevi and Moses ibn Ezra. We recall that in his rhymed letter, Halevi referred to himself as “a lowly youth” who “ascends from Seªir to bask in the light” of the great luminaries of Muslim Spain. And when Ibn Ezra wrote back in Yaldei yamim (“The Children of Time”), he marveled over the talents of the newcomer so recently come from Seªir: Lo, from Seªir he shines forth to illumine the length and breadth of the world (l. 14) In Siftei nitzanim it seems that Ibn Ezra is still marveling, and hence that Judah Halevi has not yet had time to become old news. His long journey to Granada is still fresh in mind, and Ibn Ezra teases his young addressee about having “passed through all of Spain” for the glory of every city, like a young Alexander out to conquer the world. But hyperbole notwithstanding, there is a certain truth to these words: Halevi’s journey to Granada had been a long one, and if his poems are any indication he had conquered indeed. There may be other allusions in this poem to the first exchange between the two poets. In line 19 there is a reference to “Heyman the poet” – an epithet that Halevi used to refer to Ibn Ezra himself in Ah.ar galot sod (“After revealing the secret”),42 and in line 16 “Lady Wisdom” makes yet another appearance, though no longer as the lusty wench of the earlier two muwashshah.as, as here her breasts “are much shrunken in size.” All in all, therefore, it seems as though the rhymed letter and two muwashshah.as examined in 42 Lines 19–20 of Ahar galot sod: “Heyman’s his name when Wisdom calls / Moshe’s the trustiest of them . all!”

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A Star is Born Chapter Two were still echoing in Ibn Ezra’s mind when he wrote this poem. And for this reason, it seems likely that this panegyric in honor of Judah Halevi was written quite soon after he reached Granada, while everyone was still marveling over the prodigy newly come from Christian Spain. But be this as it may, Judah Halevi had definitely arrived.

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PART TWO: A CIRCLE OF HEBREW POETS

Chapter Five

THE POETRY OF WINE-DRINKING PARTIES

One lovely little poem which has apparently come down to us from the Granada period is the following quatrain Haqbel penei dodkha1 by Judah Halevi in which the poet summons his friend, Judah ibn Ghayyat, to a wine-drinking party: Show your loving face to friends, I pray, for the face of day has turned away Let nought keep you from coming, and see a sun that shines, and a sun lose sway To you the lion cub roars! and when the lion cub roars in the forest shall he not find prey? Make haste to a glass that warms the heart like summer but is cold in the hand like a winter’s day. Like many wine-drinking poems in both Hebrew and Arabic, this little poem opens the door onto a magical world of light and beauty; a world in which the laws of nature are suspended and the conventions of poetry reign supreme. Because the beloved is always described in this poetry as the sun or the moon, the poet can invite him to substitute the light of his “loving face” for the ebbing “face of day” as though one were as naturally light-giving as the other. We thus step into a world where the images of poetry operate on the same level as nature, or, as al-Jurj¯an¯ı would put it, a world in which the images of poetry “erase, through the excellency of the poet’s construction, all differences between two things or ideas, in order to establish perfect harmony among them.”2 The “perfect harmony” in this case is reinforced by the triple use of the same root (‰ßßÙ) with its different meanings: Show your loving face (penei) to friends, I pray, for the face (penei) of day has turned away (panu) (l. 1) The poet applies a similar technique in the second line of the poem, this time basing his 1 ̈́„ ÈÙ Ï·˜‰. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 174 (no. 115). The Judaeo-Arabic rubric above the poem reads: “By him [i.e. Halevi] inviting Judah ibn Ghayyat to a wine-drinking party.” Schirmann dates this poem to the “Granada period” in Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 434; Fleischer also attributes it to this era in his supplement in ibid., p. 511, and again in “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot h.ayyav,” p. 260. 2 Quoted from Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 155.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties artifice on metaphors commonly used to celebrate yet another subject: the wine goblet. Poets frequently refer to the light-dazzling qualities of these goblets as though they were light-reflecting jewels or heavenly bodies come to earth.3 In line 2 a new set of light-substituting images establishes yet another “perfect harmony,” this time between the wine goblet and the sun: Let nought keep you from coming, and see a sun that shines, and a sun lose sway (l. 2) Once again, as in line 1, the images are paired antithetically through movement: the wine goblet reflects and gives light as it is lifted up to the mouth, just as the sun loses light as it sinks down and fades. The first two lines also establish an equivalence between the wine-goblet and the poem’s addressee: both become creatures full of light, intoxicating joy, and beauty. The world of the wine-poem is a magical world indeed, a world of paradox and beauty that makes perfect sense: Make haste to a glass that warms the heart like summer but is cold in the hand like a winter’s day. (l. 4) Into this natural unnatural world, the roaring lion in line 3 introduces a delightful element of humor. Here we are in this totally created, magical world, and the poet sets up a proposition that refers us to the law of the jungle. Can a lion roar and not find prey? Of course not! In the upside-down world the poet has created, the victim is bound to present himself for prompt devouring: To you the lion cub roars! and if the lion cub roars in the forest shall he not find prey? (l. 3) The lion, of course, is the poet himself: “Judah,” as we already saw in Chapter Three, is often called a “lion” or a “lion’s cub,” due to the biblical prooftext from Genesis. In roaring at Ibn Ghayyat Halevi is making humorous use of both the verse from Amos 3: 4 (“will the lion roar in the forest when he has no prey?”) and the conventions of wine-poetry. Who could resist an invitation like this? And indeed, one suspects that Judah ibn Ghayyat submitted to these roars with the best of grace, and took himself off to the wine-party in record time. In using a poem to invite his friend to a wine-party, Judah Halevi seems to have been following established custom. Another poem of invitation, this time in Arabic, has come down to us from the hand of a prince of the Taifa kingdom of Almeria, a contemporary of Judah Halevi who invited a friend to “shine” at his wine-session using images rather 3 The images of the medieval Hebrew wine-poem are discussed in Levin, Meªil tashbetz 2: 147–286, with special reference to the images of light in the Arabic khamr¯ıya in pp. 211–212. The motifs of Arabic winepoetry receive excellent treatment in Philip F. Kennedy, The Wine Song in Classical Arabic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties similar to those in Halevi’s Hebrew poem: My friend, my lord, nay my support In dire events brought on by adverse Fate! Come, shine on the sky in the place of the moon Which hides herself from the eyes of the envious Come quickly, for my love is with me here, And my mouth longs for the cup in my hands!4 Nykl, whose lovely translation we cite here, brings two other examples of Arabic poems of invitation in his book, and Dan Pagis has pointed to Hebrew wine-poems by Moses ibn Ezra that may also have served a similar purpose. These poems often begin with such invocations as “O friends, drink with me,” or “Turn with me to sit in the perfumed garden” or “Take this crystal goblet.”5 The following little poem by Moses ibn Ezra, for example, may well have been used to summon his friends: Come down to a garden that has donned blue and purple and wrapped itself in fine cotton and white And a river whose streams are pure and never yet fouled by foot or blight And the sun of the vine, like fire, blazes and razes but is caught up by the goblet, and held there tight And the foam on its surface is like drops of crystal, or like manna, flaky and light.6 The garden to which the poet summons his guests is a well-dressed garden indeed, in fact one royally robed in images taken straight out of the sumptuous royal banquet with which the Scroll of Esther begins (Esther 1: 6): “blue and purple” (tekhelet veargaman), “white and fine cotton” (h.ur ve-karpas). As in many Arabic wine-poems from the period, “well-dressed” gardens are also the scene of choice for Hebrew poets, who deck them out in every kind of finery the biblical language has to offer: we find lawns sporting Joseph’s striped coat, trees wrapped in the checkered robes of the High Priest, and flower-beds in embroideries fit for a princess.7 To tempt his guest even further, the poet describes the red wine in the crystal goblet using the paradox of fire and ice so beloved to medieval wine-poetry. The fire of the wine contrasts with the icy touch of the crystal goblet (l. 3) and also with the foam “like manna” bubbling on its rim (l. 4). The foam is cold and white by implication since manna is described in the Bible as being white “like hoarfrost on the ground” (Exodus 16: 14). Let us look at yet another wine-poem of invitation by Judah Halevi. Though not neces4 Poem by Raf¯ı al-Dawla, son of the king al-Muªtasim. Quoted from Nykl, Hispano-Arabic Poetry, p. 185. . Nykl cites two other short Arabic poems of invitation to a majlis on pp. 145 and 173. 5 Dan Pagis, Moshe ibn Ezra ve-ha-meshorerim benei zemano (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1970), p. 258. 6 Ô‚‰ χ ‰„¯. Moshe ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 189 (no. 188). . 7 For a selection of such images see Ratzhabi, “Perahim be-shiratenu,” pp. 386–389. .

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties sarily dating to the Granada period it does serve to illuminate an additional aspect of the wine-gatherings of that period:

5

Turn unto your friend’s house and his wine, and his goblet will circle round his hand like the sun in orbit Purified the reddest red by glass till rubies by its ruby were put to shame by it Its splendor she saw, and concealed it, till she could no longer conceal it. When it comes inside me it puts all my sorrow to flight – and that’s the sign of the covenant between me and it! And singers after musicians with their instruments are all ranged around me, and beauties of both kinds sit.8

Though this poem first appears to focus on the beauty of the wine-goblet, a frequent theme in medieval wine poetry, as we saw in the above poem by Moses ibn Ezra, it is actually the transforming power of wine that is the main theme here, with the ability of wine to create beauty and joy. It is the wine that turns the crystal goblets into a sun of light and color more dazzling than rubies (lines 1–2), and whose beauty is so overpowering that it foils all attempts to conceal it. In line 4 the power of wine is expressed through its ability to banish sorrow. During the course of the poem, therefore, the wine transforms not only the appearance of the goblet and the mood of those who drink it but also the very nature of the poem itself, turning it from a simple paean to the wine-goblet into a celebration of wine’s transforming powers. This too is a major theme in medieval wine-poetry, and our poet gives it a light touch here through his humorous use of biblical verses. In line 3 the goblet is personfied as a woman, and not just any woman but Jocheved, the mother of Moses, who – terrified of the Egyptians – sought to hide her infant “till she could no longer conceal it” (Exodus 2: 2–3). And in line 4, the mock-solemn “sign of the covenant” between our drinker and the wine alludes to the aftermath of the Flood in Genesis 9: 12–17, where God establishes the rainbow as his “sign of the covenant” with Noah and his descendants. Thus the wine, like the rainbow, creates harmony and shimmering color in a sign that everything evil has been washed away, and that – at least for a space! – all is right with the world. All this makes for a tempting invitation indeed. But the real lure may come in the final line of the poem: And singers after musicians with their instruments (minim) are ranged all around me, and beauties of both kinds (minim) sit.9 (l. 5) Here the poet holds out the promise of music, as well as a bevy of beauties both male and female. And this would not appear to be an empty promise. In the Arabic sources, at least, the world of courtly life is full of music, singing girls, and beautiful serving lads and 8 9

Í„È„È ˙È· χ ‰Ë. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 243 (no. 23).

There is a charming word-play in this line: the Hebrew minim can mean both “different kinds” and “both genders” as well as the “stringed instruments” mentioned in Psalms.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties lasses. The Kit¯ab al-Agh¯an¯ı, al-Is.bah¯an¯ı’s famous “Book of Songs” from tenth-century Baghdad, is replete with incidents relating to singing and music, and many of the songs even record the name of the tonal and rhythmic modes to which they were sung. George Sawa, who made a thorough investigation of musical practice under early ªAbbasid rule, records a number of incidents in which singing girls sang poems to the accompaniment of music in nightly sessions of the kind examined in this chapter.10 Just how important music and song were to the success of these gatherings we learn from numerous stories in A Thousand and One Nights, from such twelfth-century Andalusi anthologies of Arabic poems as Ibn Bass¯am’s Al-Dhak¯ıra, or al-Fath.’s Qal¯aºid or Mat.mah. al-anfus, and also from a little treatise which al-J¯ah.iz. (776–869) devoted to the subject of singing girls about a century or so before al-Is.bah¯an¯ı.11 The Jewish sources, on the other hand, are significantly less eloquent on the subject of music and song. To be sure, a number of works dealing with music were written by Jews in medieval times and even in al-Andalus itself. But these deal with theoretical aspects of music and explore such issues as the mathematical basis of music, its relationship to the harmony of the spheres, and the therapeutical value of music on the soul.12 Very few record anything like an actual experience of live music and singing. We do hear of “stringed instruments” in a rubric to a famous Hebrew poem by Dunash ben Labrat (fl. mid 10th c.), the first Hebrew poet to write in the quantitative meters of Arabic poetry: This is a poem by Ibn Labrat, may he rest in peace, about the kinds of drinking that went on night and day, in a simple meter accompanied by instruments to the sound of rushing waters and the plucking of stringed instruments and the chirping of birds in trees and the scent of all kinds of perfumes. This all describes the majlis of H.asdai al-Sefardi [i. e. H.asdai ibn Shaprut].13 This promising description, however, turns out to be a paraphrase of the poem, and may therefore be more of a testimony to the conventions of medieval wine-poetry than to contemporary musical practices. Testimony of a more definite nature appears to come in the words of Todros Abulafia, a prolific Hebrew poet from thirteenth-century Christian Spain. Todros notes that his muwashshah.as “are built on Arabic foundations,” and then adds, with a pun on the biblical text, that it is the practice to “sing these to the harp of the daughter of Ishmael” (ªal mah.alat bat Ishmael leªanot). This comment is a conflation of the stringed instrument mentioned in Psalm 88: 1 (mah.alat leªanot) and the name of Ishmael’s daughter in Genesis 28:9 (Mah.alat bat Ishmael).14 Moses ibn Ezra and Joseph ibn Tzadik both weave descriptions of music into their poems, and many strophic 10 George Sawa, Music Performance Practice in the Early ªAbbasid Era 132–320 AH/750–932 AD (Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1989), pp. 111–112. This hard-to-find book is a veritable treasure trove of information and well-documented sources. A useful summary of musical practice in al-Andalus is found in Dwight Reynolds, “Music,” in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, pp. 64–68. 11 Abu ªUthman ªAmr b. Bahr al-J¯ ah.iz., The Epistle on Singing Girls of J¯ah.iz., ed. and trans. A. F. L. Beeston (Warminster, England: Aris and Phillips, 1980). 12 These Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic sources have been collected and annotated by Israel Adler in Hebrew Writings Concerning Music (Munich: RISM, 1975). 13 MS T-S 8 K 15/8. Published in Haim Schirmann, “Ha-meshorerim benei doram shel Moshe ibn Ezra,” Yediªot ha-makhon le-h.eqer ha-shirah ha-ªivrit 2 (1936), p. 127. 14 Todros Abulafia, Gan ha-meshalim ve-ha-hidot, ed. David Yellin (Jerusalem, 1934), vol. 2, end of Part . Two, p. 5

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties poems by Abraham ibn Ezra, Halevi’s younger contemporary, are preceded in the d¯ıw¯an by a reference to the specific Arabic meter (wazn, in the Arabic) in which they were composed.15 And in one long poem describing a wine-drinking party set in a flowering garden, Moses ibn Ezra may even reveal something of contemporary majlis practice through a fleeting simile likening the birds in the trees to singing girls concealed behind curtains.16 Despite the relative paucity of Jewish sources, it therefore seems likely that the parties of “intimate friendship” attended by our group of poets included the same elements of song and music found in the evening parties of their Muslim colleagues, just as other elements of the Arabic majlis al-uns found their way into their world.

* * * What, one wonders, did the guests actually do at these wine-drinking parties? Joseph ibn ªAknin relates a charming story about one festive gathering of Andalusi intellectuals in which Judah Halevi himself delivers a Talmudic bon mot to the delight of his admiring companions.17 This gathering, however, is not necessarily of the kind we are talking about here. But we have, in fact, already seen a most concrete example of a wine-drinking party back in Halevi’s rhymed letter to Moses ibn Ezra. There, in addition to a certain amount of wine-drinking, a lot of poetry-making also went on, not necessarily of the Bachic variety. True, the muwashshah.a that Halevi composed that memorable evening did begin as a wine-poem with “a cup in my left / a fawn to the right” (Ah.ar galot sod), but the muwashshah.a that served as the pretext for its composition (Leyl mah.shavot), was not a wine-drinking poem at all, but a panegyric proper (even if a bit improper here and there). In fact, we are probably correct in thinking that a very large number of the secular poems that have come down to us on such subjects as love, panegyric, and leave-taking were also written at wine-drinking parties of the kind described in Halevi’s rhymed letter.18 This is no doubt particularly true of the muwashshah.at, since these were accompanied by the playing of instruments – or at least sung according to a specific melody – that would have fostered the composition of imitations on the spot. The ability to improvise was much prized in Andalusi society. Most of the poems that al-Fath. ibn Kh¯ak¯an (d. 1134) brought in his famous anthologies of Arabic poetry were supposedly composed extempore for specific occasions.19 Ibn Khat.¯ıb cites numerous 15 Lines 30–38 of Moses ibn Ezra’s Âȯ‡ ÂÁ„˜ ˘‡ (“The lights flashed fire”) refer to a “bell-shaped lute” and describe the effects of music on the soul; see Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 73 (no. 72). A highly complex muwashshah.a by Joseph ibn Tzadik contains a description of music (ll. 3–8), again emphasizing its effect on the soul; see his ÏÊ‚ ‰‰‡ ÈÓÂ (“My rest, alas, has been stolen”) in Shirei Yosef ibn Tzadik, ed. Yonah David, p. 21 (no. 1). Concerning the rubrics to Abraham ibn Ezra’s secular strophic poems see S. M. Stern, “The Muwashshahs of Abraham ibn Ezra,” in Hispanic Studies in Honour of I. Gonz´ales Llubera, ed. Frank Pierce (Oxford: Dolphin Book Co., 1959), pp. 367–382; see poems no. 189, 191–193, 195. 16 „„ ÏÈÏ È„Â„‚. Printed in Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, pp. 185–188 (no. 185), l. 28. . A similar image occurs in line 4 of Ibn Ezra’s ¯ÂÓ Áȯ‰ (“Is that the scent of myrrh”) and in Halevi’s poem beginning with the same words, in line 3; both these poems are examined below in Chapter Seven. 17 Ibn ªAknin’s story, oft repeated, is recorded in his commentary on the Song of Songs, and translated from the Arabic into Hebrew by A. S. Halkin (Jerusalem: Mekitzei Nirdamim, 1964), pp. 176–178. [45a]. For an interesting analysis of the story see Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet, p. 13. 18 Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 434. 19 Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 280.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties examples of Andalusis who improvised poems, some of them quite lengthy.20 Similarly, Hebrew poets also prized the ability to improvise, and the collections of the various poets often preserve the information that such-and-such a poem was spoken extempore. Samuel ha-Nagid (993–1056) is given credit for reeling off fifteen little poems on the subject of apples in one session;21 and a number of Solomon ibn Gabirol’s poems are also termed “improvisations” in the Judaeo-Arabic rubrics in the manuscripts.22 Indeed, if we are looking for examples of Hebrew poems produced extempore we need look no farther than Halevi’s letter to Moses ibn Ezra, where we find the young poet improvising Ah.ar galot sod on the spot in response to the challenge of his fellow guests. As an example of a love poem that might have been composed under the kind of circumstances outlined in this chapter, let us suggest the following muwashshah.a by Judah Halevi. The poem begins with the words H . ama baªad raqiaª (“O sun behind your curtained hair”),23 and although no model for the poem has been found it may well have been a contrafactum of an existing Arabic poem. The poem’s rhyme-scheme is unusually complex, beginning with a prelude (in Arabic mat. laª) that can be designated as ABCD, and then continuing efefef/ABCD/ ghghgh/ABCD and so on, for five strophes altogether. The following translation conveys the internal rhyme of the simt.s (ABCD) but not that of the ghus.un, the lines of shifting rhyme indicated by the non-capitalized letters: O sun behind your curtained hair / reveal your light to me And let – I thee implore! – / a love-sick slave go free.

5

If Time thought to hide you like manna, and do me wrong Then take a seat here in my heart – you’ll see it’s firm and strong What can Time do then, if you to me belong? If I forget thy face so fair / then God, may I forget Thee! ’Tis you, O sun, I most adore: / What’s Time to do with me?

10

Why rebuke a tortured heart when you’re his sole desire? I thought you were an angel – you’ve set the bush on fire! If ’tis your wish to slay me now, I’ll do as you aspire. There’s no trickery in this prayer; / try me and see: My days are few – it’s what life’s for! – / so come be good to me.

15

What’s to fear when you’re my sun and, yes! my moonlight too? Between your lips I almost taste your balm and honey-dew – (Except that in your eyes I see an angry glance or two . . .) O why should you be so unfair / as to make a corpse of me? The roses in your cheek, amore, / themselves give life to me!

20 21

For examples cited by Ibn Khat.¯ıb see al-Maqqar¯ı, The Mohammedan Dynasties, pp. 151–167. Samuel ha-Nagid, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Dov Yarden, nos. 114–129, pp. 274–278. Most of these poems have two-lines; some have three (nos. 128–129); one of them has four (no. 116) and no. 117 has five lines. 22 Solomon ibn Gabirol, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, nos. 20, 53, 79, 156, 216 (ranging from three to ten . lines; no. 216 is a lament twenty-one lines long). All of these are called muqtadaba in the Judaeo-Arabic rubrics; two others (nos. 133, 223) are called irtij¯al. 23 ÚȘ¯ „Ú· ‰ÓÁ. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 324–325 (no. 114).

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties

20

The light and darkness of your face are bliss: When God created you, He got East and West to kiss But all around your splendor are snakes that curl and hiss! Why wear jewels like those girls there / or don embroidery? Your beauty is enough and more / to replace all jewelry.

25

You’re beauty incarnate – why deck yourself in gold? It only makes it harder, for me to kiss and hold! The Rose of Sharon then replied and sang out clear and bold: Undo your necklace, why / bother with jewelry? You’re my jewelry and that’s / enough for me.

This poem offers a virtual catalogue of motifs from the repertoire of medieval love poetry in both Hebrew and Arabic. We have a suffering lover – the “love-sick slave” in line 2 – writhing under the torments inflicted both by his cruel mistress (ll. 8–10) and by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or “Time,” as that outrageous commodity is called in medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry (ll. 3, 5). The girl is endowed with all the usual beauty marks: she is dazzling as the sun (ll. 1, 13) and the moon (l. 13); her kisses are “balm and honey-dew” (l. 14); and her cheeks are roses (l. 17). Only, and as is very proper to the genre – her beauty is used as a weapon against the lover. Her angry eyes prevent him from stealing a kiss (l. 15), and though the whiteness of her skin and the blackness of her hair blend the best of East and West (l.19), her locks seem to the lover like scorpions curling on her cheeks and preventing him from coming closer. Poetic tradition demands that she be both beautiful and cruel, and our heroine fits her job description to perfection. Although this poem is so perfect an example of medieval Arabic poetics, there are still touches here and there that make the poem distinctly Hebrew in nature as well as in language. Even if it is a contrafactum of an as yet undiscovered Arabic poem, no Arabic poet would have compared the girl to “manna” (l. 3) – the dazzling white substance that the Israelites hoarded in the desert (Exodus 16: 15, 26) – or accused the girl of inflaming her lover via images of the Burning Bush (l. 9). Only a Hebrew poet would have used words and images from the Jewish liturgy to describe the play of black and white in the girl’s beauty (ll. 18–19), and certainly only a Hebrew poet would call her the “Rose of Sharon” (l. 25), a phrase recalling the ultimate “it girl” in Hebrew poetry (Song of Songs 2:1). It is these bold Hebrew touches that give the poem its tongue-in-cheek humor and prevent the conventions from becoming cumbersome and heavy. The kharja (ll. 26–27) in this poem is somewhat anti-climatic. We expect the Rose of Sharon to sing out “clear and bold” (l. 25), but all we get is the same speaker we have been hearing throughout. Even worse, there is nothing startling or new in the kharja: everything has been said just a few lines before:

25

You’re beauty incarnate – why deck yourself in gold? It only makes it harder, for me to kiss and hold! The Rose of Sharon then replied and sang out clear and bold: Undo your necklace, why / bother with jewelry?

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties You’re my jewelry and that’s / enough for me.24 Let us recall what the twelfth-century Arabic critic, Ibn San¯a al-Mulk, had to say on the subject of the kharja, the “salt and sugar” as he termed it, of the muwashshah.a: It is the rule – indeed, it is the law – in the kharja that the transition to it should be effected by a jump and by suddenly passing from one subject to another; in addition, it should be a phrase put in the mouth of some other person.25 Not much salt and sugar in this kharja! There is no “jumping” from subject to subject, no “transition” from speaker to speaker. Of course, all this strengthens the theory that kharjas were quotations from well-known poems, so that to those who knew the song or poem in which this kharja originated, the “Rose of Sharon” actually would have been speaking in her own voice, or, more likely, belting out some lines from a popular song. So if this kharja appears to fall somewhat flat to us today, it is probably because we are not envisioning it within the context of a performance, in the midst of an audience quite capable of humming all of the latest songs of the Andalusi hit parade. But it seems that we are not the only ones to find fault with this kharja, as two other kharjas have come down to us for this same poem. One of these is an Arabic text too corrupt to read;26 the other Romance, which we bring here in Stern’s transliteration from the Hebrew characters:27 No quero tener al ªiqd, ya mama / a mano h.ulla li Cuell’ albo verad fora meu sidi / non querid al h.ulli and in our own translation: I don’t want to wear a necklace, O Mama / the dress’s enough for me My Cid will see a neck that’s white and pure: / he won’t want jewelry! From a literary point of view this Romance kharja is far more satisfying than the Arabic one quoted above; Ibn San¯a himself could not have wished for better. For one thing, the kharja provides the sudden jump recommended by Ibn San¯a, turning the dame sans merci in the rest of the poem into a young girl exceedingly anxious to please her lover. For another, the kharja is put into the mouth of a different speaker, just as Ibn San¯a prescribed. The direct appeal to the mother, a feature apparently found only in the Romance kharjas, lends the poem a certain lyrical poignancy which it otherwise lacks.28 24 This is the kharja found in MS Oxford 1971 (with only the slightest variations in the other major manuscript of Halevi’s poems, MS Oxford 1970). 25 See above Chapter Two, p. 35. 26 For a tentative translation see James T. Monroe and David Swialto, “Ninety-Three Arabic Harjas in . Hebrew Muwassahs: Their Hispano-Romance Prosody and Thematic Features,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 97, no. 2 (1977), p. 154, nos. 77–78. 27 S. M. Stern, Les Chanson mozarabes: Les vers finaux (Kharjas) en espagnol dans les muwashshahs arabes et h´ebreux (Palermo: Manfredi, 1953), no. 11. 28 See Linda Fish Compton, Andalusian Lyrical Poetry and Old Spanish Love Songs (New York: New York University Press, 1976), pp. 94–95

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* * * Improvising lines of poetry was apparently another favorite pastime at these winedrinking bouts, with one poet tossing out half a line of poetry and another catching it mid-air, as it were, and finishing it in the same rhyme and meter. Though this is an old tradition, found already in the Idylls of Theocritus (3rd century B.C.E.),29 we really need look no farther than contemporary Andalusi society to find numerous examples of such impromptu competitions. True, in the Arabic sources we find people enjoying this pleasantry in circumstances that range from physicians’ house-calls to midnight strolls around frog-ponds,30 but the majlis al-uns was apparently the scene of not a few of these poetic exercises.31 A unique Hebrew example of this kind has come down to us in a stray page from Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an and this, as Schirmann surmises, most likely dates from the Granada period of the poet’s life.32 In bringing this exchange below, the translator – for once! – need make no apology. Here is no great poetry, but light-hearted jingles that Halevi traded with the poet Joseph ibn Sahal, apparently on the subject of other guests present with them at some convivial gathering. From these bantering lines we can easily imagine the overflowing spirits of those present, and indeed, we can practically hear them. If ever there was a sound-bite from al-Andalus, surely this is it: [Judah Halevi:] Drink and rejoice in Ibn Majnin / who makes his lover’s heart careen R. Joseph ibn Sahal improvised upon it: And the rose garden in his cheek / is defended by a tanin33 And [Halevi] said of R. Elazar: Drink and rejoice in Elazar / who makes his lovers’ heart despair And R. Joseph ibn Sahal improvised upon it: He’s a priest in the Temple of Grace: / no other buck can compare! It is not clear just who were the chaps lucky enough to find their names being bandied about in this fashion, though we did meet an Ibn Majnin in Chapter One – Joseph ibn Majnin – one of the two addressees of Moses ibn Ezra’s beautiful panegyric Bein ha-hadasim. Whether this is the same Ibn Majnin we have no way of knowing, although 29 In the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, p. 885, Andrew Welsh defines these amoebaean or “responsive verses” as “verses, couplets, or stanzas [ . . .] spoken alternately by two speakers. The second speaker is expected not only to match the theme introduced by the first, but also to improve upon it in some way.” 30 Al-Maqqar¯ı, The Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, pp. 152; 157. 31 An interesting anecdote concerning the caliph Muªaw¯ıyah and his boon-companions is related in Beeston, The Epistle on Singing Girls, p. 21. no. 22. 32 T-S 8 K 1414. The Hebrew text from this stray page was published by Schirmann in “Ha-meshorerim benei doram,” Yediªot ha-makhon 2 (1936), p. 151. Halevi’s name does not specifically appear on it, but the page seems to have been torn from his d¯ıw¯an. Fleischer accepts Schirmann’s surmises in Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 485. 33 tanin: Hebrew for “Leviathan.” It is because of the rhyme that we know to pronounce the name as Majnin, and not Majnun.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties the name is certainly uncommon. But the name of Joseph ibn Sahal, with whom Halevi traded these verses, is well-known in the annals of medieval Jewry. In Abraham ibn Daud’s Book of Tradition Ibn Sahal is warmly praised as both a poet and an authority on Jewish law (dayyan) in Cordoba “who judged Israel eleven years.”34 Moses ibn Ezra also has the highest praise for Ibn Sahal, extolling him not only as the pupil of his own great teacher, Rabbi Isaac ibn Ghayyat of Lucena, but as the scion of a noble family possessing “great intelligence, brilliant poetry, wisdom in Jewish law, and clear, concise language.”35 Ibn Ezra also praises the “sweetness and daring” of his friend’s poetry as well as its “strength and grace.”36 Ibn Sahal, who died in 1124, was apparently closer in age to Moses ibn Ezra, and if so he was considerably older than Judah Halevi when they tossed these rhymes back and forth. Apart from this single incident, we have no record of any contact between Joseph ibn Sahal and Judah Halevi.

* * * Riddles were another kind of literary pastime apparently much enjoyed during these wine-drinking parties.37 Quite a number of literary riddles from some of the greatest Hebrew poets of al-Andalus have come down to us, all of them written in running rhyme and quantitative meter in the best of poetic style. Hebrew, of course, has a tradition of festive riddling situations that goes back to the Bible and the famous riddle of Samson, but in this, as in many other aspects of their literary entertainments, the Jewish poets apparently looked to their Muslim contemporaries for their models. Just as they borrowed Arabic genres for their works of secular poetry, so too they tried their hand at a specific genre of riddle known in Arabic as mutayyar, or “a riddle of birds,” based on the Arabic term for “pigeon post” – a frequent method for sending letters in this period, and one which will be discussed further in Chapter Six. This kind of riddle is dependent on a private code probably agreed upon beforehand by the parties involved, whereby, as Stern describes the “simple, if somewhat bizarre method” each letter of the alphabet corresponds to the name of a different species of bird. A few lines of poetry are composed, transcribed in this code and sent to one’s friend in the guise of a poetical epistle, the main part of which consists of a rather lengthy list of birds’ names put in rather artificial rhymemes. The friend is then supposed to decipher the epistle and to find out the original verses.38 Stern brings an Arabic poem in the mutayyar genre which the renowned Ibn Zaydun sent to the then crown-prince of Seville, al-Muªtamid, as well as the long poem of reply in which al-Muªtamid, a renowned poet himself, transcribed the solution to the riddle posed by Ibn Zayd¯un. That a similar exchange existed in Hebrew was completely unknown until Stern managed to explain an enigmatic poem by Judah Halevi on the 34 35 36 37

Abraham ibn Daud, The Book of Tradition, Hebrew section, p. 61. Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 77 [41a-b]. Ibid. Interestingly enough, the same page that preserves these improvisations also records two of Halevi’s numerous riddles. 38 S. M. Stern, “Two Medieval Hebrew Poems Explained from the Arabic,” Sefarad 10 (1950), p. 328.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties basis of this mutayyar genre, and to show that is contains the solution to a riddle posed by one of Halevi’s friends, Ab¯u Omar ibn Matka.39 But this is a particularly complex genre of riddle, and though eloquent of the close ties between literary pastimes in Arabic and Hebrew it is not representative of Hebrew riddles from medieval Spain. Indeed, like most literary riddles the world over, these Hebrew riddles usually devolve on the simplest of every-day subjects, such as a pen (a frequent subject), a sewing needle, a pair of scissors. It is not the subject of the riddle which provides the chief interest but the deft unraveling of the clues, and as one scholar of the genre has remarked, the homely nature of these subjects should not keep us from appreciating the sophistication which some literary riddles certainly display.40 Sophisticated literary riddles, with their close affinity to poetry, were an ideal form of entertainment at the kind of literary wine-gatherings discussed in this chapter. Aristotle described riddles as “a way of thinking deeply related to metaphor” (Rhetoric 3.2, 10), and solving these riddles would allow the assembled poets to indulge in all the word-games, paradoxes, and metaphors in which they delighted, and to show off their profound knowledge of Hebrew and the Bible.41 Both Arabic and Hebrew poems from this period bask in rich metaphors and descriptions, and lest anyone miss this basic fact, Moses ibn Ezra hammered the point home in his Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, insisting that poems were beautiful only when ”clothed in metaphors and ornamented with the ornaments of periphrase and allusion.”42 So close is the boundary between poetry and riddles that Ibn Ezra himself uses the adjective “riddle-like” or “puzzling” to describe the effect of metaphorical language.43 Often a riddle can only be distinguished from a non-riddle by the absence of a single word identifying the object under discussion. For example, one beautiful poem by Solomon ibn Gabirol describes a gift of pens in a dazzling kaleidoscope of images twenty-four lines long that is surely as riddle-like as any riddle ever written on the subject, only it is not a riddle since the subject is specifically mentioned in the beginning of the poem.44 But another lovely poem on the pen, this one by Moses ibn Ezra, makes use of a number of Ibn Gabirol’s images and yet is indeed a full-fledged riddle since the word “pen” does not appear in the poem itself.45 Most of Halevi’s riddles are very brief, only two to four lines long. The following riddle, Tevah demut qubah (“An ark, dome-shaped”),46 of thirty-six lines is his longest 39 40

Ibid. Charles T. Scott, “On Defining the Riddle: The Problem of a Structural Unit,” in Folklore Genres, ed. Dan Ben-Amos (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1971), p. 78 41 In her study of the Hebrew literary riddle from Golden Age Spain, Tova Rosen-Moked notes the entertainment value of these riddles in the elite circles of Jewish society. See “Lenasot be-h.idot,” Ha-sifrut 30–31 (1981), pp. 3–4, para. 2.1.4 – 2.2. Stern, “Two Medieval Hebrew Poems,” p. 327, also notes the vogue which literary riddles enjoyed during Halevi’s day. 42 Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 225 [118b]. Ibn Ezra, like the Arabic critics of his day, deems metaphor the primary “ornament” of poetry and distinguishes between metaphors (istiªara), ibid., pp. 225– 231 [118b-121b] and similes (tashb¯ıh), ibid., pp. 257–260 [134b-135b]. 43 Moses ibn Ezra, Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, pp. 285–295 [146a-154a]. And see Dan Pagis, Shirat ha-h.ol ve-torat ha-shir, pp. 55–61. 44 ‰ÓÎÁÏ ‰Ó„ ·ÂÒ „È„È (“Turn my beloved, and be like unto Wisdom”). Printed in Solomon ibn Gabirol, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 33, (no. 59). The pens are mentioned in line 5, but the ensuing flood of metaphors and similes surely effaces the subject from memory. 45 ÌÈÓÏȇ ‡‰ (“Behold the silent”). Printed in Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 33 (no. . 31). 46 ‰·Â˜ ˙ÂÓ„ ‰·˙. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 191 (no. 1).

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties by far, and also one of the most polished examples of the genre in Hebrew. The poem has come down to us in several manuscripts, all of them bearing different rubrics. The two major manuscripts of Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an simply note that the poem is a riddle about the pomegranate, and one of them (MS Oxford 1971) adds that it was sent to Judah ibn Ghayyat. A third manuscript, however, preserves a more interesting rubric, with Judah Halevi composing the riddle during a kind of poetic contest: “Judah ibn Ghayyat recited a few lines of a poem describing a pomegranate, and these not finding grace in [Halevi’s] eyes, he imitated them and said . . .”47 Whether this last rubric is true or not, these and other literary riddles from the period help us to envision the kind of fare offered for entertainment at such parties as the kind described in this chapter. The following translation does not bring all thirty-six lines of the riddle, but only selected parts, including the opening description:

5

10

An ark, dome-shaped of scarlet, / a round ball, not square With two or three rooms / like a ring’s seal fitted fair Created before Noah and the Flood / and by God’s hand prepared She appears like the sun and then hides; / rises and sets in mid-air A splendid tower on her head / hollow like a hat or headwear She has flower and thorn like the Rose of Sharon / and divides into four shares She raises proudly her head and when full / bows down to the ground there From city to city runners speed forth / carrying this royal fare She resembles a walled city whose beauty, / like Tirzah, nought can impair Her inhabitants are naked / but – heathen folk! – not ashamed to be bare They embrace like lovers, breast / to breast, and disport themselves there Colored without scarlet or dye, / no rubies can compare [ . . . .]

With our knowledge of the riddle’s solution – a pomegranate – safely (if unfairly) in our pocket, let us take a look at some of the strategies used by the poet to baffle his audience. What is most striking in the whole thing – for one who knows that the solution is a pomegranate, or in Hebrew rimon – is that the poet has made it practically impossible for anyone to guess the answer from the very first word. The very first word in the Hebrew version of the riddle is tevah, translated into English as an “ark,” and this is a feminine noun in the Hebrew. All subsequent references to the mysterious “she” of the solution refer back to this word, long after it has slipped from the listener’s mind. The solution to the riddle, on the other hand, is a masculine noun in the Hebrew (rimon, or “pomegranate”), and this deliberate blurring of the solutions’s gender makes it almost impossible to arrive at the correct solution, no matter how near one approaches. What makes this strategy all the more clever is that on several occasions the poet practically proclaims that the solution is a piece of fruit! In line 8, for example, he calls the pomegranate zimrat melakhim (Genesis 43: 11), here translated as “royal fare.” Early commentators of the Bible explained the Hebrew term as “goodly fruit,” yet even if, as is very likely, one of the poets attending this riddle was aware of this meaning, the 47 Ratzhabi cites the variant rubric in “Ketuvot ªaraviot le-shirei Yehuda Halevi,” ªAlei sefer 17 (1992–93), p. 69, no. 243.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties gender of any kind of fruit would be masculine in the Hebrew and thus out of the ball park in terms of a solution to the riddle. Even earlier, in line 5, the poet has thrown out a clear hint that the solution relates to a piece of fruit, though here the hint is even more subtle. The word translated as “tower” in line 5 is by far the most frequent meaning of the Hebrew word migdal, but in the Song of Songs 5: 13 it also appears in the sense of a “fragrant shoot.” This is a fitting enough description of the pomegranate, but no one would call it to mind without having the answer to the riddle already in hand. This deliberate skewing of the solution’s gender may be the primary strategy used to obscure that solution, but it is hardly the only one. In the best of literary tradition our riddle begins with a misleading clue – and one peculiarly suited to its particular audience, for it is predicated on the listeners’ knowledge of the Bible and the biblical language. As we have seen, the riddle opens with the word tevah, the word used for Noah’s “Ark” in the story in Genesis, and because several of the words in the next two lines are also drawn from this story, this sends the hunters scurrying after a false scent. After all, there are certainly no pomegranates in the story of Noah! This diversionary technique is highly suited to its audience of poet-scholars, for it sets into motion what is probably the deepest instinct of these players, instilled in them since childhood, and that is to follow the biblical text. By line 4 the players realize they have been following a blind lead, for at this point the poet adds a number of well-calculated “block elements” that both confuse and complicate the earlier information. Thus the subject is also likened to the sun (l. 4), a girl (l. 5), a plant (l. 6), and a walled city full of inhabitants (l. 9). Yet once again the poet uses his audience’s knowledge of Bible against them as he throws out misleading clues. Describing the mysterious “she” in line 6 as “the Rose of Sharon” tempts the audience to posit either a girl or a flower as the solution to the riddle, based on the verse in Song of Songs 2: 1 and its traditional interpretation. Similarly, likening the walled city to “Tirzah” in line 9 would have the listeners ransacking their memory for details from the Book of Kings. Needless to say, none of this erudition will be of any help in solving the riddle, and will in fact lead them further astray – which is of course just what the riddler wants. Another way in which the poet plays with his audience is by cleverly mingling metaphors with the most straightforward of clues. The clues in lines 6–7 are certainly apt descriptions of a pomegranate, those in lines 4 and 5 rely on metaphor, but at this stage in the game how can the players know which is which? Moreover, the poem’s very genre lures the audience into thinking in terms of metaphors, and rejecting straightforward descriptions. Many scholars see paradox as the very essence of riddles, and Halevi’s riddle is rich in these. In line 4 our mysterious “she” both waxes and wanes; in line 7 she is both proud and humble. These paradoxes are based on the principle of “reversability” and, by effectively canceling each other out, prevent the listener from forming an exact sense of the subject. This deliberate ambiguity is heightened by the play between the animate and inanimate throughout the riddle. In the first eight lines our mysterious “she” appears to be eminently alive, while in lines 9–12 she becomes something wholly inanimate (though in Hebrew still feminine): a walled city. In line 3 she has been created by God’s own hand, but in line 14 her “colocynths and open flowers” – a reference to the carvings on Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 6: 18) – have been formed “without a hand.” 86

The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties Even the moral nature of our subject is ambiguous. On one hand, she shelters the vilest of inhabitants; on the other, she provides “medicine for stricken bodies.” Is our subject animate or inanimate? Jezebel or Florence Nightingale? Lines 16–24, not translated here, comprise something of a set-piece in the shape of a wine-poem. Here we find “revelers delighting over her in their cups” (line 16), learn that she “shines like lightning” when poured into a goblet (line 18), and is proof “against sorrow and despair” (line 19). All these are standard motifs in the medieval wine-poem, and thus activate the players’ knowledge of the poetic conventions, leading them even further away from the solution to the riddle. As Tova Rosen-Moked explains the technique: In essence, the description ceases to be perceived on this occasion as an enigmatic description whose solution has to be thrashed out, and begins to be interpreted by the listener as a genre-piece of poetry . . . . What supports this diversionary strategy is the possibility that both [wine-poems] and riddles were performed at the same social occasions themselves.48 Another effective strategy for misleading the audience is to create a discrepancy between the subject of a riddle and the register of the language used to describe it. And perhaps nowhere is this better seen than in the following lines where the “walled city” breaks into “revolt,” to the poet’s loudly expressed outrage. Turning to his comrades, he demands a solution to this unruly “she”: 25

30

Say: what shall we do to her, / when to revolt she does dare? For she’s sealed in a walled city / and unapproachable there Let us take her, and make her drink gall / for this revolt so unfair All together now: slice through her / and lay waste this rebels’ lair! And burst through her walls and core / till the foundations are laid bare And attack her not with spears, / but with ivory arrows and fangs bared

If we come to these lines knowing that the subject of the riddle is a pomegranate, then the register of these lines renders them humorous: all this sound and fury over a piece of fruit! But to an audience ignorant of the riddle’s solution, these lines may well be disturbing. The language is violent and appropriate to the language of conquest; indeed most of the phrases come from biblical passages dealing with war and siege. And cities are indeed feminine nouns in Hebrew. Yet with the clues of lines 4–7 in mind, the unknown subject appears to be infinitely more alive, and infinitely more feminine, than a walled city under siege. It is this discrepancy between subject and language that makes the first reading of these lines such an unsettling experience, and that leads the players even further away from the correct solution. To conclude his riddle the poet indulges in a bit of bragging, perhaps somewhat to our surprise. Though we might have expected a conclusion of another kind – perhaps an invitation to suggest a solution – this does fit in rather neatly with the rubric translated above, in which the riddle is shown in the context of a poetic contest. In this kind of 48

Rosen-Moked, “Lenasot be-h.idah,” p. 6 [trans. mine].

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties situation, a bit of bravado would obviously not be out of place:49

35

A riddle like this sings unto wisdom / and unto the stars rises fair She is spicy to taste, but so caressing / it makes the heart tear When every daughter of poetry has had her turn, / all grace to her there!

The last line of the poem is a masterpiece in the poetic use of biblical allusions, but it has caused problems to commentators, some of them seeing it as an invitation to the audience to offer solutions.50 This interpretation is decidedly awkward for it turns each of the [male] contestants into a “daughter of poetry” (in Hebrew bat-shir), whereas in point of fact, the “daughter of poetry” is the riddle itself, a subgenre or “daughter” of poetry, and, in the Hebrew language, a feminine noun (h.idah). The language of the last line draws heavily from two biblical sources: the Scroll of Esther 2: 12, and the prophetic book of Zechariah 4:7. The first hemistich uses the language in Esther describing the turn of each inhabitant of the royal harem to present herself, all anointed and perfumed, for the King’s inspection. The second hemistich alludes to the enigmatic words in Zechariah 4: 7, which themselves come at the end of what might be termed a riddle. In the context of our poem, however, it is not the players who present themselves in turn, but the different riddles themselves, no less decked out and beautified, in their fashion, as they wait for literary judgment than the harem-girls awaiting the king’s pleasure in the Scroll of Esther. The last line, therefore, is a humorous claim to pre-eminence over other riddles.

* * * One last activity of our wine-drinking parties remains to be examined, and that is the writing of panegyrics. Many panegyrics feature love-lorn speakers in barren deserts, or sleepless lovers who “shepherd the stars” in the lonely watches of the night, but in point of fact many of these poems were probably written in festive surroundings by poets carousing over their cups. This was certainly the case for the panegyric which Judah Halevi composed for Moses ibn Ezra back in Chapter Two, where, as the young poet himself related, the poem took shape “over cups of wine / with pleasant singers of the vine.”51 Though Moses ibn Ezra was clearly absent from this occasion, and Ezra Fleischer remarks that poets did not compose panegyrics for poets living in the same city,52 the whereabouts of the poems’ addressees may not, in fact, have been all that crucial. The praise in these panegyrics was too stereotypical to have put anyone to the blush, and were it not for the matter of rhyme and meter names could have been juggled from one panegyric to another. 49 Fleischer also remarks on this aspect of the poem’s ending in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, note 124, p. 510. 50 Haim Brody comments on the previous misinterpretations in the last line of his commentary on the poem, on p. 144. 51 From Halevi’s rhymed letter to Moses ibn Ezra, ll. 19–20. 52 From Fleischer’s chapter on the poets contemporary with Judah Halevi and Moses ibn Ezra in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 507. Fleischer makes the remark as a way of explaining why none of Ibn Ezra’s poems were written for Judah ibn Ghayyat, who of course lived in Granada, like Ibn Ezra himself.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties Some panegyrics, however, were obviously composed for people not actually present, and this is the case for the following muwashshah.a by Judah Halevi, written for Moses and Isaac ibn Ezra: Dod be-h.alom nat.ah (“The lover in a dream”).53 The poem begins with a mat.laª of ABAB and then continues with an intricate rhymescheme of cdcdcd/ABAB efefef/ABAB and so on, for five strophes altogether. The motifs all come from the standard repertoire of love-poetry; the dramatis personae represent the usual suspects – a forlorn lover, the lovely “gazelle,” domineering “Time” – but the humor and lightness of touch are unique to Judah Halevi: The lover in a dream spent / the night at the gazelle’s breast With a dream like that – / his bed gives him sweet rest!

5

My soul is ransom / for the bonds of slumber Which brings me near the dove / whom parting drives asunder And grants me just a little / of her signs and wonders A cup of heady wine / from her cheeks she pressed Her pearls of speech she gathered / and made into a necklace.

10

Why does Time come / between me and my desire, Swerving low the arrow / when I aim much higher, Making East and West / tremble in his ire? If Time should sin against me / and leave me sorely pressed The sons of Ibn Ezra / will grant my least request!

15

There’s a taste of nectar / in lord Isaac’s very name The boundaries of the heavens / are filled with his great fame Signed and sealed with his own mouth / a precious letter came.54 A man of the pen, a man of speech, / of dignity the best; To his mouth’s drawn sword, like a coat of mail, / his valor does attest

20

Moses cannot be forgotten; / in my mouth and thoughts he’s nigh How could I accept the parting / of the light of my own eye? Moses tarries greatly: / please inquire of Mount Sinai! There he pitched his tent / (as the Burning Bush confessed); How bitter was the day / when his Farewell suit he dressed.

25

The Western girls all turn their eyes / Eastward every day To see their lord and master – / the cherub that ran away – And with the sweetest song, / to passers-by they say: My lover strays; / who hides the moon’s bright crest? The lateness in his coming / makes my night distressed.

53 ‰Ë ÌÂÏÁ· „„. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 178 (no. 119). The rubric, however, is more general and simply has “for the Ibn Ezras.” 54 In Hebrew a sefer, literally a “book” or “letter.” An epistolary poem is often called a sefer in medieval Hebrew poetry.

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties The love-prelude beginning this muwashshah.a offers an unusual spectacle of love fulfilled, with a lover spending the night “at the gazelle’s breast.” His “sweet rest” of course, is only an illusion, and not only because it occurs in a dream. Even in the dream the “gazelle” plays her allotted role: wringing red wine out of her cheeks (l. 6) and stringing her “pearls of speech” into a necklace (l. 7). This establishes both her beauty and her utter obliviousness to the lover. The wine which she “presses” out of her cheeks, after all, does not go to him, and the necklace she strings is for her own ornamentation. Thus even as the dream gives “sweet rest” (l. 2) it reveals undercurrents of tension and disappointment; a condition fully articulated through the appearance of “Time” in the following strophe. But the disappointments wrought by Love and Time are all as nought before the power of another entity: namely, the two Ibn Ezra brothers for whom the poem was written: If Time should sin against me / and leave me sorely pressed The sons of Ibn Ezra / will grant my least request! (ll. 11–12) The function of all the complaints, therefore, is to emphasize the praise of the two Ibn Ezras, who compensate for every other kind of trouble.55 The panegyric now begins in proper fashion. Isaac ibn Ezra is extolled in terms of the heroic model, with the power of his pen attesting to his mighty valor (ll. 13–17). The poem refers to a letter, or possibly a poem, recently come from Isaac’s pen (l. 15), making us recall that Isaac ibn Ezra was himself a poet of no mean talent.56 Moses ibn Ezra comes in for some wonderfully exaggerated praise, humorously based on various associations with the biblical Moses.57 Let no one think that Ibn Ezra was off sightseeing in Egypt! Judah Halevi is simply having fun with Moses’ name:

20

Moses cannot be forgotten; / in my mouth and thoughts he’s nigh How could I accept the parting / of the light of my own eye? Moses tarries greatly: / please inquire of Mount Sinai! There he pitched his tent / (as the Burning Bush confessed); How bitter was the day / when his Farewell suit he dressed.

Between the “letter” which came from Isaac in line 15 and the “Farewell suit” donned by Moses in line 22 (not to mention his tarrying at “Mount Sinai”), we learn that the two brothers were away from home but expected to return any day: the “Western girls” after all, are keeping a sharp lookout: The Western girls all turn their eyes / Eastward every day To see their lord and master – / the cherub that ran away – 55 A similar transitional technique was noted in the poem Leyl mahshavot (“Nightly I rouse the musings”); . see Chapter Two, p. 39. 56 Moses ibn Ezra praises his brother’s poetry in Kit¯ ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara, p. 77 [41a]. See Chapter Four, p. 50. 57 Halevi plays with the biblical associations of Moses’ name in other poems as well, such as Ahar galot sod . (“After revealing the secret”), discussed in Chapter Two, and in another qas.¯ıda to be examined in Chapter Eight, Demaªasher haya (“A tear that was”).

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The Poetry of Wine-drinking Parties 25

And with the sweetest song, / to passers-by they say: My lover strays; / who hides the moon’s bright crest ? The lateness in his coming / makes my night distressed.

One likes to imagine rows of Andalusi beauties scanning the horizon for the brothers’ return, but this charming touch was more likely conjured up for the sake of placing the “sweetest song” of the kharja where it best belongs: and that is into the mouths of girls. Moses ibn Ezra returned the compliment in a muwashshah.a that he composed when it was Judah Halevi’s turn to be out of town, as we will see in Chapter Eight.58 What we do learn from this final strophe is that the Ibn Ezra brothers were temporarily away from al-Andalus (the “West”) in Christian Spain (the “East”), or in the general direction. The kharja, as is proper, is spoken by girls at the end of the poem, but it no doubt echoes the feelings of those left behind in Granada: the talented Ibn Ezra brothers must have been sorely missed indeed by their circle of Hebrew poets.59

See Ibn Ezra’s Bi-megurei yedidi (“In the dwellings of my beloved”), pp. 127–129 below. The kharja is in Romance, a fact which caused Sola-Sol´e to suggest that Ibn Ezra wrote this muwashshah.a after he had taken up residence in Christian Spain; see idem, Corpus de poes´ıa moz´arabe (Barcelona: Ediciones Hispam, 1973), p. 153. Angel S´aenz-Badillos, however, effectively refutes this idea in “Las Muwassahat de Moseh ibn Ezra,” Poes´ıa Estr´ofica (Madrid: Universidad Complutense Instituto de Cooperacion con el Mundo Arabe, 1991), p. 302. The biographical implications of this poem are further discussed in Chapter Eight, p.135. 58 59

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Chapter Six

THE POET’S WORKSHOP

We have seen that poetry played an important role in the social life of our poets. It celebrated the beauty of the wine and the cup-bearers, wove magic into the setting – perhaps even created the setting – provided entertainment in the form of riddles and muwashshah.as, and was even the means by which invitations were extended. But it was also the alchemy by which poets were transformed into courtly boon-companions, and language into the means by which they maintained their roles. In this chapter we will look at a group of poems that expresses this alchemy within the network of personal relationships between three of these poets and that shows, as it were, the dialogue of poetry between them. The group consists of three panegyrics composed respectively by Solomon ibn al-Muªallim, Judah Halevi, and Moses ibn Ezra. Only the first of these poems is translated in full below; selected parts of the other two poems are also brought in translation.

* * * Rumors of a phenomenal new talent just in from Seªir seem to have taken wing, and one member of the Jewish intelligentsia in Muslim Spain who not only heard of Judah Halevi but actually met him was Solomon ibn al-Muªallim. In later years this worthy was destined to have a distinguished career as physician to the “Commander of the Muslims,” as the Almoravids styled their rulers, namely ªAli ibn Yusuf ibn Tashufin (1106–1143), son of the conquering hero of al-Andalus. Maimonides relates an incident involving Ibn al-Muªallim at the Almoravid court in Marrakesh,1 and S. M. Stern discovered that he was an Arabic poet whose verses found their way into Arabic-language anthologies.2 But these achievements belonged to a future period, and when we meet Ibn al-Muªallim all we can say for certain is that he was a very talented Hebrew poet. The poem translated below is the only Hebrew poem we have from his pen, but as some unknown hand wrote on the manuscript, it is a poem “veiled in beauty.”3 Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem is a charming panegyric to Judah Halevi. It is constructed on all the hyperboles of the panegyric tradition, yet for all its extravagance seems to betray a very real admiration for the young poet it lauds. The poem begins with the 1 Maimonides relates the anecdote in his treatise about asthma, Chapter 13, and can be found in S. Munk, Archives Israelites, 1851, p. 326; M. Steinschneider, Hebr¨aische Bibliographie, viii (1865), p. 87. See S. M. Stern, “Arabic Poems by Spanish-Hebrew Poets,” Romanica et Occidentalia, ed. Moshe Lazar (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1963), p. 258, note 9. 2 Stern, “Arabic Poems by Spanish-Hebrew Poets,” p. 255. 3 S. Sachs, Ha-Maggid 9: 358, on the basis of MS Gunzburg.

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The Poet’s Workshop words ªAv taªarof (“Is a cloud drizzling?”)4 and is written in the running mono-rhyme of the Arabic ode, a rhyme-scheme which the translation below makes no pretense to reproduce. It begins with some wide-eyed hittammut, the “feigned ignorance” technique that we have already seen in two of Ibn Ezra’s panegyrics, and whose purpose is to create the illusion of sincerity. This goal is achieved through a series of questions that bring into play some of the major metaphors and images of the panegyric tradition:

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Is a cloud drizzling or are my eyes dripping? and is that lightning in the sky or a flame in my bowels? And is that Judah’s face or the glow of the moon? And is this the light of his radiance or the radiance of afternoon? A man of wisdom, who in a battle of wits lays bare the strength of his right hand like a Goliath5 . The faces of joy have turned strangers to me after him, after having been joyful sevenfold And the lights of Time have dimmed because of him till I think morning the dusk of night Our hearts had become as one heart – and now, after him, my heart has been divided in two. He took my soul ransom, yet God himself commanded that no man take [even] a millstone for pledge! The circles of tranquility have narrowed in my soul, but the sadness of my heart spans wide indeed My soul has divested herself of her joys – [she’s in] rags after him – but sorrow has donned a brightly colored robe.6 Behold – this poem is my witness – that without you the tears of tears swim down my face Were it not for my heart’s blood dripping inside them, clouds would not need to store any water but them! Verily while I write this – my eyes drizzling – jealous Time gnashes his teeth! Greetings to you, friend! upon whose parting I will always weep with a mighty weeping I did not believe until my eyes saw in you what ears would not heed And I was met by the angels of your mind just as Jacob was met by the angels of Heaven

4 ÌÈÈÈÚ ÂÏÊÈ Â‡ Û¯Ú˙ ·Ú. The poem is preserved in Halevi’s d¯ıw¯ an, MS Oxford 1971 fols. 37r-v, no. 143, and is printed in Haim Schirmann’s anthology of medieval Hebrew poetry, Ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad u-ve-provans (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1954) 1: 542. 5 The poem uses the term ish beinayim and not the name Goliath. 6 The word ÔÈÚ is an homonym that means both “eye” and “color” in the Bible (the latter meaning attested in Numbers 11: 7 and Ezekiel 1: 16), and is a fairly frequent source of word-play in medieval Hebrew poetry. Schirmann interprets the words ÌÈÈÈÚ ˙ÂÒÎ in line 9 as “a covering of the eyes” following Genesis 20:16 (Ha-shirah ha-ªivrit, 1: 542); we have preferred the meaning of a “brightly colored robe,” which gives the line an antithetical parallelism, just like the line before it – such pairings of syntax are frequent in medieval Hebrew poetry.

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The Poet’s Workshop And I say: “It’s the camp (mah.aneh) of God!” and because of you call your land “the Camp” (Mah.anayim) I will weep with the bitter weeping of Jacob for you are Joseph, and Granada (Rimon) is Egypt for you. This lovely poem – not very long as panegyrics go – can be divided into three parts: the panegyric in lines 1–3, the lament over separation in lines 4–12, and the more personalized praise in lines 13–17. The motif of tears gives the poem a certain unity, with tears appearing both in the first and last lines of the poem as well as in the middle in lines 10–12, where the repetition of two key verbs from the poem’s opening line (“drizzling”and “dripping”) heightens the sense of unity. The praise in the first two lines is expressed in the language of love with all the weeping and burning (l. 1) that an oxymoronic tradition can desire. Thanks to the “feigned ignorance” of our love-sick speaker, the convention of the beloved-as-moon seems fresh and entirely sincere (l. 2). In line 3 the subject of love’s sweet agonies turns out to be a “man of wisdom,” and one whose sagacity is expressed in the energetic terms used to describe the giant Goliath (ÌÈÈÈ· ˘È‡) in I Samuel 17: 4. The lament over separation in lines 4–12 also draws from the repertoire of conventional images as we learn that separation from his friend has caused our lover’s world to grow dark (l. 5), his heart to be cut in twain (l. 6) and that his tears, watery tears, are mixed with blood (ll. 10–11). A menacing Time “gnashing his teeth” (l. 12) with envy over this promising friendship completes the circle of conventional motifs. Yet, despite the heavy use of convention, the poem never becomes cumbersome. Just as the author used the technique of “feigned ignorance” to lighten the tone in lines 1–3, so too he mixes his complaints over separation with cheerful exaggerations that prevent his poem from becoming top-heavy with convention and preserve a tone of high good humor. Look, for example, at line 7: He took my soul ransom, yet God himself commanded that no man take [even] a millstone for pledge! Here the poet frames a conventional lover’s complaint in terms of a humorous take on the stern injunction in Deuteronmy 24: 6: “No man shall take the nether or the upper millstone for a pledge, for he takes a man’s life for a pledge.” Line 11, with its outrageous use of hyperbole, is another good example of humor as a leavening agent in the yeast of convention: Were it not that my heart’s blood is dripping inside them, clouds would not need to store any water but them! (l. 11) The poem returns to the subject of praise in lines 13–17, and here we find that unlike Judah ibn Ghayyat, Ibn al-Muªallim has not only heard of Judah Halevi but actually met him before writing this poem. That meeting apparently exceeded his expectations about the newcomer from Seªir, for Ibn al-Muªallim writes that he put no faith in the rumors tills his eyes saw “what ears would not heed” (l. 14). The following lines, for all their 95

The Poet’s Workshop hyperbole and use of code, place that meeting in a specific juxtaposition of time and place: 15

And I was met by the angels of your mind just as Jacob was met by the angels of Heaven And I say: “It’s the camp (mah.aneh) of God!” and because of you call your land “the Camp” (Mah.anayim) I will weep with the bitter weeping of Jacob for you are Joseph, and Granada (Rimon) is Egypt for you. (ll. 15–17)

The language of these lines draws closely from the passage in Genesis 32: 2–3 in which Jacob, after separating from Laban, returns to his own land: And Jacob went on his way, and angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said “This is God’s camp” (mah.aneh) and he called the name of that place Mah.anayim. The “angels of [Halevi’s] mind” are thus equated with the “angels of God” in Genesis 32: 2, prompting our poet to call Halevi’s homeland “Mah.anayim” (l. 16), which Schirmann suggests is the Hebraic epithet for Castile, Halevi’s place of origin.7 This suggestion is not only very astute but also highly probable, as the poet uses another Hebraic epithet in the next line (l. 17) for the city of Granada, the Rimon (“pomegranate”) that we have already encountered in previous chapters. This leaves us with an Ibn al-Muªallimcum-Jacob who cries over a Halevi- cum-Joseph, as though the two were players in the ancient biblical saga of Pharonic Egypt. What we learn from all this – beyond the fact that Ibn al-Muªallim could manipulate biblical verses in a very deft fashion! – is that Granada, though not Halevi’s homeland, was considered his natural base for the time being. Thomas Mann gave us Joseph in Egypt; Ibn al-Muªallim now gives us Judah in Granada. But this is only the beginning of the saga, for events now take an interesting twist. Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, which was preserved, as noted, in Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an, is preceded by the Judaeo-Arabic rubric: “And the vizier Ab¯u Ayub ibn al-Muªallim wrote to him [i. e. Judah Halevi] to the city of Granada.” His poem, however, did not reach Judah Halevi quite immediately. At the end of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem the d¯ıw¯an contains another rubric in Judao-Arabic: The poem arrived while only Ab¯u Harun [i. e. Moses ibn Ezra] was there, and he answered with the poem beginning Nofet sefatayim, which is found in his d¯ıw¯an so there is no need to write it down here. Then this poem, that is ªAv taªarof[i. e. Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem] reached Judah Halevi, who replied with this qas.¯ıda . . .8 7 8

Schirmann, Ha-shirah ha-ªivrit, 1: 543. MS Oxford 1971, 37v. Only the first seven lines of Halevi’s poem-in-reply are preserved here, as the manuscript has a gap after that point; our text of Halevi’s poem comes from other mss., as detailed below in note 37.

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The Poet’s Workshop Thus we learn that Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem reached Granada while Halevi was away from the city and ended up in Ibn Ezra’s keeping. What, then, was Ibn Ezra to do? Return the poem to its sender? Track Halevi down and send it on? Keep it till Halevi should arrive? As it turns out, Ibn Ezra simply decided to answer the poem himself, and this he did, of course, using the same rhyme and meter as Ibn al-Muªallim. The result is the poem Nofet sefatayim (“Is it the honey of the lips?”)9 mentioned in the rubric translated above, and today no. 95 in Haim Brody’s edition of Ibn Ezra’s d¯ıw¯an. In an article from 1938, Haim Schirmann summed all these events up in the following way: This poem, as noted, did not reach Judah Halevi. However, Moses ibn Ezra permitted himself to read things meant for his friend; and not only this, but even responded to the sender of the poem in Judah Halevi’s place, which he did according to all the conventions of panegyrical poetry.10 We will probably not be exaggerating if we say that in this account of things Schirmann seems fairly appalled by Ibn Ezra’s actions. How, the scholar appears to demand, could Ibn Ezra have read a poem addressed to someone else? And not only read it, but answered it? As mentioned, this account dates from 1938; by the time Schirmann wrote the words eventually published in 1995 he had come to grips with Ibn Ezra’s deed and put things in a kinder light. This time he wrote that Ibn Ezra “took it upon himself in knightly fashion to answer Ibn al-Muªallim,” as though Ibn Ezra were rescuing the poem princess-in-thetower-like from a fate worse than death: namely, neglect.11 Thus Schirmann transformed Ibn Ezra over the years from virtual criminal to knight-errant, and yet his later account of events still has an apologetic ring to it. In truth, however, Ibn Ezra was neither criminal nor knight, but simply a man of the times. Rabbi Gershom, the “Light of the Exile” in tenth-century Germany, may have excommunicated people who opened letters not addressed to them, but the poems and rhymed letters from al-Andalus would hardly have fallen under his stern ban. Far from being considered confidential and personal, such literary works were regarded as public property, so to speak, to be read and enjoyed not by the recipient alone but within a wider group of friends and literati.12 Robinson notes the public nature of “private” correspondence between royal boon-companions in the courts of al-Andalus, and the blurring of boundaries between the public and private domain.13 And, of course, we have already seen from Halevi’s own rhymed letter to Ibn Ezra just how public the recitation and composition of Hebrew panegyrics could be. The public nature of these literary works is further revealed through the letter which Judah Halevi sent to his friend and patron, H.alfon Halevi, which we discussed in Chapter Three.14 This letter, as noted, deals with the finances involved in ransoming a female captive, but before launching into business Halevi noted that he was taking the opportunity to send H.alfon a letter 9 ÌÈÈ˙Ù˘ ˙ÙÂ. Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha -hol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 96 (no. 95). . 10 Haim Schirmann, “Hayyei Yehuda Halevi,” Tarbiz 9 (1938), pp. 35–54;

219–240; 284–305. Later . reprinted in Haim Schirmann, Le-toldot ha-shirah ve-ha-drama ha-ªivrit (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1979); this quotation from vol. 1, p. 258 [trans. mine]. 11 Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 433. 12 Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot hayyav,” p. 262. . 13 Cynthia Robinson, In Praise of Song, p. 114. 14 See Chapter One, p. 46.

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The Poet’s Workshop in rhymed-prose that he was sure to enjoy, written by their mutual friend Judah ibn Ghayyat.15 Once again, there is no sense that these literary productions were anything but public affairs, meant to entertain as many people as possible. Let us now turn to Moses ibn Ezra’s poem-in-reply. How, then, did he fashion this reply? That he used the same rhyme and meter as Ibn al-Muªallim goes without saying: such were the rules of the game. But in terms of images, themes and motifs, Ibn Ezra was free to employ any of the options offered by the medieval Hebrew tradition. Like a craftsman in his shop, he could choose from all that came to hand, selecting here, rejecting there, combining, intertwining, refining. Our reading below will examine some of the ways in which Ibn Ezra, and Judah Halevi after him, fashioned his poem from the materials in stock and created his response to the poem by Solomon ibn al-Muªallim. From a formal point of view, two things are clear at first glance. Ibn Ezra’s poem is considerably longer than his model-poem: Ibn al-Muªallim’s has seventeen lines; Ibn Ezra’s a grand total of forty. Ibn Ezra has also used eleven of Ibn al-Muªallim rhymewords, at times changing their meaning through a play on words. The translation below brings the first eighteen lines of Ibn Ezra’s poem:

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Is it the honey of lips or the wine of the teeth or a flowering cheek or the scent of myrrh? Or have the winds of youth wafted from Solomon’s letter, [which is] a delight to the eyes? A letter like the radiance of day in appearance but spread by ink with the cloak of night A poem like a sapphire [for whiteness], its lines chiseled in onyx like the pupils of the eyes Or blue embroidered by the hands of the pen upon the fine white cotton of Egypt [It is] weak, but will harry those girded in sharp-edged swords for battle, like a Goliath A foot soldier, but will sniff from afar the chariot of war, and for this is girt around the loins Speaks without tongue and grips without a finger and runs likes a deer without feet Silent, but pure of speech, heeded by those who dwell in the isles of the sea and beyond Satisfies the thoughts of all who know books, but is a disaster for fools without number and a trembling in the knees When shot like an arrow by Solomon, the darkness of ignorance dons a veil of light And on the neck of his poem strings necklaces not to be compared to the gold of Parvayim

15 The letter was published by S. D. Goitein, “Autografim mi-yado shel Rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” Tarbiz 26 (1956), pp. 403–405; idem, “Judaeo-Arabic Letters from Spain (Early Twelfth Century),” Orientalia Hispanica (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 433–434; Ezra Fleischer and Moshe Gil, Yehuda Halevi u-venei h.ugo, pp. 118; 319–321.

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A page that is like a pavement of marble, its words like coals and the nibs of its pen like tongs. Its words and contents – see them and say: “myrrh taken from henna and fire from water.” Its perfumes rise towards the nostrils, and in unfolding it flowing myrrh drops from the hands Were the stars of heaven to see his words they would kneel and bow down to their foreheads Or [were] poems to soar high like an eagle, only they – like words of prophecy – would rend the heavens The human eye can never gaze enough at the sight of their splendor, nor ears take in their fill

These lines can be divided into two parts: the opening in lines 1–2, and the following sixteen lines which deal with the art of writing and can be further subdivided into three separate themes: a description of the poem as a beautiful artifact (ll. 3–5), a paean to the power of the pen (ll. 6–12), and praise of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem itself, that is, of its language and contents (ll. 13–18). An affinity between the two poems is apparent from the very beginning of Ibn Ezra’s qas.¯ıda. Like Ibn al-Muªallim, Ibn Ezra creates a highly sensual opening via the technique of “feigned ignorance,” a tribute to the model-poem’s beautiful beginning.16 But though he uses the same technique, he uses it in a very different way. Ibn al-Muªallim’s speaker is an agonized lover; Ibn Ezra’s the recipient of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, and the technique of “feigned ignorance” is used synaesthetially to evoke the sensual pleasure its reception creates: Is it the honey of lips or the wine of the teeth or a flowering cheek or the scent of myrrh? Or have the winds of youth wafted from Solomon’s letter, [which is] a delight to the eyes? (ll. 1–2) Taste, fragrance and sight all combine in this description of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, contributing to what one critic has called “a super-sensuous unity”17 that evokes the sense of pleasure in receiving the poem. This is a well-established theme in Hebrew poetry from al-Andalus. Scholars of medieval calligraphy explain that writers mixed their ink with various sweet-smelling scents,18 but poets tended to transform this bit of realia into metaphors for their own purposes. Judah Halevi, for example, writes to one friend: “your letter came with lines from pure myrrh / or borrowed from the flower-beds 16 We find an interesting parallel from the late tenth-century, where the calligraphy of the caliph Qabus ibn Wushmgird (d. 1013) caused one scribe to burst into rhymed admiration: A-hadha khattu Qabus / am janahu taºus (“Is this the script of Qabus / or a peacock’s [fan]?”). Quoted from Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New York: New York University Press, 1984), p. 62. 17 Glenn O’Malley, Shelly and Synesthesia (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964). 18 Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, pp. 12; 40–41. A number of medieval recipes for producing fragrant black ink are collected in Monique Bat-Yehuda Zerdoun, Les Encres noires au Moyen Age (Paris, 1983).

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The Poet’s Workshop of your fragrance // The sweetness of its words indeed bears witness / that it drank from the honey of your love.”19 Elsewhere, in a beautiful panegyric to one Solomon ibn Ghayyat,20 Halevi conjures up another fragrant moment when a poem arrives, fluttering in on the wings of a dove: A breeze softly stole amongst the flower-beds and from the heart of the myrtle revealed its hidden love And birds chirped, and a rasping dove that to me spoke a pure language She let fall a shower of grace and dews of love like manna when she shook her wings free from the droplets of night. She is perfume for frankincense when she releases her bundle of myrrh – or when Solomon’s poem is attached to her wing.21 In addition to praising the taste and fragrance of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, Ibn Ezra also calls it “a delight to the eyes”(l. 2), an allusion to the Garden of Eden’s Tree of Knowledge that is “good for food and a delight to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3: 6). As we shall see, these are also appropriate descriptions for Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, at least according to Ibn Ezra’s reading. We have already learned that it is “good to taste” – in fact honey and wine; – now we shall see that it is also “a delight to the eyes.” Lines 3–5 describe the beauty of the poem as a physical artifact, a well-established theme in medieval Hebrew and Arabic with characteristic motifs and images. The beauty of the written page, whether the Koran or a poem, is one of the most important themes in Arabic literature, and sayings attesting to the aesthetic appreciation of fine handwriting abound. One medieval work which offers a convenient collection of such sayings is the Epistle on Penmanship by Ab¯u H.ayy¯an al-Tawh.¯ıd¯ı (d. after 1009/10), which depicts an elegant gathering of calligraphers and scribes, each of whom “set out to reveal the choice saying that lay hidden in them.”22 There we find such aphorisms as: “Handwriting is a garden whose flowers are instructive remarks.”23 Numerous sayings liken calligraphy to fine jewels and brocade: “The beauty of the embroidered cloth of handwriting is its evenness;”24 or: “Handwriting is jewelry fashioned by the hand from the pure gold of the intellect. It also is brocade woven by the calamus with the thread of discernment.”25 And when one official was asked to judge between two scribes he rendered his verdict in this fashion: “Your handwriting is a filigree of pure gold,” he said to one, and to the other: “Your handwriting is fine brocade.”26 In his eyes, both were of ÏÈÏ ÌÂÏÁ· χ. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 20 (no. 14), ll. 30–34. The relationship between Solomon ibn Ghayyat and Judah ibn Ghayyat (if any) is unknown. ‰·È„ ÔÈÚ. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody 1: 139 (no. 94), ll. 45–52. The lines quoted here draw heavily from the Song of Songs, thus transforming the poem into a love-object. 22 F. Rosenthal, “Ab¯ u H.ayy¯an At-Tawh.¯ıd¯ı on Penmanship,” in Four Essays on Art and Literature in Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1971), p. 24. This essay is a reprint of the article in Ars Islamica 13–14 (1948), pp. 1–30, where the Arabic text is also included. The page numbers here refer to Four Essays. 23 Al-Tawh¯ıd¯ı, trans. Rosenthal, p. 37, no. 34. . 24 Ibid., p. 31, no. 12. 25 Ibid., p. 38, no. 37. 26 Ibid., p. 40, no. 55. 19 20 21

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The Poet’s Workshop equal excellence. Poetry was depicted in many of the same images as handwriting. In both Hebrew and Arabic the craft of the goldsmith is the most common mine for images descriptive of poetry, together with the weaving of fine fabrics and tapestries. There are, to be sure, other sources for images of poetry, such as gardens and orchards, but when it comes to describing a poem, or offering it to a friend or dedicating it to a patron, then it is we often find ourselves squarely in the workshop, generally amidst a heap of glittering rhymes or a silken tangle of images and metaphors.27 Descriptions of both poetry and calligraphy characteristically focus on the contrast between the black of the ink and the white of the page. So, for example, one of alTawh.¯ıd¯ı’s savants praises “the well-measured arrangement of the black (writing) on the white (paper of the page),”28 and another quotes the caliph al-Ma’mun as saying “The stars of wise sayings shine in the darkness of ink.”29 Numerous Hebrew and Arabic poems liken the color contrasts to night and day; we recall that Ibn Ezra himself lauded Halevi’s first poem as “a letter resembling the face of Dawn / spread across the lines of night.”30 This rich vocabulary of aesthetics all finds expression in Ibn Ezra’s description of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem. Thus when Ibn Ezra describes the poem as an objet d’art in lines 3–5, he focuses on the contrast between black and white and frames this contrast in terms of jewels and fine fabrics, and of darkness and light:

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A letter like the radiance of day in appearance but spread by ink with the cloak of night A poem like a sapphire [for whiteness], its lines chiseled in onyx like the pupils of the eyes Or blue embroidered by the hands of the pen upon the fine white cotton of Egypt (ll. 3–5)

In line 3, Ibn Ezra compares the paper’s “radiance” (zohar) to the black of “night” (ªarbayim) in the language of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, transferring the field of reference for his own purposes. In Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem the “radiance” and “night” (ll. 2 and 5) describe the beauty of the beloved; in Ibn Ezra’s the beauty of the poem. Lines 6–12 comprise a set-piece on the power of the pen, another major theme in Arabic literature.31 Many sayings in al-Tawh.¯ıd¯ı’s treatise consist of measured pronouncements on the power of the pen, such as that spoken by the Caliph al-Maºamun: “How wonderful is the calamus! How it weaves the fine cloth of royal power, [and] 27 Just how common these metaphors are we see even in the very names of anthologies of poetry and poetic treatises: In Arabic, D¯ar al-t.iraz (“The House of Brocade-Work”) by Ibn San¯a al-Mulk; Sirr al-adab wa-sabk al-d.ahab (“The Secret of Adab and Gold-Working)” by Maªn ibn S.um¯adih., the Qal¯aºid al-ªIqy¯an (“The Golden Necklace”) by al-Fath. ibn Kh¯aq¯an, and Al-ªIqd al-far¯ıd (“The Unique Necklace”) by Ibn ªAbd Rabbihi. In Hebrew, Moses ibn Ezra called his renowned collection of homonymic poetry Sefer ha-ªAnaq (“The Book of the Necklace”), and images of gold, jewels, and fine fabrics dominate descriptions of poetry and writing in poem after poem. 28 Al-Tawh¯ıd¯ı, trans. Rosenthal, p. 31, no. 12. . 29 Ibid., p. 44, no. 73. 30 From Moses ibn Ezra, Yaldei yamim (“The Children of Time”), l. 7; above, pp. 10, 12. 31 Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, pp. 115–122.

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The Poet’s Workshop embroiders the ornamental borders of the garment of the ruling dynasty!”32 Often the theme is phrased in terms of antithesis and paradox. One guest in al-Tawh.¯ıd¯ı’s elegant gathering comments: “The calamus is deaf, yet it hears secrets. It is mute, yet it expresses ideas clearly.”33 Another says: “The calamus speaks and is silent. It stays in one place and travels. It is present and absent. It is far away and near at hand.”34 Ibn Ezra’s praise of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem is reminiscent of all these quotations, including al-Maºamun’s personified pen with “embroidering” hands: 5

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Or blue embroidered by the hands of the pen upon the fine white cotton of Egypt [It is] weak, but will harry those girded in sharp-edged swords for battle, like a Goliath A foot soldier, but will sniff from afar the chariot of war, and for this is girt around the loins Speaks without tongue and grips without a finger and runs likes a deer without feet Silent, but pure of speech, heeded by those who dwell in the isles of the sea and beyond Satisfies the thoughts of all who know books, but is a disaster for fools without number and a trembling in the knees When shot like an arrow by Solomon, the darkness of ignorance dons a veil of light And on the neck of his poem strings necklaces not to be compared to the gold of Parvayim (ll. 5–12)

Ibn Ezra frames his description of the pen’s power in a series of the riddle like-antitheses standard to the theme in both Hebrew and Arabic. The images are largely martial, as befits the conventional treatment of this theme, yet once again Ibn Ezra shapes convention to his specific need, likening the pen to a Goliath (ish beinayim, l. 6) in a way that both Hebraicizes convention and responds to the language in Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem (cf. l. 3 of ªAv taªarof). Line 11 satisfies the third requirement of the Tree of Knowledge, in that when the pen is wielded by Solomon ibn al-Muªallim, it, too, “makes one wise”: When shot like an arrow by Solomon, the darkness of ignorance dons a veil of light (l. 11) And line 12 finds the pen stringing “necklaces” – that is, rhymes – superior to “the gold of Parvayim,” which is fine gold indeed, in fact the very gold used for Solomon’s Temple (II Chronicles 3: 6). All, of course, which refers us back to the mine of goldsmithing images so frequent in medieval poetry Lines 13–18 treat of the poem’s excellence in words and content, easing into the 32 33 34

Al-Tawh.¯ıd¯ı, trans. Rosenthal, p. 39, no. 49. Ibid., p. 36, no. 29. Ibid., p. 45, no. 81.

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The Poet’s Workshop theme through a return to the black and white motifs that characterized the earlier part of the poem. Only now, the purpose is not to evoke the beauty of the poem but a sense of wonder at its power, and this is achieved through the juxtaposition of elements normally inimical to one another:

15

A page that is like a pavement of marble, its words like coals and the nibs of its pen like tongs. Its words and contents – see them and say: “myrrh taken from henna and fire from water.” Its perfumes rise towards the nostrils, and in unfolding it flowing myrrh drops from the hands (ll. 13–15)

Ibn Ezra compares the words to black coals removed by the “tongs” of the pen from the cool white marble of the page (l. 13), to fire and water (l. 14), and to “myrrh taken from henna” (ibid.), an image which evokes both the contrast of color (myrrh/black – henna-flowers/white) and the fragrances used in mixing the ink according to medieval practice. Just as wine-poetry mixes the metaphors of fire and water in the wine-goblet to create a sense of wonder at the miraculous qualities of wine, so too these images conjure up the miraculous nature of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poetry. The final three lines of this section add further praise through the use of sheer hyperbole, line 17 even comparing Ibn al-Muªallim’s words to prophecy:35 Were the stars of heaven to see his words they would kneel and bow, foreheads down Or [were] poems to soar high like an eagle, only they like words of prophecy would rend the heavens The human eye can never gaze enough at the sight of their splendor, nor ears take in their fill (ll. 16–18) There are two themes in Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem that also find their way into Ibn Ezra’s response. One of these is the lament over separation: Would that the day of parting grew dark and blacken the stars of dusk like a stove And that the night of separation not seek the day or behold the eyelids of the morning light (ll. 27–28) This is such a conventional theme that one hesitates to attribute its inclusion to any specific response to Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, even though both are framed in terms of 35 Dan Pagis notes that the comparison between prophecy and poetry became common in medieval Hebrew poetry, paradoxically enough only with the rise of secular poetry in the mid-tenth century. For an interesting discussion of this topic, see Dan Pagis, “Ha-meshorer ke-navi be-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-yemei ha-beinayim,” Ha-shir davur ªal ofnav (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993), pp. 278–279.

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The Poet’s Workshop dark and light (cf. l. 5 of ªAv taªarof). But the second theme which the two poems have in common, the shedding of tears over separation from the beloved friend, does seem to show an affinity. To be sure, tears are frequent in many of Ibn Ezra’s poems, but there are some particular points in common here. Just as Ibn al-Muªallim weeps tears of blood and then expresses the great quantity of his tears through a rather extravagant hyperbole: Were it not that my heart’s blood is dripping inside them, clouds would not need to store any water but them! (l. 11) so Ibn Ezra indulges in some watery hyperbole of his own:

30

The day the mist rose from the bowels, the streams of the head gushed forth, passing over the ankles: Water that gushed and would have overcome all were it not that my eyes were divided in two. They did not not recede, for the waters of love drank deep from my heart and drew the blood of my bowels. (ll. 29–31)

One theme without counterpart in Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem is Ibn Ezra’s boast of his own poetry. While we might not expect such a theme under the circumstances – Ibn Ezra is, after all, responding to another person’s poetic efforts – it is nevertheless fair game in the medieval tradition.36 The boast comes at the very end of the poem, woven into his dedication to the poem’s recipient:

40

Behold a poem of friendship that rejoices in your name like a poem set to dancing and cymbals It bows down unto you even though the sun would raise it up and shoulder it high It acknowledges your wisdom though it is a robe of wisdom whose edges trail over the heavens It is to be called the hand-maiden to she [i. e. the poem] who sang: “Is a cloud drizzling or are my eyes dripping?” May she soar on high till the heights of heavens collapse, and reign till the hosts of heavens fade away. (ll. 36–40)

Let us now turn to the third poem in our group, Judah Halevi’s At. li, h.azaq levav (“Be gentle with me, O strong of heart”).37 Like Ibn Ezra’s poem-in-reply, it too is forty 36 37

Israel Levin, Meªil tashbetz, 1: 150–208, with copious examples from both Hebrew and Arabic poetry. ··Ï ˜ÊÁ ÈÏ Ë‡. The poem is not printed in Haim Brody’s edition of Halevi’s D¯ıw¯an since, as noted above in note 8, there is a gap in MS Oxford 1971 at this point. S. M. Stern printed the Hebrew poem on the basis of MS Schocken 37 in his “Arabic Poems by Spanish-Hebrew Poets,” pp. 262–263. The poem was again printed by Yehuda Ratzhabi on the basis of MS Firkowitz Collection IIA 39 (microfiche: 42637) in his “Asher ah.az

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The Poet’s Workshop lines long, and surely this is no coincidence. But apart from its length Halevi’s poem shows no specific link to Ibn Ezra’s. There is, to be sure, a section praising the beauty of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, but this is practically obligatory in a poem-in-reply and his treatment of the theme is highly unique. Halevi, moreover, does not open his poem with the “feigned ignorance” of either Ibn al-Muªallim or Ibn Ezra, and begins with a nas¯ıb, a love lament for a cruel ephebe:

5

Be gentle with me, O strong of heart and supple of waist, be gentle with me till I can bow down to the ground My eyes alone have erred through you, for I am pure of heart if not pure of eyes Allow my eye to gather from your face the rose and lily sown mingled together I would desire the fire of your cheek to extinguish fire with fire – but when I thirst, I will find water therein I would sip the ruby lip that blazes like coal – for my lips are tongs My life hangs between two threads of scarlet red, but my death is between dusk and night

Back in Chapter Five, Halevi lured Ibn Ghayyat to a wine-drinking party with a hint that cup-bearers “of both kinds” were present,38 and we now get a portrait of the male beloved, or ephebe, so frequent in both medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry. But masculine or feminine, there is really no difference in the description of the beloved. Like the “gazelle” whom we met in Halevi’s muwashshah.a “O sun behind your curtained hair,”39 our ephebe is handsome but cruel and imperious (l. 1); like her he has red lips and cheeks, a white face (ll. 3–5) and black eyes (l. 6). Unusual in a poem of this genre, our poet alludes to the fact that love for the ephebe is forbidden: the colors of the ephebe’s face – the conventional red and white – are described in terms of the kind of hybrid flower-bed strictly forbidden in Leviticus 19: 19. Halevi depicts the lover as a miracle of nature – capable of both quenching love’s thirst and igniting love’s fire (l. 4). Ibn Ezra also depicts a “miracle of nature” in his poem (ll. 13–14), but his “miracle” relates to the power of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poetry. Indeed, if we compare lines 4 and 5 of Halevi’s poem with lines 13–14 of Ibn Ezra’s we find a striking similarity, but the similarity is more likely due to the fluidity of images and techniques in medieval poetry than to any dependence between the two poems. Like any poet in either Hebrew or Arabic, Halevi praises the beauty of the modelpoem in images drawn from the craftsman’s atelier. He does so, however, is a way that is totally his own, merging the black eyebrows of his beloved into the myrrh-black lines of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, and his radiant white face into the paper on which it is written:

bi-kenafot ha-ahavah,” ªIton 77, no. 169, February/Adar 1994, pp. 16–17. There are some slight differences between the two published texts, as well as one significant difference (in l. 38), which will be discussed below. 38 Judah Halevi, Haqbel penei dodkha (“Show your loving face”), Chapter Five, p. 73. 39 Judah Halevi, Hama beªad raqiaª (“O sun behind your curtained hair”), ibid., p. 79. .

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The Poet’s Workshop

10

My life hangs between two threads of scarlet red, but my death between dusk and night Lines of pure myrrh embroidered the embroidery of high office that resemble nightime around afternoon Bezalel would have despaired of embroidering such as these until he borrowed the hands of Solomon On the surface of the scroll his hands embroidered colors not embroidered on the face of the gazelle This is writing that provides pearls for necklaces and gently enflames the sorceries of Egypt; That which holds the wings of love holds hearts and is held by the hands

Almost imperceptibly, the colors of the ephebe’s face – red, white and black – become transformed into the surface of the poem itself: the white page, the red-inked embellishments,40 the black letters of the writing. Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem thus becomes, like the ephebe before it, an object of love and reverence. The beauty of the poem, however, outdoes the beauty of the ephebe: On the surface (penei) of the scroll his hands embroidered colors (ªeinayim) not embroidered on the face (penei) of the gazelle (l. 7) The comparison between ephebe and poem is strengthened through the repetition of the word “face” (penei) and a pun on the word ªeinayim, which, as already noted, means both “eyes” and “colors.”41 Halevi uses the conventional metaphors of craftsmanship to laud the beauty of Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem but at the same time creates a unique set of images around the figure of Bezalel, the biblical craftsman par excellence. Bezalel, as we read in the Book of Exodus, was filled “with the spirit of God” in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship; and to contrive works of art, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set them, and in carving of wood, to make all manner of artistic work (Exodus 35: 31–33). It was Bezalel who fashioned the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant and all the implements necessary to the service of God in the desert, but master craftsman and embroiderer though he was (Exodus 35: 35), Bezalel was as nought compared to Solomon ibn al-Muªallim – the author of the beautiful poem Halevi now praises: Bezalel would have despaired of embroidering such as these unless he borrowed Solomon [ibn al-Muªallim’s] hands 40 On the practice of embellishing the poem with red ink, see Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture, pp. 121–122. 41 See above, note 6.

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The Poet’s Workshop (l. 8) The name of Bezalel does not reappear in the poem, but through a series of textual allusions Halevi creates an entire web of images that transforms Ibn al-Muªallim into a virtual Bezalel (l. 11a) and Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem into the Ark of the Covenant (l. 11b). In Exodus 37: 7–9 we read of the “cherubs” (keruvim) that Bezalel fashioned for the Ark, “spreading out their wings on high,” and this text provides the basis for a number of images and epithets throughout the poem, beginning in line 11. That which holds the wings of love holds hearts and is held by the hands. (l. 11) Thus held by “the wings of love,” Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem becomes the Ark of the Covenant held aloft by cherubs – and is held in the hand by its recipient, Judah Halevi. Halevi then transfers the epithet from poem to poet through the process of metonymy, with Ibn al-Muªallim becoming the “cherub” (keruv) himself for the rest of the poem. He appears under this rubric no less than four different times, in lines 13, 14, 18, and 38. A comparison between the poems by Ibn Ezra and Halevi shows interesting differences in the treatment of other themes and motifs. So, for example, both poets link their hero’s name with his biblical antecedent, a device practically de rigeur in the Hebrew panegyric. Thus Ibn Ezra refers to “Solomon’s wisdom” (l. 19), an allusion which neatly links his praise of Solomon ibn al-Muªallim with the biblical paragon of wisdom. Halevi links Ibn al-Muªallim to King Solomon through Ecclesiastes, the author of the biblical book of wisdom and traditionally identified with King Solomon. In writing that he is “Second only to Ecclesiastes amongst the children of Time” (l. 15a), Halevi is proclaiming Solomon ibn al-Muªallim a second King Solomon. He then heightens the praise by backtracking to find that there is virtually no difference between the two Solomons, phrasing his discovery in the language of Genesis 48: 17: one “is Menasseh and the other’s Ephraim” (l. 25b) In addition to this difference between the two poems, it appears that Halevi is careful not to be suspected of competing with Moses ibn Ezra. Both Halevi and Ibn Ezra praise Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem, but while Ibn Ezra waxes eloquent on the subject, Halevi squeezes his into three lines. On the other hand, Halevi gives “the day of separation” theme a full-length treatment of fifteen lines (ll. 24-37), perhaps because Ibn Ezra treated it in rather cursory fashion in only three (ll. 27-29). To give another example of the differences: Ibn al-Muªallim claims that his heart was broken in two by the pain of separation (l. 6), and while Ibn Ezra does not pick up on this motif, Halevi does. Characteristically, Halevi weaves the motif into his poem in a way that is entirely his own, using an allusion to the covenant between Abraham and God in Genesis 15: 10: The heart amongst whose pieces you pass through like your own heart that is cut in two. (l. 22) 107

The Poet’s Workshop There are several motifs and images which run through all three poems like a scarlet thread, though the thread is twisted differently in each. One of these is the use of the rhyme-phrase ish beinayim (here translated as “Goliath”). For Ibn al-Muªallim, Halevi is a Goliath of wisdom (l. 3); for Ibn Ezra the pen is a Goliath in its strength and might (l. 6); and for Halevi – Goliath is the power of night struggling to keep daylight – and separation – safely at bay: Dawn like the “ruddy one” raced to battle night who prevailed like a Goliath Dawn (shah.ar) – but blacker (mi-sheh.or) in my eyes than night makes the camping place of a bear bereaved of its cub (ll. 32-33) These two lines turn the struggle between night and day into an allegory of David and Goliath, with David periphrastically termed the “ruddy one” of I Samuel 16: 12. The rosy dawn prevails, of course, just as the ruddy David prevailed over Goliath – but Goliath is the good guy in this poem, and the fear of dawn is reinforced through a clever play on words (shah.ar / mi-sheh.or). To sum up, we find that the three poems are interwoven in ways beyond the formal elements of rhyme and meter, but that the affinities between them are based on the most nuanced ties of language and technique. It also appears that although Halevi’s poem is equal to Ibn Ezra’s in length, he is responding to Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem alone. One wonders how this came about. Could Ibn Ezra have greeted Halevi upon his return with the news that a poem had arrived for him during his absence, and that he, Ibn Ezra, had in the meantime written a poem-in-reply of forty lines? That certainly would have meant a delicate balancing act for Judah Halevi. It would have caused him to write a poem just as long as Ibn Ezra’s (so as not to appear behind-hand in his respect for Ibn al-Muªallim), but also no longer (lest he appear disrespectful to Moses ibn Ezra). All this, of course, is just speculation, but since we are speculating, it is interesting to wonder if these two poems-in-reply might just be the reason why we have only one Hebrew poem from Ibn al-Muªallim, who – poor thing! – wrote a lovely panegyric of modest proportions and received in return a torrent of eighty lines of the most polished verse by the two greatest poets of the day. No wonder if he took solace in medicine and Arabic poetry, where we find the only remaining traces of him today.

* * * Let us now turn to a question somewhat less speculative in nature, and that is the value of this group of poems for the question of whether or not Judah Halevi had what the research calls his Granada period. The rubric which we translated above from MS Oxford 1971 has Moses ibn Ezra composing a reply before the poem reached Judah Halevi, and this is the sequence followed in our presentation of the poems. There is, however, yet another rubric concerning this group of poems recently discovered in St. Petersburg among the fragments of the Firkowitz Collection, and this rubric reverses the order of things, with Judah Halevi and not Ibn Ezra being the first to receive and respond to Ibn al-Muªallim’s poem: 108

The Poet’s Workshop And when the two odes together reached the sah.ib al-shurt.a Ab¯u Harun [Moses] ibn Ezra, he wrote to Ab¯u Ayub [Solomon ibn al-Muªallim] and praised him with these lines, imitating both of these qas.¯ıdas.42 The real concern underlying the question of who responded first, Halevi or Ibn Ezra, is whether this group of poems can provide evidence for Halevi’s having stayed in Granada prior to the Almoravid invasion. Yosef Yahalom, who discovered the rubric in St. Petersburg, contends that this new rubric throws into question what was, for him, the only real piece of evidence in favor of a Granada Period.43 However, new rubrics are not necessarily preferable to old ones, as Ezra Fleischer points out, and the first rubric also comes from MS Oxford 1971, long considered the most authentic testimony to Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an.44 But all questions of rubric aside, it seems that St. Petersburg actually offers additional evidence of Halevi’s “Granada period;” namely in a better reading of line 38 of Halevi’s poem-in-reply, where, unlike the text previously published by S. M. Stern, we find the name of Granada (Rimon, in the Hebrew).45 Stern has the word hamon (“the many”) in place of Rimon (“Granada”), a mistake easily incurred through the similarity of the two strokes needed to pen the opening letter in both words. And indeed, this difference disappears when one re-examines Schocken 37. Playing on the “cherub” (keruv) epithet with which he has dubbed Ibn al-Muªallim throughout his poem, Halevi writes: 35

My beloved, you determined to torture me with the fire of Gehenna: behold! the fire of your leaving is twice as much Your leaving, and my death – over both of these I cry out: alas! Time has outwitted me twice over Never has there been such a rending of the cloud of tears with the dew drops of a mighty weeping. Whether it was Rimon (“Granada”) moaning over your leaving, or whether it was Jerusalem moaning over the cherub’s having left. (ll. 35–38)

By establishing the correct reading of the word in line 38, it seems evident that Ibn al-Muªallim met Halevi in Granada itself, and for this reason sent his poem to that city, expecting it to find Halevi there. We thus have one more piece in the puzzle confirming the theory that Judah Halevi did indeed have his Granada period just as portrayed by Haim Brody and Haim Schirmann: that is, before the Almoravid conquest and in the company of Moses ibn Ezra, then in his heyday as reigning Hebrew poet of al-Andalus.

42 MS Firkowitz, Collection IIA, MS 206.1. See Yosef Yahalom, “Ginzei Leningrad ve-heqer shirat hayyav . . shel rabbi Yehuda Halevi,” Peªamim 46–47 (1991), p. 61, note 29. 43 Yahalom, ibid. 44 Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot hayyav,” p. 262. . 45 The presence of the word Rimon (“Granada”) in Halevi’s poem does not seem to have been specifically noticed in the research. Ratzhabi, who published the text in his article “Asher ah.az bi-kenafot” with the correct reading, makes no mention of its significance, and indeed does not seem aware that Stern had previously published the text. He mentions only the publication of the poem’s opening lines back in 1930, in Mizrah. u-maªarav 5, pp. 10–11, on the basis of MS Adler 2763, fol. 66v.

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Chapter Seven

HEBREW BOON-COMPANIONS AS POETS FOR JEWISH OCCASIONS

The ideals of boon-companionship also lent themselves to poems of a more “Jewish” nature than those outlined in the previous chapters, or at least to poems celebrating events somewhat more anchored in the traditional Jewish calendar than the wine-drinking parties discussed until now. One such poem from the Granada period celebrates the holiday of Purim and was written by Judah Halevi while temporarily residing or visiting in the nearby town of Guadix (W¯ad¯ı-ash in Arabic),1 a “very fine city,” as al-Maqqar¯ı assures us, “surrounded by orchards and brooks. The inhabitants are endowed with the gift of poetry and great love for the sciences.”2 Talented as they were, however, it turns out that Judah Halevi was not dependent on local poetry lovers, for his Purim poem Lifnei keruv shilesh (“Before the cherub”)3 was addressed to two of his boon-companions back in Granada: Isaac ibn Ezra – the eldest of the four Ibn Ezra brothers – and Judah ibn Ghayyat. The rubric above the poem reads: A panegyric sent to Judah ibn Ghayyat and Ab¯u Harun [Moses] ibn Ezra, may they rest in peace, to the city of Granada from the city of Guadix during the days of Purim, laughing a bit over some matter between them.4 The rubric errs on one point: it was Isaac ibn Ezra and not his brother Moses to whom the poem was addressed (together with Judah ibn Ghayyat), a fact that is clear from the poem itself (cf. ll. 24b–25a). But that the three were “laughing a bit over some matter between them” is beyond doubt; the poem is bursting with joy and good spirits. The Purim nature of the poem is emphasized through rhyme (–rim); every line effectively echoes the holiday’s name. Only, parts of the poem are somewhat enigmatic to us today, largely because Halevi is replying to a written communication – a poem or letter – which he received from his two addressees (cf. ll. 9–10), and this, unfortunately, has not come down to us. The poem appears full of references to things we can only guess at today – “fraught with background,” to use Auerbach’s felicitous phrase – and baffling to those outside the magic circle of their laughter. We can gather, from the poem, that Ibn Ezra and Ibn Ghayyat sent their absent friend in Guadix a couple of fish over the Purim holidays, suitably baked and garnished (ll. 11–12). But just why they sent him 1 For a description of Guadix from early eleventh-century Andalus, see ªAbd al-Munªim al-Himyar¯ı’s La . p´eninsule Ib´erique au moyen aˆ ge d’apr`es le Kit¯ab ar-rawd. al-miªt.a¯ r f¯ı habar al-ak..ta¯ r, ed. (Arabic) and French trans. E. L´evi-Provenc¸al, (Leiden: Brill, 1938), pp. 233–234 [192]. 2 The Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. Pascual de Gayangos, p. 46. Al-Maqqar¯ı goes on to quote an Arabic poem in honor of Guadix by the poet Ab¯u-l-Hasan ibn Nasr. 3 ˘ÏÈ˘ ·Â¯Î ÈÙÏ. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 263 (no. 37). 4 MS Oxford 1970, fol. 179r.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions these fish we may never know; one imagines that they were a witty allusion to some gay lark the three friends had kicked up together in Granada. Whatever the reason, Halevi’s poem contains a dramatic monologue from the mouth of the two fish which is not only a marvelous bit of Purimspiel, but arguably one of the wittiest and most humorous passages in all of Hebrew poetry from Muslim Spain.5 Though one would never expect it from the beginning of the qas.¯ıda! This begins in a torrent of tears with a lament over separation from friends, the “two heavenly orbs” whom the “cherub” now joins to make three:

5

10

15

Before the cherub made a third to the two heavenly orbs and swung his spear of grace to enslave the sons of freemen From his mouth scattering pearls with his words so that nought was linked together but two rows Clear as the water of my eyes, pure as my love perfect like the tumim, radiant like the urim. When I weep to see its rows scattered, he laughs and show me my tears linked together Clear as jewels set with emeralds, as the group of boon-companions that grows ever brighter For what is Orion before the beauties of a company of beloved friends made up of princes and nobles? They arouse the fire of my heart’s desire while evil clouds split my heart asunder. My soul is bound to their souls, and though bodies may be separated, hearts are bound together. [Is it] their handwritten greetings or the perfume of cinammon, or pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh? Lines upon frankincense written in the oil of myrrh and dusted with the dust of the perfumer’s powder. From kingly delicacies they took a gift: these two that fell into the trap Their woes are my own heart’ woes – in fire and water they came as though distressed by separation But because they allow us to meet with the gentleman we love our souls take delight in their ailments and woes [They are] gold and pomegranates to their recipient, like their brethren the fatted geese Who desired to come like the harvest after their two friends, who came like the first fruits They waited for the hook as it was most sweet to their palates and besought it throughout the waves and the billows. They were despoiled of their ornaments, the ornaments of fins, and divested of their garment of sapphire-like scales

5 Schirmann discusses this incident in Le-toldot ha-shirah ve-ha-drama, 1: 259, and more briefly in Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 433.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions

20

25

30

They said to your recipient: “We were sent, O prince, and lo we are come to you in fetters The sun scorched us with the flames of love for you Do not see us as being black: Underneath the black attire you will find the whiteness of alabaster; strips hedged in by thistles and thorns We grew fat and sleek down in the depths as carved ivory Plump and juicy oozing from the knife. They who left a vineyard without wine came like enemies to spill the blood of grapes. We drink without compulsion; quaff without intoxication over the loving memory of joyful friends. Judah I thank with my heart and lips and Isaac make laugh to hear the daughters of song Delightful chaps, the son of Ezra and the son of Yeshaª who go out to battle like heroes May they and their circle bear a greeting to the commander of their affections and raise the banner of his love high like a flag. Just thinking of them is equal to the wings of a dove for wandering afar and o’erstriding the deserts and seas For were it not for these last kindnesses with which I have met, roads and overpasses would have rolled forth to entrap me. May Time draw near to sip from their loves, for autumn has passed and turtledoves also heard One way of the other: let there not tarry gifts (maªot) from (meºet) the output (meªot) of the sea for Purim draws near And like the sea and its gifts (meªotav) and Heaven and its hosts may the everlasting mountains bear peace to all.

The poem begins in a glitter of light with a number of well-known poetic motifs: the “two heavenly orbs” of the absent friends (l.1), “scattered pearls” of speech (l. 2a), sparkling teeth (l. 2b), and the glistening of lovers’ tears (l. 3), the latter sacred for being shed in the name of friendship and thus garbed in the language of sacrality, the mysterious urim and tumim of Exodus 28: 30 and elsewhere. One glistening image dissolves into the next, evoking the transience of pleasant times spent together, and there is a constant struggle between the powers of unity and separation: When I weep to see its rows scattered, he laughs and show me my tears linked together For what is Orion before the beauties of a group of beloved friends founded by princes and peers? (ll. 4–5) Here the heap of glittering images crystalise into a necklace of tears (4b) as bright as “Orion” – as a lover’s tears should be – but less shining nevertheless than the “group of beloved friends” for whom the poet is longing. This much can be gathered from the 113

Hebrew Boon-Companions images in the opening of the poem. But line 1b, with its enigmatic allusion to 2 Samuel 23:18, is far more cryptic: Before the cherub made a third to the two celestial orbs and swung his spear of grace to enslave the sons of freemen Is this something that only the three friends themselves could understand? Or does it have a meaning that passes us by? We can only wonder. Line 9 reveals that Halevi’s poem comes in response to a poem or a note written by his friends, which he dutifully praises in conventional images of fragrance and color, describing the myrrh-black lines of writing against the background of frankincensewhite. But there is nothing conventional about his description of the gift accompanying these lines of myrrh and frankincense. This turns out to be nothing less than a couple of large grilled fish: “kingly delicacies” (l. 11a) and a contingent of smaller ones, the “fatted geese” of line 14b, all humorously wrapped in the language of love-sickness. Like any good lover the fish “fell into a trap” (l. 11b), braved “fire and water” (l. 12a), and separation (l. 12b) – and all in order to reach Halevi’s table ready-baked. That they are kingly presents is emphasized by the references to “gold and pomegranates” (l. 14a) and the “first fruits” of the harvest (l. 15). Suitably enough the fish arrive sans fins and scales (l. 17), something any cook might contrive, but surely only Judah Halevi would dress this culinary detail in a humorous allusion to Exodus 12: 36, so that the fish, like the ancient Egyptians, have been “despoiled of their ornaments.” And now comes the tour-de-force of the whole piece, for at this point the fish open their mouths and begin to speak – and not only speak, but to quote from the Song of Songs:

20

They said to your recipient: “We were sent, O prince, and lo we are come to you in fetters The sun scorched us with the flames of love for you Do not see us as being black: Underneath the black attire you will find the whiteness of alabaster strips hedged in by thistles and thorns We grew fat and sleek down in the depths as carved ivory Plump and juicy oozing from the knife

This is dramatic monologue that Browning himself might have envied. Humor is created through the profound discrepancy in register between the subject under discussion and the language used to describe it: the fish’s flesh is like ivory (l. 20) and the “whiteness of alabaster” (l. 21); the kitchen grill nothing less than the “flames of love” (l. 19). And in a rapturous description not to be matched by the most ambitious of restaurant menus, the fish describe their baked and blackened selves in a wonderful parody of the shepherdess in Canticles: “Do not gaze upon me, because I am black, because the sun has scorched me” (Song of Songs 1: 6). Then continuing their self-portrait, the fish describe their flesh, crust, and bones through another amusing biblical allusion in line 20:

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Hebrew Boon-Companions 20

Underneath the black attire you will find the whiteness of alabaster strips hedged in by thistles and thorns

The delicate fish-bones are here called “thistles and thorns,” an allusion to the grim warning in Genesis 3:18: “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” Coming from the mouth of the fish as it does, this allusion is wonderfully disingenuous. Our fish, it would seem, are not only well-read and adept at quoting Scripture, but apparently quite pleased at the prospect of sweet revenge on those who would eat them! Fish-bones can make for sorrowful eating indeed. In line 21b we find the fish “oozing from the knife,” making an end to both the fish and their monologue. From here we return to the conventions of panegyric poetry, with praise for the recipients of his poem and expressions of hope for an early reunion, all preceded by a brief transition that leads us out of the land of talking fish and back to the business of panegyric. Lines 24–25 belie the testimony of the rubric, showing that the poem was written for Judah ibn Ghayyat and Isaac ibn Ezra, not his brother Moses. as the rubric says. Line 24 is more intent on punning on the names of his recipients, as befits a good Purim poem, than in identifying precisely which Isaac and Judah are meant; there were, after all, more than one of each in the immediate neighborhood of our boon-companions. Line 25, however, leaves no room for doubt:

25

Judah (yehuda) I thank (ahodeh) with my heart and lips and Isaac (yitzh.aq) make laugh (atzah.eq) to hear the daughters of song Delightful chaps, the son of Ezra (ben Ezra) and the son of Yeshaª6 who go out to battle like heroes

One is tempted to ponder the biographical information seemingly embedded in lines 28–29. What are these “last kindnesses” that keep Halevi from rejoining his friends? Is he referring to the gifts just received, or perhaps to hospitality being shown him in Guadix? Brody asks these questions in his commentary to the poem, but wisely leaves them unanswered.7 And indeed the answer is perhaps not too important for our purposes. For us it is enough to witness the sense of fun and comradeship so clearly shown in this poem and to experience the dynamics between the Hebrew “boon-companions” of our circle in a unique and entirely unexpected way.

* * * For poets bent on recreating the courtly ideals of boon-companionship within a Jewish milieu, the festival of Purim was made to order. This celebration of Jewish salvation in ancient Persia, recorded in the Scroll of Esther, has been an occasion for merry-making since time immemorial and the annals of Hebrew literature are full of parodies and humorous poems written especially in its honor.8 But in addition to Purim, what other 6 Judah Halevi also dubbed Judah ibn Ghayyat “the son of Yeshaª” in the poem Ma-li leravot (“Why should I soak the ground?”), l. 20b. 7 See Brody’s commentary to the poem in the D¯ıw¯ an, 2: 240. 8 On the literary work written in honor of Purim see Israel Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature (New

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Hebrew Boon-Companions events in the Jewish calendar could serve our Hebrew boon-companions? The answer, it would seem, was weddings. Judah Halevi is the wedding poet par excellence from medieval Spain. Some forty of his wedding-poems have come down to us, many of them in the form of muwashshah.as, and many of them of incredible beauty.9 These poems blend well-known motifs from secular love poetry with the ideals of the married state to create masterpieces of word, sound and imagery. The “gazelles” in these poems exhibit the standard motifs of beauty from secular love- and wine-poetry, but in the wedding-poem there is no room for agony and tension: beauty’s arrows lose their barbs, and lovesickness turns into a sweet and expectant yearning. Unfortunately, however, at least for the purposes of this study, none of Halevi’s wedding-poems can be definitely assigned to the “Granada period,” and while some of them may well date to this time there is simply no way of knowing. There are, to be sure, several small wedding-poems composed for someone named “Judah,” but whether these were composed for Judah ibn Ghayyat, as Fleischer suggests,10 is something we do not know, just as we cannot be sure that they were composed during the Granada period in question. Nevertheless, the probability that some of these weddingpoems date to this period is increased by the fact that at least one wedding-poem has apparently come down to us from pre-Almoravid Granada: a qas.¯ıda written by Moses ibn Ezra for his friend, Solomon ibn Matar.11 Ibn Ezra’s wedding-poem begins with the words Ha-reyah. mor (“Is that the scent of myrrh?)12 and is a beautifully constructed qas.¯ıda with all the elements of the classic tradition: a long, impressive opening (ll. 1–14) on a subject different from the main part of the poem; a line of transition that whisks the reader into the poem’s main part (l. 15); the body of the poem itself, with its praise for the recipient (ll. 16–20) and the more personal content (in this case, the lines dealing with the wedding-theme: ll. 21–38); and finally, the dedication and benedictions at the end (ll. 39–45). It begins with a series of striking lines rich in sensuous images and constructed via the technique of “feigned ignorance” (hittammut) so characteristic of Ibn Ezra’s poetry. Is that the scent of myrrh gripping every corner, or is it a breeze swaying the myrtles? And is that a cloud, or the attar of cassia and calamus? Lightning, or the lightning of the goblets of nectar? And are those clouds pouring forth perfumes, York: University of Columbia Press, 1907), esp. pp. 19–23; 30–31; 37–38; 47–50. 9 Haim Brody included the wedding-poems amongst the love-poems in Halevi’s D¯ıw¯ an, vol. 2 (pp. 1– 66). Israel Zamora does include a separate section of wedding-poems in his edition, but this is scarcely complete: only a handful of poems are included in this category; the others are interspersed amongst the love poems, as in Brody’s edition. Halevi’s wedding-poems have received little scholarly attention apart from Tova Rosen-Moked’s study in Leºezor shir (Chapter Fourteen), and in idem, “On Tongues Being Bound and Let Loose: Women in Medieval Hebrew Literature,” Prooftexts 8 (1988), pp. 77–79. For a study of Halevi’s wedding-poems and their relations to the muwashshah.a, see Ann Brener, “Kharja-like Endings in Hebrew Wedding-poems from Muslim Spain” (in preparation). 10 The two wedding-poems for “Judah” are printed in Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, 2: 58–59 (nos. 57 and 58). The possibility that they were composed for Judah ibn Ghayyat is mentioned by Fleischer in Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-sefarad ha-muslemit, p. 510, note 120. 11 Fleischer counts this poem among those “definitely composed during the Granada period” in his “Yehudah Halevi: Birurim be-qorot h.ayyav,” p. 250. 12 ¯ÂÓ Áȯ‰. Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, p. 159 (no. 160). .

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5

10

15

20

25

or from the tips of myrtles are there droplets? And are those hills shouting forth joyfully without a mouth, or turtledoves on the fronds, and songbirds? And the earth’s clothing is inwrought with gold and its robes are silken and striped And all its paths have become straight for those who tread it and the mountain peaks have turned back like valleys And houses sing out joyfully, and from the wall the posts respond back, and from the timber the beams And woebegone faces have donned joy and the dour are festive and glad And the lips of the stammerers will speak eloquently to raise the destroyed buildings of joy Because they see the hidden wonders long concealed in the heart And the precious tent coupled, and the clasps of glory put into the loops And the days have made bone to bone draw near and cleaved the divided flesh Joys have ascended mountains of myrrh and on the hills of frankincense they are like banners And on the wings of dawn good tidings throughout the world – not by messengers or horses: Solomon has betrothed his beloved princess – or is it that the moon and sun are betrothed? [He Solomon] whose feet have carved out the path of wisdom and whose legs bestride morality And whose thoughts from youth are in the heavens and his meditations tethered to the stars And has towered over the youth of his age as people tower over cattle and reptiles And his deeds are more valuable than theirs just as pearls are more valuable than pottery They may race to catch up with the dust of his feet, but what bird can pursue eagles? Tell me: how has Orion met up with the Pleiades on earth without anyone taking note? Or if not, have the wings of their [the stars’] splendor stretched forth their glory upon their faces? How have they robbed their light: have people been seen plundering and stealing lights? O friends, hasten to the wine of friendship; drink today from the cup of bliss And be yet destined to double joys and open wide the stable doors The goblets have congealed like water 117

Hebrew Boon-Companions

30

35

40

45

and the coals inside of them are melting Drink up, for he is founding his house; drink up I say, lest you be forced! And rejoice, O young man, in the loving doe and let the two sing forth, both of them joyful And delight in she whose stature is like unto a palm-tree but who sways like the branches of the myrtle And fear not the jingle of ornaments at her throat at evening and the rattling of headdresses And be not afraid of eyes like doves that intoxicate (and not from the wine of wrath) And may your heart withstand the embrace of arms in bracelets and the bravery of anklets And flee not the scorpion curls upon a face flushed with shyness For they go forth in peace to meet you though they hide her beauteous face and conceal it And pomegranates in a rose garden; indeed overlaid on the tips with perfume And your hands in passing over them gently squeeze and caress them And know that Time is a slave to your desire and his sons gathered to do your bidding To further your wishes they hasten and all the sorrows of your heart chase away. Accept the poem of a friend whose heart rejoices in you and whose thoughts fly and swoop towards you A robe of honor that will not wither till the foundations of eternity crumble away. Are not the waters of his friendship purer than snow and never sullied by foot? And should they be hidden from you in my heart seek them with the candles of your mind For pearls are for those who have understanding – and mutton ribs are for the fools The wise desire profundities; the simpletons – fatted geese. Goodly youth, dwell with the daughter of princes in the shadow of God, tranquil within, and secure.

Commentary: 3 clouds pouring forth (Ecclesiastes 11: 3). 4 hills . . . joyfully (Isaiah 55:12). 5 clothing . . . gold (Psalm 45: 14); striped robes (Genesis 37: 3). 6. mountain peaks . . . valleys (Isaiah 40: 4). 7 from the wall . . . beams (Habakkuk 2: 11), with slight changes in wording to accomodate meter and rhyme. 8 woebegone faces (Daniel 1: 10). 9 lips . . . eloquently (Isaiah 32:4).11 tent . . . clasps; put . . . loops (Exodus 26: 11). 12 bone to bone (Genesis 2: 23); cleaved flesh (Genesis 2: 24). 13: A conflation of two biblical verses: mountains of myrrh;

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Hebrew Boon-Companions hills of frankincense (Song of Songs 4: 6); on the hills [ . . .] like banners (Isaiah 30: 17). 14 on the wings of dawn (Psalm 139: 9); good tidings (Isaiah 40:9); messengers – ¯Î in Isaiah 16: 1 (plural in the poem for the sake of meter), translated in the RSVT as “lamb;” for the Andalusi understanding of the word see Jonah ibn Janah., The Book of Hebrew Roots, ed. Adolf Neubauer, p. 330). 20 the dust of his feet (Nahum 1: 3); eagles – plural of the Ò¯Ù mentioned in Leviticus 11: 13, and translated in the RSVT as “bearded vulture.” Haim Brody notes that Ibn Ezra may well mean a kind of eagle here since this bird comes alongside the eagle in Leviticus 11: 13 (Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, 2: 296). Brody further cites Ibn Janah.’s Sefer ha-riqmah (p. 310) showing that poets changed words for the sake of rhyme. 21 Orion, Pleiades (Job 9: 9). 23 their wings [. . .] spread forth (Exodus 25: 20). 25 open . . . doors – a tentative translation. The Hebrew alludes to Jeremiah 50: 26 but its meaning in the poem is unclear (see Brody’s comments in Shirei ha-h.ol, 2: 297). 28 Rejoice, young man (variation on Ecclesiastes 11: 9); doe of love (Proverbs 5: 19); both of them joyful (Job 39: 13). 29 stature . . . palm tree (Song of Songs 7: 8). 31 eyes like doves (ibid. 4: 1); intoxicate . . . wine (Isaiah 51: 21). 34 go forth in peace (I Kings 20: 18). 35 overlaid [ . . . ] with perfume (cf. Habakkuk 2: 19: “overlaid with gold”). 39 heart . . . you (Psalm 33: 21). 41 purer than snow (Lamentations 4: 7); sullied by foot (Ezekiel 34: 18). 42 seek . . . candles (Zephaniah 1: 12). 44 for geese (I Kings 5: 3). 45 daughter of princes (Song of Songs 7: 2); shadow of God (Psalm 91: 1).

The wedding-poem for Solomon ibn Matar ushers us into a rich and perfumed universe. It is a universe that awakens all the senses and in effect creates a kind of synaesthesia, so that Bialik and Ravnitsky, who commented on the poem, remark that “everything is jumbled together, as though the clouds were dripping perfumes instead of raindrops, and the tips of myrtles drizzling water instead of perfumes, just the opposite of reality.”13 More prosaically, David Yellin suggested that some of the words have just gotten “mixed up,” and dutifully rearranged the text.14 Be this as it may, the first four lines create a universe almost magically alive with sound, scent and beauty. In lines 5–14 Ibn Ezra leaves the technique of “feigned ignorance” behind to present a matter-of-fact description of this most unmatter-of-fact world, ostensibly depicting what he hears and sees but in actual fact creating his enchanted world as he goes. Through a careful choice of biblical language the earth is dressed as a bride in clothes “inwrought with gold,” like the Phoenician princess-bride in Psalm 45: 14, or in Joseph’s multistriped coat (l. 5). Everything on earth participates in a joy reserved by the Prophets for the messianic days to come: mountains curve into valleys, the dumb become eloquent, the very walls of the houses sing out for joy (ll. 6–9). This is the world which the prophets foretold; surely the tidings borne on “the wings of dawn” in line 14 will announce that Redemption is near! But no, the true reason, we learn, is even more important: Solomon ibn Matar and his beloved are due to wed (l. 15a). This is the event for which all creation has prepared, and the poet makes the couple worthy of the honor in every way. Is it Solomon and his beloved who have becomes betrothed, or the sun and the moon (l. 15b)? This “feigned ignorance” turns the lovers into heavenly orbs – one of the leading metaphors of medieval poetry, as we have already seen15 – and also sets the stage for 13 Kol shirei Moshe ben Yaªaqov ibn Ezra, ed. H. N. Bialik and Y. H. Ravnitsky (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1928), p. 133. Only the first volume of their projected edition was published. 14 David Yellin, Ketavim nivharim, 3: 244. . 15 For other examples of this motif see Halevi’s “Show your loving face” (“Haqbel penei dodkha”) and “O

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Hebrew Boon-Companions the humorous by-play in lines 21–23: Tell me: how has Orion met up with the Pleiades on earth without anyone taking note? And if not, have not the wings of the [stars’] splendor spread forth their glory upon their faces? How have they robbed their light: have people been seen plundering and stealing lights? (ll. 21–23) Lines 24–27 comprise something of a miniature wine-poem, framed by an invitation to drink deep in honor of Solomon’s wedding. Our poem also presents us with a double-portrait of the nuptial pair; the groom, Solomon ibn Matar, is a medieval King Solomon adorned with good deeds and wisdom like his biblical namesake (ll. 16–20), and the bride is a gazelle straight out of a love poem (ll. 28–36). Thus our “loving doe” (l. 28) is as straight as a palm tree but supple as the myrtle branch (l. 29); her eyes are “doves” (l. 31), and her curls “scorpions” protecting her from unwanted advances (l. 33). Then comes the poem’s pi`ece-de-r´esistance: the exhortation to the groom on his wedding night, a humorous deconstruction of the conventions just detailed: 30

35

And fear not the jingling of ornaments at her throat at evening and the rattling of headdresses And be not afraid of eyes like doves that intoxicate (and not from the wine of wrath) And may your heart withstand the embrace of arms in bracelets and the bravery of anklets And flee not the scorpion curls upon a face flushed with shyness For they go forth in peace to meet you though they hide her beauteous face and conceal it. And pomegranates in a rose garden; indeed overlaid on the tips with perfume And your hands in passing over them gently squeeze and caress them (ll. 30–36)

This rousing speech ends with the sly (and erotic) reference to the bride’s garden of delights (ll. 35–36). Now comes the time to offer the poem to its recipient, so Ibn Ezra dresses it in the rich “robe of honor”(ll. 39–40) prized by medieval scholars,16 just as earlier in the poem he garbed the earth in gold and silken robes (l. 5). This is followed by declarations of friendship and blessings, all according to the best of poetic tradition. The solemn Sun behind your curtained hair” (H . ama baªad raqiaª), both translated in full in Chapter Five. 16 On the honorary robes of medieval scholars see Dodge, Muslim Education in Medieval Times, p. 13, note 43 and p. 20. Poetry as a richly woven garment is discussed above, Chapter Six, note 26.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions declarations of friendship seem natural enough, as do the blessings at the very end of the poem, but what, one wonders, is all the talk about mutton ribs and fatted geese in lines 43–44? For pearls are for those who have understanding – and mutton ribs are for the fools The wise desire profundities; the simpletons – fatted geese. (ll. 43–44) Perhaps it will help to picture the entire poem in situ, as it were, with the wine flowing freely, the edibles piled high, and an affronted (or probably mock-affronted) poet reciting his poem as he glances at the benighted guests guzzling down the heartier fare. Alas! a wedding celebration is not always the select party preferred by boon-companions. But all this was probably done in good fun. Ibn Ezra’s wedding-poem creates a delicate balance between humor and sanctity, both time-honored elements of wedding rites the world over. On the one hand he creates humor through his use of mock-ignorance in lines 21–23 – whence all this radiance? – and in a somewhat more bachelor-party spirit, through his subversion of poetic convention as he exhorts the bashful groom to arms (ll. 30–34). On the other hand, he also creates a genuine aura of sanctity for the young couple, as we find in line 11, where the metaphors include some of Judaism’s most sacred images: And the precious tent coupled, and the clasps of glory put into the loops (l. 11) This line is densely woven with images of the desert Tabernacle constructed by the Israelites following the exodus from Egypt, as related in the biblical verse: And thou shalt make fifty clasps of brass, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together that it may be one. (Exodus 26: 11) The Tabernacle thus becomes a metaphor in Ibn Ezra’s poem, its very clasps and loops transformed into images of married love and the erotic into something permitted – nay, divinely commanded – and sublime. The poem leaves out the final words in the verse from Exodus – “that it may be one” – but Ibn Ezra’s audience would easily have filled the gap on their own, and they certainly add a neat touch. Further on, in line 22, the metaphors of sanctity shift to the Ark of Testimony with the speaker pondering the source of the bridal couple’s radiance: “have the wings of the [stars’] splendor spread forth their glory upon the [couple’s] faces?” Now, stars do not normally have wings, even in poetry, but here the wings have been borrowed from the keruvim (“cherubs”) guarding the Ark of Testimony:

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Hebrew Boon-Companions And the keruvim shall stretch out their wings on high, overspreading the covering with their wings, and their faces shall look to one another. (Exodus 25: 20) In this way, the poet conflates the poetic convention of Arabic poetry with the resources of the biblical language, turning the beloved-as-heavenly orb into a uniquely Hebraic image. Moses ibn Ezra has linked the individual sections of this beautifully-crafted qas.¯ıda in ways that go beyond the formal unity created by rhyme and meter. The myrtles breathe their fragrance twice in the opening of the poem (ll.1b, 4b); the bride herself is likened to a gently swaying myrtle (l. 29b). Perfumes mingle in the first four lines, causing our speaker to feign ignorance of their source; in line 35 there can be no doubt as to the source: it is the bride herself who is the source of the fragrance, for the “pomegranates” of her breasts are “overlaid on the tips with perfume.” Motifs from wine-poetry also run through the poem: the crystal goblets of the wine party dazzle in line 2b and again in line 25. Earth decks itself out as for a wine-party in the most splendid of garments (l. 5); the bride, of course, is elaborately be-jeweled and be-ornamented (ll. 30; 32), and, as we have just seen, Ibn Ezra calls his poem a “robe of honor” – a sumptuous image indeed. Like lief-motifs in a symphony, these repeating images help to bind the various sections into a single and coherent whole.

* * * As we have just seen, the wedding-poem to Solomon ibn Matar is a very beautiful, as well as very witty poem. But what is especially interesting is that we find another poem with a strikingly similar opening, this one a panegyric by Judah Halevi in honor of someone named “Moses,” and very likely Moses ibn Ezra himself.17 The similarities are especially pronounced in the first four lines of each poem. Let us glance at the opening of both poems, beginning with Ibn Ezra’s wedding-poem in honor of Solomon ibn Matar. The rhyme-words are written in bold-type, and the original Hebrew transliterated in italics: Is that the scent of myrrh gripping every corner, (ºafasim) or is it a breeze swaying the myrtles? (hadasim) And is that a cloud, or the attar of cassia and calamus? Lightning, or the lightning of the goblets of nectar? (ªasisim) And are those clouds pouring forth perfumes, or from the tips of myrtles are there droplets? (resisim) 17 ¯ÂÓ Áȯ‰. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 58 (no. 43). The manuscripts (including MS Oxford 1970, the classic copy of Halevi’s d¯ıw¯an) refer to the poem’s recipient simply as “Ab¯u Harun,” the standard sobriquet for “Moses” and one often used for Moses ibn Ezra. In his commentary to the poem Brody indeed assumes it to mean Moses ibn Ezra, but another manuscript (the famous MS Schocken 37) names “Ab¯u Harun ben Krispin” (ÔÈÙÒ¯˜) a member of a distinguished Andalusi Jewish family. See Yehuda Ratzhabi, “Ketuvot ªaraviot le-shirei Yehuda Halevi,” ªAlei sefer 17 (1993), p. 45. In “Yehudah Halevi: birurim le-qorot h.ayyav,” p. 250, Fleischer names Moses ibn Ezra as the poem’s recipient, but in Yehuda Halevi u-venei h.ugo, p. 133, he seems inclined to accept the testimony of MS Schocken 37.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions And are those hills shouting forth joyfully without a mouth, or turtledoves on the fronds, and songbirds? (sisim) These lines are pure Ibn Ezra: one need only glance back at the opening to such poems as Bein ha-hadasim or Nofet sefatayim – or any number of other poems in his D¯ıw¯an – to recognize his hallmark.18 Interestingly enough, however, these lines re-echo in Halevi’s panegyric as well: Is that the scent of myrrh or the scent of nectar (ªasisim) or is it a breeze swaying the myrtles? (hadasim) Or is it the tear of gazelles upon their cheeks or is it that upon the roses are droplets? (resisim) Or is it a lute behind the musician’s curtain or turtledoves on the branch, and songbirds? (sisim) Or is it the name of the lord Moses and memory of him that, like the memory of myrrh, suffuses every corner? (ºafasim) It is not just that the poems use the same rhyme and meter. The two openings look more like variations on a theme: the same rhyme-words, though in different sequence, the same alluring images of “turtledoves and songbirds,” and most of all, almost identical opening lines. Coincidence? Not very likely, for the similarities do not end there. Analysis of the two poems shows that Halevi’s poem – the shorter of the two – uses only three rhyme-words not found in Ibn Ezra’s poem,19 and there are other significant links in terms of imagery and language, as the following translation will show:

5

Is that the scent of myrrh or the scent of nectar or is it a breeze swaying the myrtles? Or is it the tear of gazelles upon their cheeks or is it that upon the roses are droplets? Or is it a lute behind the musician’s curtain or turtledoves on the branch, and songbirds? Or is it the name of the lord Moses and memory of him which like the memory of myrrh suffuses every corner? A man who makes splendor his ornaments but gives splendor to the ornaments himself Grace is his lover, and he too the friend of grace; both of them joyful in each other He inherited generosity from his forefathers

18 Cf. Ibn Ezra’s Bein ha-hadasim in Chapter One, and his Nofet sefatayim in Chapter Six. For other examples see the opening lines to his poems in Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, nos. 24, 64, 74, 93, 95, 131, 168, 193, 195. All told, Ibn Ezra began ten of his long qas.¯ıdas using the technique of “feigned ignorance,” while Judah Halevi used it only on two other occasions, in poems nos. 86 (p. 123) and 98 (p. 149) in his D¯ıw¯an. Significantly, Judah Halevi even failed to use the technique when replying to a poem that itself began with “feigned ignorance:” Ibn Muªalim’s ªAv taªarof (“Is a cloud drizzling”), the poem in Chapter Six that set off a three-way correspondence. Either Halevi disliked the technique or he saw it as belonging, as it were, to Moses ibn Ezra. 19 The three rhyme-words come in lines 10b, 12b, and 17b.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions

10

15

and overlaid their generosity with his own To the point where his deeds made his reputation take wings outspread like eagles And is provisioned with every richness the day every other person is provisioned with broken shards He who comes to weigh his generosity, say to him: “Can the everlasting mountains be weighed with scales?” May God bless his forefathers for his grace and let not the buildings of his loving-kindness be destroyed Accept, O prince, rhymes (h.aruzim), like beads (h.aruzim) for the neck of your memory I linked them together To make them fasten your friendship I put the clasps of your love through the loops And [made] for your excellency: bells; and for your splendor: a crown of jewels Let not their fewness (meªat.am) make them light in your eyes for their surface (maªat.am) is covered with embroidery I hoarded them from riches so that they are becoming to your name and free of anything vile May God grant you as many tranquilities as there is water covering the sea

Commentary: 5 This line reverses the usual relationship: most patrons don “robes of wisdom” and ornament themselves in “necklaces of good deeds;” here Moses himself is the chief ornament and jewel. 6 both of them joyful (Job 39: 13). 7 overlaid [ . . .] with (Habakkuk 2: 19). 8 like eagles: plural of the Ò¯Ù mentioned in Leviticus 11: 13. 10 everlasting mountains (Habakuk 3: 6); mountains . . . scales (Isaiah 40: 12). 13 fasten [. . .] loops (Exodus 26: 11; ibid., 28: 28). 14 bells: cf. Ah.ar galot sod, l. 15: “This [poem] is a bell for his robe of pride. 16 free of anything vile (Jeremaiah 15: 19).

The relationship between the two poems goes well beyond the norm even for poems created as “imitations” (muª¯arad.as) to begin with. The imitations noted in Chapter Two, for example, consisted of a strict conformity to the rhyme and meter of a model-poem but not the virtual reproduction of its language. This kind of imitation – if that is what it is – borders on plagiarism even according to the medieval critics and theorists, whose ideas on the subject were less stringent than those of today.20 David Yellin merely asks “who copied who?” and decides that Ibn Ezra must have copied Halevi, on the grounds that the latter would hardly have plagiarized Ibn Ezra “without so much as a by-your-leave” if he intended his poem for him in the first place.21 The possibility that Halevi’s panegyric 20 Even when a later Hebrew poet, Moses Dariª, consciously used one or other of these poems as a model, his opening lines less resemble his model(s) than Ibn Ezra’s and Halevi’s resemble each other. Dariª’s poem was published by Simha Pinsker, Lequt.ei qadmoniyot (Vienna, 1860), pp. 52–53. On the subject of plagiarism in medieval Arabic poetry see G. E. Grunebaum, “The Concept of Plagiarism in Arabic Theory,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 3 (1944), pp. 234–253; concerning medieval Hebrew poetry see Israel Levin, “ªAl geneivat ha-shir ve-ªal meqoriut ba-shirah ha-ªivrit bi-yemei ha-beinayim,” Peles, ed. Nurit Govrin (Tel Aviv: University of Tel Aviv, 1980). 21 David Yellin, Torat ha-shirah ha-sefaradit, p. 290.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions was intended for another Moses – possibly Moses ibn Krispin, as mentioned above22 – removes this objection, but still does not explain why either poet would copy the other. Surely neither Moses ibn Ezra nor Judah Halevi would have any desire, or certainly any need, to copy another poet’s lines almost verbatim like that. Why, then, is there so much similarity between the openings of the two poems? And why, moreover, are there differences? While we cannot be certain, the answers to these questions may possibly be rooted in the dynamics of composition governing our Hebrew circle of poets. But before we try and answer these questions, let us look at the different models of composition that we have seen up till this point: 1. One model of composition involves a panegyric and a panegyric-in-reply using the same rhyme and meter; here it seems that we are almost talking about etiquette: if one gentleman doffs his hat in greeting, the other must, too. This was the case of the panegyrics exchanged between Judah Halevi and Judah ibn Ghayyat in Chapter Three, and of the trio of poems examined in Chapter Six.23 It was also the case in Chapter One, where we saw that Halevi modeled his very first qas.¯ıda to Ibn Ezra on one of Ibn Ezra’s own poems.24 In these kinds of poems, poets used the same rhyme and meter – at times even the same rhyme-words – and sometimes, though not often, similar images and idioms. None of these poems, however, show nearly identical or even similar introductions. 2. Another model thrives on the spirit of contest and challenge. This was the case in Chapter Two, where Halevi dashed off a muwashshah.a in response to a difficult modelpoem specifically held up as a challenge.25 Halevi’s poem used the same rhyme and meter, but there was little if anything else to indicate a relationship between the two poems. It is also the case for another of Halevi’s poems, and while it is not from the Granada period, is does present a highly instructive example: Judah Halevi received a qas.¯ıda of eighteen lines in praise of a cantor from one Isaac ben al-Shami al-Hatzeira, using what he considered a difficult rhyme (-zan). Al-Hatzeira told Halevi that he had used every possible rhyme-word except one, a lapse for which he apologized: Gozan (a city in ancient Mesopotamia)would just not fit in. Halevi promptly sent him a poem of his own – twenty-five lines long – using the same rhyme of -zan but completely different rhyme-words. Poor Al-Hatzeira! One can almost see him blushing over the centuries. But, then, he should have known better than to brag about his poetic abilities, and certainly he should have known better than to brag to Judah Halevi.26 The literary riddle translated in Chapter Five may also be the result of this kind of 22 23

See note 17. The three poems written by Solomon ibn Muªallim, Judah Halevi, and Moses ibn Ezra and discussed in Chapter Six. 24 This refers, of course, to Ibn Ezra’s Bein ha-hadasim nashvu ruheinu (“Has our breeze been blowing . amongst the myrtles”), and Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu (“Stay, O stay”). 25 The muwashshaha challenge-poem Leyl mahshavot (“Nightly the musing of my heart”) by Moses ibn . . Ezra (or possibly Joseph ibn Tzadik), and the poem-in-response Ah.ar galot sod (“After revealing the secret”) by Judah Halevi. 26 The story is related in the rubric above Halevi’s poem, which is printed in Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 285–287 (no. 58).The poem by Isaac al-Shami al-Hatzeira is printed in Schirmann, “Ha-meshorerim benei doram,” 6 (1945), p. 259. Schirmann relates the incident in Le-toldot ha shirah ve-ha-drama ha-ªivrit, 1: 277.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions competition, at least if we are to believe the rubric written above the poem in one of the manuscripts. There, as we saw, Halevi is said to have composed his riddle because he was dissatisfied with a riddle-poem by Judah ibn Ghayyat.27 Whether Halevi’s riddlepoem used the same rhyme and meter as Ibn Ghayyat’s we have no way of knowing, as the latter’s riddle has not come down to us. Be this as it may, this model of composition presumes a gathering of poets and enthusiasts in a distinct social setting. 3. The third model of poetic composition involves the kind of impromptu composition or improvisation witnessed in Chapter Five, with a group of poets tossing out one-liners to be completed by fellow-poets and guests.28 This model may also characterize, at least in certain cases, the kind of situation mentioned above in the second model. The composition of Ah.ar galot sod (“After revealing the secret”), let us recall, seems to have been undertaken as a group effort: in his letter to Moses ibn Ezra, Halevi describes events in the following way: The poem began Leyl mah.shavot lev aªirah and they made a great beginning / but were unable to get the ending. / So they ordered me, to wit: / “Look, we started – you finish it!” (ll. 20–22) In other words, authorship of this kind was something less than private property. One can imagine various poets chiming in with suggestions and rhymes as the poem took shape. But once again, there is nothing that requires poems composed in this manner to have openings similar – not to mention identical – to the challenge poem. Let us now return to our two poems: Ibn Ezra’s wedding-poem and Halevi’s panegyric. None of the models listed above explains why the beginnings of these two poems are so similar. Nor do they explain why, being so similar, they are nevertheless not identical. If we had to hazard a guess, we might suggest that perhaps our two poems began along the improvisatory lines of the third model and gradually developed into the kind of challenge described in the second model, in which poets actively compete with a given poem. The scenario, if so, might have run something like this: Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi were courting the Muse together, so to speak, perhaps along with other friends and poets, perhaps just by themselves. But they were together. The first words of the poem were probably suggested by Moses ibn Ezra; the specific wording and imagery of the opening, as noted, bear his particular imprint. But from there on, it may be that both poets pitched in to continue the poem, one poet coming up with one hemistich, the other coming up with the next, and so on for the first four lines. Perhaps the collaboration was such that the two poets would have been at a loss themselves to say later who actually composed which part of the first four lines, or who contributed this or that rhyme-word or image. In this fashion, the poem would practically have composed itself, with the lines taking shape through words uttered out loud and left in verbal form. At some point this improvisational model of composition, enacted as a kind of pastime between friends, turned into a veritable contest along the lines of the second model, with each poet challenging the other to continue the poem they had started, on whatever subject 27 28

See Chapter Five, p. 85. Ibid., p. 82.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions they chose. Apparently the first four lines were not written down at the time; it would not have been difficult for such accomplished poets as Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi to remember four lines of poetry,29 and this would also explain the difference in wording when the two poets eventually sat down to compose their separate poems. Moses ibn Ezra decided to take the opportunity to compose a poem for the wedding of his friend, Solomon ibn Matar; Judah Halevi decided – whether through prudence, or diplomacy, or just for the fun of it – to compose a panegyric for his co-author, as it were. This would explain the rather obscure comments concerning the rhymes in his poem: 15

Let not their fewness (meªat.am) make them light in your eyes for their surface (maªat.am) is covered with embroidery I hoarded them from riches so that they are becoming to your name and free of anything vile (ll. 15–16)

The allusion to rhymes creates from “riches” (l.16) takes us back to Halevi’s ªImdu ªamodu (“Stay, O stay”), the poem that he sent to Moses ibn Ezra before they even met. There, too, he alluded to the “source” of his rhymes:30 Were he to compose a poem, the heavenly orbs would cry out at its radiance: “How didst thou plunder our splendor?!” Or if the threads of a necklace were to see his rhymes they would say: “Are these not our crystals?” (ll. 13–14) And in his Yaldei yamim (“The children of Time”),31 Moses ibn Ezra acknowledged this source and complimented Halevi on having used it so advantageously: 10

Lo, every poem is a corpse compared to his only his has the breath of life; Had he not endowed it with his majesty it would have been like a vessel desired by none. (ll. 10–11)

The “vessel,” of course, is the form of the poem; the container of rhyme and meter into which the poet pours forth his words. Halevi’s Ha-reyah. mor (“Is that the scent of myrrh?”) seems to provide a third example in which the poet specifically alludes to the source of his rhymes. And if so, surely this means that the poem was written for Moses ibn Ezra, as assumed by Haim Brody, and not for Moses ibn Krispin, or any other Moses. There would have been little point, otherwise, in remarking on the source of his rhymes, and if our hypothesis is correct, this line turns into a compliment for Ibn 29 30 31

On the role of improvisation and memory in composing poetry, see Chapter Five, pp. 78–79. See Chapter One, p. 27. Ibid., p. 26.

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Hebrew Boon-Companions Ezra. And surely that is even better than the “by-your-leave” for which Yellin sought in vain.32 To sum up: it seems that Moses ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi put their heads together over a poem initiated by Ibn Ezra; all the opening lines bear his special hallmark. Halevi then went off to continue the poem on his own, turning it into a panegyric for his “coauthor,” and Ibn Ezra continued what he had started: a wedding poem for Solomon ibn Matar. Our reconstruction of events may not be correct in every detail; in fact, it may not be correct at all. But there can be little doubt that however these two poems happened to take shape, they tantalize us with the possibilities, and offer yet another glimpse into the workings of this circle of Hebrew poets – even if we cannot quite perceive everything there.

32

David Yellin, Torat ha-shirah ha-sefaradit, p. 290.

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Chapter Eight

THE “GIRL FROM GRANADA”: GRANADA AS METAPHOR AND PLACE

Like the Arabic poems from which they drew their inspiration, the Hebrew poems examined in this study take place in imagined landscapes. From the barren deserts of the at.l¯al to the manicured gardens of courtly palaces, the boundaries between these landscapes shift without notice and often blend into each other in the most seamless of ways. Deserts turn into flower-beds, tents into palaces. Stars fade into flowers, flowers into stars, and a setting sun reappears in the sparkle of a wine-goblet. Imaginary landscapes, imaginary worlds chartered by the fixed referents of Arabic poetry: these are the spaces we are invited to enter. All this is true of Golden Age Hebrew poetry as a whole, that is, the hundred and fifty years or so that mark off the extraordinary burst of talent that began in Cordoba in its heyday of Caliphal glory, and ended around 1147 with the Almohad invasion of al-Andalus.1 But for the poems examined in this study, there is one additional coordinant within the landscape of medieval Hebrew poetry, and that is the city of Granada. In the group of poems that comes from this circle, the boundaries of imagined landscapes – the deserts of longing, the gardens of desire – were expanded to include this one particular city. It is not the Granada of “melted gold” rivers lauded by al-Shaqund¯ı,2 nor a Granada for the guidebooks or postcards. But it is a very specific presence nonetheless.

* * * One poem that has come down to us from the “Granada period” is Bi-megurei yedidi (“In the dwellings of my beloved”),3 a lovely muwashshah.a by Moses ibn Ezra written in honor of Judah Halevi. The poem laments Halevi’s absence and is spoken in the final strophe by the “girl from Granada” (bat Rimon), a personification of the city itself. But it begins with the abandoned encampments of the at.l¯al. The poem starts with a mat.laª of ABAB and continues as cdcdcdABAB efefefABAB for five strophes altogether: In the dwellings of my beloved I mourn / for they are left a wasteland And my tears drop upon them / like streams in the sand

1 Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952–1983), 3: 124–125. 2 See Chapter One, note 2. 3 È„È„È È¯Â‚Ó·. Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 278–279 (no. 260). .

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The Girl from Granada

5

In a cloud of tears / I seek their destroyed tents And trace over the path / the place their feet went Like a shepherd’s tent they are gone: / for them I lament! Evil Time has removed them, / separating body and Soul; he leaves not a trace / yet stretches forth still his hand

10

To see the camp of loved ones / my heart does aspire I’ll gaze hard and perhaps see / if the place I desire Is planted by the waters of fidelity / or in a mass of quagmire Their castle will also tell / if its wall still does stand Or whether its lock is destroyed / and its gate left unmanned

15

The winds blew their myrrh / to fan my heart’s flame And the day my pain waxed / letters arrived in their name At night on my bed / their phantoms all came. With a heart all atremble / I made my demand: Has separation killed him / or is he sick and abandoned?

20

I heard a sound one night to / my heart’s dismay And a chariot of separation / bore Judah away He who is beauty on the cheek of Torah / and learning’s bright ray Around the neck of good deeds / his speech is a jeweled band His poetry a crown on Wisdom’s heart / and a bracelet for its hand

25

The girl from Granada / all alone her woe tells And complains of the rival / who beside her does dwell And sing forth from desire / to the graceful gazelle: Mˇskunyd mˇswtdys byd / ywlyw lstyh Twºwmw ªtryˇs bndyd / fºlqwrh blnsyh4

Exactly what the “girl from Granada” sang to her rival we do not, alas, know. The poem’s Romance kharja, to quote Stern, is “obscure, and there is little purpose in speculating on isolated words.”5 Nevertheless, it is clear that she is making a complaint of some kind; Stern explains the end of the kharja to mean falaguera Valencia (“flattering Valencia”) and concludes that this sweet-talking city stole Judah Halevi away. Just as Granada is personified as a girl longing for her absent lover, so Valencia is the “graceful gazelle” who has lured him away from her.6 4 5 6

Transcribed from S. M. Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 143. Ibid. S. M. Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, p. 143. Stern, ibid., wonders why a male (i.e. Halevi) is termed “a graceful gazelle,” but this epithet clearly refers to Valencia and parallels the epithet for Granada. For an interesting discussion of this kind of “kharja-girl,” see Richard Hitchkock, “The Girls from Cadiz and the Kharjas,” Journal of Hispanic Philology (15) 1990–1991, pp. 103–116. Brody, incidentally, does not accept the reading of “Valencia” on the grounds that “Valencia is not near Granada” (Shirei ha-h.ol, 3: 20). This objection is somewhat puzzling – whatever happened to poetic license? Even if Valencia is not Granada’s nearest neighbor geographically, surely the proximity makes sense poetically. In any case, there is another city that may fit the bill: the city of “Valence,” mentioned by the eleventh-century al-H.imyar¯ı as

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The Girl from Granada Ibn Ezra’s poem is a showcase for the imagined landscapes of Andalusi Hebrew poetry. Boundaries are fluid, and essentially non-existent. It moves from abandoned desert tents to castles, quagmires and gates, all within the space of two strophes and without benefit of transition. It is not an actual place that the poet seeks to portray but a shifting, metaphorical landscape in which the drama of love is played out, and friendship is put to the test:

10

To see the camp of loved ones / my heart does aspire I’ll gaze hard and perhaps see / if the place I desire Is planted by the waters of fidelity / or in a mass of quagmire Their castle will also tell / if its wall still does stand Or whether its lock is destroyed / and its gate left unmanned (ll. 8–12)

In line 15 the scene shifts once again, this time to the speaker’s bed. This venue might seem real enough, but the Hebrew phrase “At night on my bed” comes from one of the dream-sequences in the Song of Songs (3: 1) and can thus be a metaphor for any place defined by love and longing. The “phantoms” in line 15 are the phantoms of the beloved, the taif of classical Arabic poetry who visit the lover at night in his dream: At night on my bed / their phantoms all came. With a heart all atremble / I made my demand: Has separation killed him / or is he sick and abandoned? (ll. 15–17) Thus the yearning wanderer of the desert melds into the poem’s lyric I, and the scene of longing shifts from a barren wasteland to the lover’s bed. In the last strophe the poet brings us full circle. A poem that began with a lover’s lament ends with one, too, but though it begins with the desert and ends in Granada – they are both landscapes of yearning bound into one single space.

* * * When it came to describing individual cities, medieval Arabic had a rich tradition of poetry. One Arabic poet expressed his longing for Medina as early as the late seventh century, and with the years other poets began singing the praises of such cities as Baghdad, Aleppo, Mosul, and Damascus.7 Grunebaum notes that in the early eleventh century, Ibn Rash¯ıq wrote a poem for the city of Qairouan as yearning “as any early Bedouin verse inspired by longing for the Najd.”8 The Hebrew poets could easily have drawn on this tradition to describe Granada, or indeed any of the other cities in which

being in the environs of such Andalusi cities as Guadix, Denia and Segovia; see al-H.imyar¯ı, La p´eninsule ib´erique, trans. E. L´evi-Provenc¸al, p. 248. 7 G. E. von Grunebaum, “The Response to Nature in Arabic Poetry,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 4 (1945), pp. 146–47. 8 Ibid., p. 146, note 81.

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The Girl from Granada they lived in al-Andalus. Only, this did not occur.9 Only in two poems by Moses ibn Ezra is there any mention of Granada’s magnificent scenery, and these come from a much later period, after his removal to Christian Spain. Even these, however, are content with brief references to the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas and do not even begin to approach the kind of descriptions of place we find in Arabic poetry.10 Nevertheless, Granada is a very real presence in several of the poems examined throughout this book. In Chapter One we saw that the name of Granada was propounded according to the Romance meaning of the word (= “pomegranate”), and thus termed Rimon in Hebrew. This may have been a false etymology, but it turned out to be a sound decision poetically and a rich source of inspiration. The presence of Granada is subtle and it takes many forms, but it is definitely there. The word rimon crops up time and again, sometimes in one meaning (as the name of the pomegranate fruit), sometimes in another (as the name of the city), and sometimes as both of them together. In the following lines, for example, rimon is simply the name for the city of Granada: Never has there been such a rending of the cloud of tears with the dew drops of a mighty weeping. Whether it was Rimon moaning over your leaving, or whether it was Jerusalem moaning over the cherub’s having left.11 (ll. 37–38) Nothing of the “pomegranate” in these lines. But a pomegranate stands at the center of the opening to the literary riddle we read in Chapter Five. Naturally, the word rimon does not actually appear: that is for others to guess. But the pomegranate has a very strong presence nevertheless, rich and glowing as the rising sun:

5

An ark, dome-shaped of scarlet, / a round ball, not square With two or three rooms / like a ring’s seal fitted fair Created before Noah and the Flood / and by God’s hand prepared She appears like the sun and then hides; / rises and sets in mid-air A splendid tower on her head / hollow like a hat or headwear She has flower and thorn like the Rose of Sharon / and divides into four shares She raises proudly her head and when full / bows down to the ground there From city to city runners speed forth / carrying this royal fare . . .12 (ll. 1–8)

Over the course of the poem the rimon (= pomegranate) metamorphises into the city of Rimon (= Granada), so that the solution to the riddle takes the meaning of the word rimon to its fullest extent, making it both a city and a fruit: 25

Say: what shall we do to her, / when to revolt she does dare? For she’s sealed in a walled city / and unapproachable there

9 Aviva Doron discusses this phenomenon in “ªArim ba-shirah ha-ªivrit,” Sefer Israel Levin, 1: 69–78. 10 One of these poems by Ibn Ezra is translated in part below, p. 138. 11 From Halevi’s poem-in-reply to Solomon ibn al-Muªallim, ºAt li (ll. 37–38). See Chapter Six, p. 109. . 12 From Halevi’s riddle Tevah demut quba (“An ark, dome-shaped”), ll. 1–8. See Chapter Five, p. 85.

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The Girl from Granada

30

Let us take her, and make her drink gall / for this revolt so unfair All together now: slice through her / and lay waste this rebels’ lair! And burst through her walls and core / till the foundations lay bare And attack her not with spears, / but with ivory arrows and fangs bared13 (ll. 25–30)

Judah Halevi instinctively understood the poetic potential of the word rimon. Even in his first poem to Judah ibn Ghayyat, written before he ever reached Granada, Rimon is both the city and a pomegranate:

30

Nor was your city truly called Rimon till it contained Judah, the glory of my learning. I will go up into the pomegranate (rimon) of my beloved, and hold on to its boughs; is not the juice of the pomegranate (rimon) my medicine?14 (ll. 29–30)

In his poem to Ibn Ghayyat Granada is the place of love’s fulfillment, an identification strengthened through its allusion to the Song of Songs 7: 7–9: How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! This thy stature is like a palm tree, and they breasts are like clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up into the palm tree, I will take hold of its boughs; may thy breasts be like clusters of the vine . . . By substituting the palm tree for the pomegranate (rimon), Halevi turns Granada (Rimon) into everything “pleasant, O love, for delights.” This is just the opposite of Granada’s role in the muwashshah.a by Moses ibn Ezra, with which we began this chapter. There, Granada melds seamlessly into the landscape of lovesickness and the forlorn deserts of longing. Here, in Halevi’s poem to Ibn Ghayyat, it is the very antidote to lovesickness (l. 30b): the prize to be reached after a long journey through the landscape of loss and desolation. Judah Halevi had not yet stepped foot in Granada, and yet with true poetic instinct he turned it into the antithesis of the loveless desert. To be sure, Granada does not have an independent persona in itself; or rather, it is not a verifiable portrait of a particular place. It functions in the poetry as a kind of mirror for the emotions, and hinges on the presence or absence of the beloved. And yet it is very much a presence in the poem. There is one last way in which the city of Granada permeates the texture of the poetry written by our Hebrew circle of poets, and this can be seen in the following qas.¯ıda by Judah Halevi: Demaª asher haya (“A tear that was”).15 According to the rubric it was addressed in a general way to “the Ibn Ezra brothers.” Line 14a of the poem, however, narrows things down to just two of the brothers, apparently Moses and Joseph Ibid. (ll. 25–30). From Halevi’s first poem to Judah ibn Ghayyat, Ma-li leravot (“Why should I soak the land?”) ll. 29–30. See Chapter Three, pp. 47–48. 15 ‰È‰ ¯˘‡ ÚÓ„. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 278–280 (no. 55). 13 14

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The Girl from Granada ibn Ezra.16 The qas.¯ıda begins with a love-lament in the desert and is constructed on a series of motifs common to love-poetry: the lover cries tears of blood (ll. 1–2), his tears reveal the secret of his love (l. 5), and his heart burns like a torch (l. 8). Antithesis is the key-note here: the pure tears of friendship “like the dew of Hermon” become red “like the waters of Dimon” (Isaiah 15: 9), and the torrent of tears contrasts the waterless desert (ll. 6–9). Love’s agony is played out in a barren landscape – or is it a landscape made barren by the absence of the beloved? The question is moot: love and landscape are inextricably connected; a point emphasized through the word-play in line 3 (dod / nedod):

5

10

15

A tear that was like the dew of Hermon: how did it become like the waters of Dimon? At the ouset of love it was pure but wandering has made it redden There is no lover [dod] but only wandering [nedod], which changed the song in my mouth into a lament for Hadadrimon The fragments of my heart multiplied and grew till I cast them aside like cummin If I weep in the desert I anger the cloud for there I reveal all I have hidden, Till in envy she says to me: “How is it that no fruit blossoms when you cry in the wasteland?” Quoth I: "’Tis not from too little crying for there is no gushing like its rushing; Were it not for the torch burning in my heart my sea of tears would be like a pyre of burning branches And irrigate the parched deserts till the cedar, accacia, and plane trees flourished therein.” How many dregs of wandering must I drink while gazing upon the wilderness To see whether my path will succeed, and whether the favors of Time have a hidden treasure for me? And I pray: Will Time relent over me; will the days to come be like the days of yore? When my thoughts built, he tore down: there was no building castles with him! Until I met the two dear sons brought up in the lap of wealth’s daughter. No prophet has ever risen to match them and their speech like the son of Amram and the son of Amon. With them, dignity will not be childless nor will learning be widowed.

16 Line 14 speaks of “the two dear sons” and 15b specifies them: the “son of Amram” is of course Moses, as Amram is the father of the biblical Moses. The “son of Amon” however is more obscure; it may refer to Joseph ibn Ezra, since Amon may be an allusion to Egypt, with which the biblical Joseph was, of course, intimately connected.

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The Girl from Granada

20

I will make ringing timbrels in memory of them, like the bell for the hem of the High Priest’s robe Yet I declare nothing new, for the sound of their bells resounds through the multitudes. No sooner did they leave than the winds bore myrrh and cinnamon in their memory. On the wings of friendship they hover – if only they had not uprooted my heart like rushes! I suffer but have medicine in their wings Through their love I sip the juice of the pomegranate; I will overcome enslaving Time through them, and to enslave him follow after my rewards: For Time will never bow down before me till I have bowed down in the house of Rimon.

The greater part of this poem evokes the barren desert (ll. 1–13), and yet the idea of Granada haunts the poem from beginning to end. This is done through the expedient of rhyme, for the rhyme-sound of this poem is – mon, making the idea of Rimon a palpable presence even in the wasteland. It is there like a dream, like an echo vaguely remembered. It sweeps you from line to line in the journey towards love’s fulfillment, and then culminates in the very last line precisely where love’s journey should end: in Rimon, so that the end of the journey is the end of the poem. Some of the rhymewords evoking Rimon are evident even in translation: the “dew of Mount Hermon” (Psalms 133: 3), the “water of Dimon” (Isaiah 15: 9), and the “lament of Hadadrimon” (Zechariah 12: 11). And it is not the desert alone which constitutes the landscape of his journey towards love; Time itself is depicted in the metaphors of a mappable world, a place in which paths can be traced, and treasures buried, and castles – if one is only lucky enough – built: 10

How many dregs of wandering must I drink while gazing upon the wilderness To see whether my path will succeed, and whether the favors of Time have a hidden treasure for me? And I pray: Will Time relent over me; will the days to come be like the days of yore? When my thoughts built, he tore down: there was no building castles with him! (ll. 10–13)

The antidote to all this suffering – the absence of loved ones, the fury of Time – is found in “the juice of the pomegranate,” the same prescription we saw in Halevi’s panegyric to Ibn Ghayyat.17 Thus Rimon is the end of all suffering and the end of love’s journey, just as it is the end of the poem:

17

Cf. Ma-li leravot (“Why should I soak the land?”), l. 30b.

135

The Girl from Granada I suffer but have medicine in their wings – Through their love I sip the juice of the pomegranate; I will overcome enslaving Time through them, and to enslave him follow after my rewards: For Time will never bow down before me till I have bowed down in the house of Rimon (ll. 21–2) The five poems analyzed above show Granada as a distinct presence in the poetry written by our circle of Hebrew poets; an element to be reckoned with, a source of poetic inspiration. It is not the kind of city we find in poems written by Arabic poets, a city with rivers, buildings and other identifiable markers. But it is a definite presence nevertheless, the rhyme on which poems are woven, the image for which metaphors are spun. Five poems may not seem like a lot, but it is five poems more than for any other city. No other city earned its own Hebrew nickname in the secular poetry of this period, or figured as its subject, rhyme or key metaphor. The only other places mentioned in these poems are Castile, which Solomon ibn al-Muªallim apparently dubbed Mah.anayim,18 and Jerusalem,19 which is somehow outside the discussion. Jerusalem has a plethora of epithets sanctified by time and tradition and was not, in any event, part of the local geography. Pomegranates would never have figured in these poems to the extent they did had Granada not been the “City of Pomegranates” to begin with, and the center, both geographically and imaginatively, for our circle of Hebrew poets.

* * * In addition to the evidence of a literary nature, there are reasons of a more historical nature for believing that Judah Halevi must have been part of the circle in Granada before the Almoravid invasion in 1090. This cataclysm was a watershed for the Jews of Granada in general, and for Moses ibn Ezra in particular. Many Jews, including his own three brothers, fled the kingdom for the newly developing lands under Christian rule to the north. Moses ibn Ezra, however, did not immediately leave Granada, though the reason for this remains one of the conundrums of scholarly research. Researchers of medieval Hebrew poetry have suggested everything from a thwarted love-affair to political reasons of state, often basing their hypotheses on nothing more solid than a single line of poetry.20 What is clear, however, is that for a certain period of time Ibn Ezra was the only one of the four brothers to remain behind in Granada. His life there, however, was changed beyond recognition. Of the two rhymed letters that have come down to us from his hand, one of these relates to this period of his life and it paints a grim picture indeed.21 Nor did his eventual departure for Christian Spain, apparently around 1095, improve his situation, as his numerous poems of complaint all too clearly In line 16 of Ibn al-Muªallim’s ªAv taªarof (“Is a cloud drizzling?”). Dubbed Ariel in Judah Halevi’s ºAt. li (“Be gentle with me”), l. 38. Haim Brody sums up, and convincingly refutes, the theories concerning Ibn Ezra’s supposed love affair with his niece in “Moses ibn Ezra: Incidents in His Life,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n. s. 24 (1933), pp. 309–314. 21 Printed in Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-hol, ed. Haim Brody, pp. 290–293, ll. 41–49. . 18 19 20

136

The Girl from Granada show. He remained alienated from his brothers, both physically and emotionally, until his death in 1135. Given these historical facts, it becomes clear that some of the poems from the poets’ d¯ıw¯ans could only have been written prior to the Almoravid invasion. Let us, then, sum up the historical evidence linking Judah Halevi to pre-Almoravid Granada:22 1. Several of the poems composed by Judah Halevi were addressed to Moses ibn Ezra and another of the Ibn Ezra brothers; a fact which shows that we are still talking of pre-Almoravid Granada. Joseph, Judah and Isaac ibn Ezra left immediately after the Almoravid invasion, and Moses ibn Ezra never saw them again. Moses ibn Ezra remained in Granada for some years after the Almoravid invasion, alone and apparently destitute, before finally taking up the wanderer’s staff and heading for Christian Spain. Judah Halevi composed Dod ba-h.alom nat.ah (“The lover in a dream”)23 for Moses and Isaac ibn Ezra, and Demaª asher haya (“A tear that was”) for Moses and another brother, probably Joseph, but the exact identity of the second brother does not affect the question at hand. 2. Halevi’s Purim-poem Lifnei keruv shilesh (“Before the cherub made a third”) was written for Isaac ibn Ezra and Judah ibn Ghayyat, both residents, of course, of Granada. Ibn Ghayyat returned to Granada at some point after the Almoravid invasion, but Isaac never did. The rubric of the poem mentions that Halevi was staying in Guadix at the time of writing the poem, a city very near Granada. Although Guadix is not specifically mentioned in the poem itself, he must surely have been close by: Isaac ibn Ezra and Judah Ibn Ghayyat sent him fish for Purim – and these were the days before refrigeration!24 3. Moses ibn Ezra has the “girl from Granada” (bat-rimon) pining over Halevi’s absence in Bi-mgurei yedidi (“In the dwellings of my beloved”). Apparently he was “stolen away” from her by another city, possibly Valencia.25 4. Solomon ibn al-Muªallim sent the panegyric ªAv taªarof (“Is that a cloud drizzling”)26 to Judah Halevi in Granada, expecting the poem to reach him there. Ibn al-Muªallim speaks jealously of Granada, comparing it to Egypt for the biblical Joseph. Halevi did not immediately receive the qas.¯ıda, but Moses ibn Ezra was there to answer it in his stead. And when Halevi eventually responded to Ibn al-Muªallim’s qas.¯ıda he more than implied that Ibn al-Muªallim had actually visited him in Granada, for it was “moaning” over his absence.27 Along with the literary and historical evidence testifying to the presence of Judah Halevi 22 We include here only those poems that mention the addressees in the body of the text itself, and not just in the rubric. The rubric to the poem ÌÈÓÈ ÂÓÎÁ ‡Ï (“Time did not grow wise”) reads: “for Moses and Isaac ibn Ezra,” but the poem itself mentions only Isaac. The poem, therefore, could easily date to the period following the Almoravid invasion. See Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 243 (no. 24, l. 33). 23 See Chapter Five, p. 89. 24 See Chapter Seven, pp. 112–114. 25 See above, pp. 129–130. 26 See Chapter Six, p. 109. 27 Judah Halevi, ºAt li (“Be gentle with me”), l. 38. .

137

The Girl from Granada in pre-Almoravid Granada, there is also evidence of a third kind, though admittedly less substantial in nature. The Almoravid invasion signified the end of Moses ibn Ezra’s prosperity and the beginning of a steep decline. This being the case, it is hard to believe that Ibn Ezra could have been anywhere but Granada before the Almoravid invasion when he sent his poem of invitation to Judah Halevi, inviting him with a qas.¯ıda in which every line eagerly echoes the word “Come!” (“Boº!”), and in which he offers the following temptations, metaphorical as they may be:

20

A passerby might ask / “Wherefore does his chariot tarry?” Pray bid him run to the garden where love / and friendship perfume the lawn; To a garden whose nard sends forth its fragrance – / there let him recline Drinking the nectar of ripened love / sipping freely from its marrow In an imposing house / when every other house is closed against his coming.28

Nor does it seem likely that Judah Halevi would have sent such light-hearted and glowing panegyrics as ªImdu ªamodu (“Stay O stay”) and Ah.ar galot sod (“After revealing the secret”) to a refugee adrift in the lands of Christian Spain, broken-hearted, destitute, and alone.29 Such an assumption defies logic, and as Ezra Fleischer has remarked, “it hardly seems possible that Judah Halevi would have written the miserable exile classicstyle panegyrics and cheerful muwashshah.as.”30 Standing on its own, perhaps, this kind of reasoning might not be completely convincing, although it does have a certain emotional logic. But when we add the evidence based on the literary and historical facts as outlined above, it seems very clear that Judah Halevi visited Granada before the Almoravid invasion of 1090, and that the literary history painted by Haim Brody and Haim Schirmann is correct in its general outline.

Moses ibn Ezra, Yaldei yamim (“The children of Time”), ll. 18–22. Cf. Yahalom, “Ginzei Leningrad,” p. 61, note 31. Fleischer, “Rabbi Yehuda Halevi: Birurim be-qorot h.ayyav,” p. 250. Fleischer attributes to this period another of Halevi’s muwashshahas for Moses ibn Ezra: ÈÓ˘· ÍÁȯ Ô˙ (“May your fragrance be my perfume”), in Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 1: 122 (no. 86). 28 29 30

138

AFTERWORD

My heart is in the East, and I am in the uttermost West; / how can I savor my food, in what find zest? How can I fulfill my vows and oaths when Zion is ruled by Edom / and I am by the Arabs oppressed? Gladly would I abandon all the treasures of Spain / if only to see the dust of the ruins most blessed.1

“My heart is in the East” (Libi be-mizrah.) is classic Judah Halevi; the kind of poem one usually thinks of when the poet-laureate of the Jewish people is brought to mind. In it one finds all the elements usually associated with Halevi’s name: the longing for Zion, the ambivalent vision of fair Spain, the dust and ashes of the ruined Temple. It may seem like a curious poem with which to end our study, and yet it is the true ending of the story, and one which, curiously enough, brings us full circle. Our study began with the young Judah Halevi writing from the East with a heart yearning for the West,’ and learned that he was eager to trade Christian Spain for al-Andalus, the center of Hebrew poetry and Arabic culture. We even saw that he spoke of this journey in terms of a holy pilgrimage, writing to Moses ibn Ezra in that first rhymed-letter (l. 14) that “I set my face towards God’s holy place” as he began the journey to Muslim Spain. In the little poem quoted above, however, he is mapping his world according to a different set of coordinates. Now he is in “the uttermost West” and only too anxious to escape it for a pilgrimage of a different kind. The West is still Spain, but the East is Zion and Jerusalem. It is not a return journey for which he is yearning, a backtracking over the years, but a new goal altogether, an orientation of a totally different kind. In opting for Zion, Halevi was not denying the “treasures” of Spain, simply noting that, for him, they had lost their value. He does not seem to have forgotten the period he spent in Granada with Moses ibn Ezra, and in a poem which he sent to Ibn Ezra from a much later time (Yedaªnukha nedod) he gave that period in his life full due:2 Friendship bound my soul with his soul before the chariots of wandering had been harnessed Before my soul had been tried by separation and the Children of Days were as yet at peace with us The Daughters of Days had us born separately 1 2

Á¯ÊÓ· È·Ï. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 155 (no. 1). „„ ÍÂÚ„È. (“Wandering has known you ”), printed in Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯an ed. Haim Brody, 1: 154 (no.

101), ll. 16–23

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Afterword

20

but the Daughter of Love had us born twins We were brought up on flower beds of perfume and suckled the breasts of the Daughter of theVineyards. I remember you on the hills of separation that just yesterday were your hills of perfumes And my eyes are mingled with tears and my tears mingled with blood: I remember you – and I remember days we passed together, when we were like those who dream (ll. 16–22)

These lines evoke a Golden Age of innocence not yet tried by Time or separation (ll. 16–17). The landscape is the perfumed gardens of wine-drinking parties, transformed by the metaphorical language of childhood into a playground of innocence: We were brought up on flower beds of perfume and suckled the breasts of the Daughter of theVineyards. (l. 19) Significantly enough, there is no affectionate nickname of Rimon in these lines, no puns or wistful images on the subject of pomegranates. It is the Golden Age of youth rather than Granada per se which Halevi recalls with such affection, and though Granada was the site of that Golden Age, it was apparently not crucial in his memory of it. Yet how different things were for Moses ibn Ezra! He, too, wrote poems longing for the past – and indeed wrote them by the score during his years of exile in Christian Spain. Only, in these poems his love for Granada gleams through. To quote from one of his poems from this later period:3 If God will only restore me to the glory of Rimon my paths will succeed exceedingly And I will drink of the waters of the Senir which remain pure when other lovely rivers have been befouled A land in which my life was made pleasant and in which Time stretched itself low before me I will pray a bit to God that there be no restraint in calling freedom for a prisoner of separation, and opening the captive doors. (ll. 31–34) The “waters of the Senir” which Ibn Ezra so wistfully recalls in line 32 is a reference to Granada’s Sierra Nevada mountains; Senir is another name for Mount Hermon (cf. Deuteronomy 3: 9 and elsewhere). The biblical name notwithstanding, this is the most realistic detail we have of Granada in any of the Hebrew poems.4 Thus it was not only 3 4

˙ÂÏ‚· Ô‡ „Ú. Moses ibn Ezra, Shirei ha-h.ol, ed. Haim Brody, pp. 66–67 (no. 67), ll. 31–34. Ibn Ezra also mentions the “waters of Senir” in another of his complaint-poems, ÔÓÊ ÈÏ˙Ï˙Â È˙·˘ in ibid.,

pp. 24–27 (no. 20), l. 43.

140

Afterword a time and state of being to which Ibn Ezra longed to return (l. 33), but also a very specific place on the map. For Ibn Ezra, therefore, the landscapes of longing now centered on Granada; for Judah Halevi, on the dusty ruins of Zion. Interestingly enough, both poets evoked their promised lands in terms of freedom from captivity; Ibn Ezra in the final line of his paean to Granada above; Judah Halevi in line 8 of the following lovely poem translated below, (Zeh ruahkha), written just before setting sail for the Land of Israel:5

5

This wind of yours, O West, is fragrant / with spikenard on its wings, and apple-scent Surely you come not from the treasure-house of winds / but from that of the spice merchant! O you who lift up the swallow’s wings and set it free / are like the finest perfume, of purest myrrh blent. How the people long for you, who, thanks to you, / will ride the sea upon this slender fragment Do not withdraw thy hand from the ship / when day draws near or at night’s descent Forge the depths into one, divide the heart of the seas / till you reach the Holy Mount – and there rest content Rebuke the Eastern Wind that stirs up the sea / and whips it into a boiling torrent. What can one do bound in the hand of the Rock: / at times held captive, at times freely sent? Only He on high can grant my deepest wish / For He is the creator of the heights, and the wind’s ascent.6

There is a tradition that in old age Judah Halevi repented of his secular poems. The tradition goes back to one of Halevi’s former students,7 and in some ways seems to find an echo in his renowned theosophical work, the Kuzari, in which he condemns the use of Arabic meters for Hebrew poetry.8 Yet whatever the truth of this tradition or the sincerity of his criticism in the Kuzari, the question of how to regard this tradition is actually moot. For Judah Halevi never renounced secular poetry, and he never stopped using the Arabic meters. The “Ode to the West Wind” translated above is apparently one of the very last poems he wrote before sailing off to the Holy Land, and in everything from rhyme and meter to motif and imagery, it is a prime example of Andalusi Hebrew poetry. Though it is a paean to the West Wind due to sweep him off to Zion, it is also a West Wind from the “treasure-house” of Arabic poetry (l. 2), and could not have been written by anyone without the key. From west to west Halevi’s star drew him full 5 ÍÁ¯ ‰Ê. Judah Halevi, D¯ıw¯ an, ed. Haim Brody, 2: 171 (no. 12). S. D. Goitein writes that this must have been one of Halevi’s two last poems in his important article summing up the Geniza documents relating to Halevi’s final years. See Goitein, “The Biography of Rabbi Judah ha-Levi in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Documents,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 28 (1959), esp. pp. 54-56. 6 For a very perceptive, and very beautiful analysis of the poem, see Marc Saperstein, “Judah Halevi’s West Wind,” Prooftexts 1 (1981), pp. 306–311. 7 See Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet, pp. 95–96. 8 Judah Halevi, Kuzari 2: 73–74.

141

Afterword circle, but as in any circle the two halves had to meet before they could merge into one. The “wonderful group / and marvelous troupe” of Hebrew poets in Granada may have belonged to the past, but it remained part of his poetry up till the very end.

142

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149

Index of Poems

Dunash ben Labrat 77, 7

(“And he said: do not sleep!”) Ô˘È˙ χ ¯Ó‡Â

Joseph ibn Tzadik see under Moses ibn Ezra 78

(“Nightly the musings”) ‰¯ÈÚ‡ ·Ï ˙·˘ÁÓ ÏÈÏ (“My rest, alas, has been stolen”) ÏÊ‚ ‰‰‡ ÈÓÂ Judah Halevi

124, 123, 77, 68, 44, 43, 42–40, 34, 29 (“After revealing the secret”) „ÂÒ ˙ÂÏ‚ ¯Á‡ 136, 132, 109, 108, 107–104 (“Be gentle with me, O strong of heart”) ··Ï ˜ÊÁ ÈÏ Ë‡ 100 (“Not in a night dream”) ÏÈÏ ÌÂÏÁ· χ 4–3 (“For you I’ll sing”) ˙¯ÈÓÊ ¯ÈÚ‡ Í· 137, 91–89 (“The lover in a dream”) ‰Ë ÌÂÏÁ· „„ 137, 135–133 (“A tear that was”) ‰È‰ ¯˘‡ ÚÓ„ 105, 74-73 (“Show your loving face”) ̈́„ ÈÙ Ï·˜‰ 127-126, 124–123, 78 (“Is that the scent of myrrh”) ¯ÂÓ Áȯ‰ 142–141 (“This wind of yours”) ÍÁ¯ ‰Ê 105, 81–79 (“O Sun behind your curtained hair”) ÚȘ¯ „Ú· ‰ÓÁ 140–139 (“Wandering has known you”) „„ ÍÂÚ„È 139 (“My heart is in the east”) Á¯ÊÓ· È·Ï 135, 115–111 (“Before the cherub”) ˘ÏÈ˘ ·Â¯Î ÈÙÏ 136–134, 133, 54–49 (“Why should I soak the land”) ˙Â¯Ï ÈÏ ‰Ó 105, 76 (“Turn unto your friend’s house”) Í„È„È ˙È· χ ‰Ë 100, 40 (“A generous eye”) ‰·Â„ ÔÈÚ 17–12 (“Stay O stay just a bit longer our brothers”) ÂÈÁ‡ ËÚÓ Ë˜ „ÂÓÚ Â„ÓÚ 125, 50, 47, 33, 29, 27, 26, 25, 24, 22, 21 133–131, 88–84 (“An ark, domed-shaped”) ‰·Â˜ ˙ÂÓ„ ‰·˙

151

Index of Poems

Judah ibn Ghayyat 55–52

(“Amongst the branches doves moan”) ÌÈÂÈ ˙ÂÓ‰ ÌȇÙÚ ÔÈ·Ó Moses ibn Ezra

78 (“The lights flashed fire”) Âȯ‡ ÂÁ„˜ ˘‡ 26, 25, 24–22 (“Has our breeze been blowing”) ÂÈÁ¯ ‰·˘ ÌÈÒ„‰‰ ÔÈ· 137, 131–129 (“In the dwellings of my beloved”) È„È„È È¯Â‚Ó· 78 (“The night of parting’s troops”) „„ ÏÈÏ È„Â„‚ 127–126, 122–116, 78 (“Is that the scent of myrrh”) ¯ÂÓ Áȯ‰ 138, 127, 68, 34, 33, 21–18 (“The Children of Time”) ÌÈÓÈ È„ÏÈ 137 (“Time did not grow wise”) ÌÈÓÈ ÂÓÎÁ ‡Ï 41, 40–37, 36, 35, 34, 32, 31 (“Nightly I rouse the musings”) ‰¯ÈÚ‡ ·Ï ˙·˘ÁÓ ÏÈÏ 126, 125, 43, 42 108–107, 104–97 (“Is it the honey of the lips”) ÌÈÈ˙Ù˘ ˙ÙÂ 140 (“Whither in exile?”) ˙ÂÏ‚· Ô‡ „Ú 75 (“Come down to a garden”) Ô‚‰ χ ‰„¯ 69–65 (“The lips of flowers”) ÌÈˆÈ È˙Ù˘ Solomon ibn Gabirol 86

(“Turn my beloved and be like unto Wisdom”) ‰ÓÎÁÏ ‰Ó„Â ·ÂÒ È„È„È Solomon ibn al-Muªallim

106, 104, 103, 101, 96–93

(“Is a cloud drizzling”) ÌÈÈÈÚ ÂÏÊÈ Â‡ Û¯Ú˙ ·Ú 137, 135, 108–107

152

General Index

ªAbdall¯ah ibn Bulugg¯ın 1, 9 Abraham ibn Daud 10–11, 83 Abraham ibn Ezra 5, 40, 78 Ab¯u Nuw¯as 64 Abun 22, 25, 26, 27, 67 al-Andalus 1, 11, 15–16, 20, 47, 59, 63, 91, 139 as the “West" 15-16, 20, 25, 47, 91, 139 cultural superiority of 15–16, 25, 30– 31, 39 Alphonso VI, King of Castile 31 Arabic poetry 6, 12, 15, 19, 30, 34, 38, 52, 55, 59, 62–63, 67, 75, 77, 82, 83, 122, 129, 131–132, 141 Aristotle 63, 84 Badis ibn H.abb¯us 10 Bezalel (biblical) 106, 107 Christian Spain (also Castile) 1, 2, 4, 6, 16, 20, 25, 30, 55, 56, 91, 93, 136, 138, 139 as Edom 55 as the East 16, 25, 91 as Se¯ır 20, 30–31, 67, 68, 93 cultural inferiority of 2, 16, 25, 30–31, 56, 138, 139 Cordoba 1, 4, 5, 11, 64, 83, 129 David of Narbonne 29 D¯ıw¯an, of Judah Halevi 6, 45, 82, 85, 94, 104, 108–109 Firkowitz Collection 6, 104, 108–109 MS Oxford 1970, 1971 6, 21, 45, 85, 94, 104, 108–109, 122 Do˜na Urraca 46, 97 Dunash ben Labrat 7, 77 al-Fath. ibn Khak¯an 77, 78 Goliath (biblical) 95, 102, 108 Granada 1–3, 6, 7, 9–10, 12, 20, 27, 31, 32, 34, 44, 45, 47, 51–52, 59, 64, 65, 68–69, 82, 88, 91, 96–97, 109, 111, 116, 129, 132–133, 135–142

Almoravid invasion of 1–2, 6, 9, 12, 31, 136–138 founding of 9–10 pomegranate as symbol of 9, 51–52, 96, 132–133, 135–136 Guadix 6, 111, 115 H.alfon ben Nethanel Halevi 3, 45, 97 Hananel ben Yeshuaª 29 Har¯un al-Rash¯ıd, caliph of Baghdad 59, 60 H.asdai ibn Shaprut 77 Hebrew language 5, 15, 47, 62–63 hitammut (Heb. “feigned innocence”) 29, 94, 95, 99, 116, 119 H.iyya al-Mughrabi 6, 45, 52 Ibn Baq¯ı 40 Ibn Bass¯am al-Shantar¯ın¯ı 15, 34, 77 Ibn Quzman 40 Ibn San¯a al-Mulk 35, 42–43, 81 Ibn Shuhaid 60 Ibn Zaydun 1, 88 improvisation, role in poetry 78–79, 82– 83, 126 Isaac ibn al-Shami al-Hatzeira 125 Isaac ibn Mar-Saul 63 Isaac ibn Barun 5, 6 Isaac ibn Ezra (eldest of Ibn Ezra brothers) 6, 64, 89–90, 111, 115, 137 Isaac ibn Ghayyat 45, 56, 83 Isaac ibn Khalfun 7, 18 al-J¯ah.iz., Ab¯u ªUthman ªAmr b. Bahr 77 Jonah ibn Janah. 63 Joseph ha-Ezovi 63 Joseph ibn ªAknin 3, 63, 78 Joseph ben Laºir 47 Joseph ibn Ezra (fourth Ibn Ezra brother) 11, 37, 64, 133, 137 Joseph ibn Majnin 22, 25, 26, 27, 37, 67, 82 Joseph ibn Sahal 64, 82, 83 Joseph ibn Tzadik 4, 6, 40, 77, 78

153

General Index as author of Leyl mah.shavot 35–37, 39 Josiah ben Bezaz 29 Judah Halevi date and place of birth 3–4 in Egypt 3, 65 poems for Judah ibn Ghayyat 49–54, 133, 134–136, 73–74, 105 poem for Judah ibn Ghayyat and Isaac ibn Ezra 111–115, 135 poems for Moses ibn Ezra 12–17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 33, 47, 50, 125, 29, 34, 40–43, 44, 68, 77, 123–124 (?), 139–140 poem for Moses and Isaac ibn Ezra 89– 91, 137 poem for Moses and Joseph (?) Ibn Ezra 133–135, 137 poem for Solomon ibn al-Muªallim 104– 109, 132, 136 poetry of Zion 23, 139, 141 rhymed letter to Moses ibn Ezra 29–34, 43–44, 68, 88 Judah ibn Ezra (third Ibn Ezra brother) 11, 64, 68, 137 Judah ibn Ghayyat 4, 6, 45–47, 68, 73, 88, 95, 98, 111, 115, 116, 125, 126, 133 poem for Judah Halevi 52–55 al-Jurj¯an¯ı 73 khamr¯ıya (Ar. “wine poetry”), 3–4, 7, 41, 67, 73–76, 78, 90, 93, 122 beauty of garden setting 67, 75 beauty of wine-goblet 74, 75, 76, 93, 122 description of wine 74, 75, 76, 93 as invitation 73–76, 93 kharja; see muwashshah.a Kit¯ab al-Agh¯an¯ı 77 Kit¯ab al-muh.a¯ d.ara wal-mudh¯akara 2, 4– 6, 12, 15, 24, 25, 27, 47, 51, 56, 64, 67, 83, 84 Levi ibn al-Tabban 5, 6 Lucena 4, 12, 36, 45, 83 majlis; majlis al-uns (Ar. “intimate get-togethers”) 60–61, 64, 78, 82, 84 role of music 34–35, 76–78 metaphors 73, 84 Moses (biblical) 17, 33, 36, 42, 76, 90 Moses ibn Ezra as author of Leyl mah.shavot 35–37 as Heyman 42, 68

154

as “Prince of Hosts” 31–32, 64 as sah.ib al-shurt.a 11 first poem for Judah Halevi 17–21, 33, 34, 68, 127, 138 in Christian Spain 2, 136–138, 139 muwashshah.as for Judah Halevi 65–69, 129–131, 137 poem for Solomon ibn Matar 78, 116– 122, 126–127 poem for Solomon ibn al-Muªallim 98– 104, 107–108 relations with brothers; 2, 6, 11, 89–90, 136–138 Mount Hermon 134, 135, 140 al-Muªtad.id, king of Seville 18, 64 al-Muªtamid, king of Seville 11, 88 al-Muªtas.im, king of Almeria 75 mutayyar (Ar. “riddle of birds”) 83–84 muªarad.a (Ar. “contrafactum”) 21–22, 23– 27, 32, 37, 40, 43–44, 79, 98, 99, 105, 124, 125, 126 muwashshah.a 7, 34–35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 64, 65, 78–79, 89, 91, 93 ghus.un (Ar. stanza of shifting rhyme) 35, 79 kharja 35, 38, 42–43, 64, 65–66, 80–81, 90–91, 130 mat.laª 79, 89, 129 musical accompaniment of 34, 76–78 simt. (Ar. lines with fixed rhyme) 35, 37, 40, 65, 79 nad¯ım (Ar. “boon-companion") 59–64, 93 education of 62–64 role of poetry 59–61 nas¯ıb (Ar. “love-prelude”) 19, 24, 90, 105 Niz.a¯ m al-Mulk 59–60 plagiarism 124–125 poetry, genres of ghazal (Ar. “love poems”) 12, 34, 39, 42, 80, 114, 134 wine poems (see under khamr¯ıya) panegyric 12, 20, 34, 38, 39, 40, 54–55, 125 praise of cities 131–132 riddle-poetry 83–88, 90, 126, 132 wedding poetry 116-122 poetry, motifs in at.l¯al (Ar. the “weeping over the desert traces”) 12, 15, 49–50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 88, 129, 131, 135

General Index the beloved as gazelle or fawn 40–41, 49–50, 90 the beloved as sun or moon 67, 73, 95 beauty of the beloved 80, 90, 105–106, 120 carpe diem 41 Chariot of Wandering 15, 20, 138 color imagery (black/white) 20, 33, 67– 68, 80, 101, 102, 103–104, 106, 114 cruelty of the beloved 80, 90, 105 “enemies of love” 39, 41, 59 garden imagery 66–67, 75, 93, 129 lament over lost youth 53, 67 love as war 26–27 poetry as beautiful object 20, 24, 33, 99–102, 106 poetry as precious jewels 17, 27, 33, 68, 100–102 poetry as sun, moon 17, 27, 33, 67, 103, 104 poetry as splendid garments 20, 42, 100– 102, 120, 122 poetry as weapons of war 17, 102 power of the pen 84, 99, 101–102 reputation as fragrance 24, 67, 68 ravens of separation 49–50 shepherd of the stars 38, 88 taif (Ar. “phantom of the beloved”) 55, 131 tears as pearls 53, 113 Time (also “children of time”) 19, 24, 47, 51, 53, 80, 90, 95, 107, 135, 139–140 the wind as bearer of greetings 24, 67 poetry, public nature of 46, 97–98, 126 pomegranate, as symbol for Granada 9, 85, 87, 96, 132, 138 Purim 111–112, 115 qas.¯ıda, sections of 7, 12, 15, 20, 21, 22,

25, 34, 37, 56–57, 64, 67, 99, 112, 116, 134 mad¯ıh. (Ar. “panegyric”) 15, 20, 30, 39, 50–51, 54–55, 68, 88, 90, 95, 116, 125 nas¯ıib 19, 24, 90, 105 rah.¯ıl 53–54, 56 takhallus 15, 20, 67, 116 Rabbi Gershom, the “Light of the Exile” 97 Raf¯ı al-Dawla 75 rhymes as precious jewels 27, 35, 102, 127 strophic rhyme-schemes 33, 35, 37, 40, 43–44, 65, 79, 129 running rhymes 12, 21, 25, 26, 27, 111, 122–123, 125, 127, 135 sajª (Ar. “rhymed-prose”) 29, 31 Samuel ha-Nagid 3, 56, 79 Saragossa 11, 12 Seville 4, 11, 64, 88 al-Shaqund¯ı 9, 11 Solomon ibn Gabirol 3, 18, 79, 84 Solomon ibn Matar 116, 119, 120, 124, 128 Solomon ibn Muªallim 4, 6, 64, 93, 95–96, 132, 136, 137 poem for Judah Halevi 93–96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109 Solomon, King 107, 120 al-Tawh.¯ıd¯ı, Ab¯u H.ayyan 100–102 Todros Abulafia 77 Toledo 4, 9, 46 Tudela 4, 5 Valencia 130, 137 Wallada 1 Wilsker, Arie 29–30, 33 Yequtiel ibn Hassan 18 Zirid dynasty 1, 2, 10

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