SHEM TOV ARDUTIEL (SANTOB DE CARRIÓN)

(late thirteenth century–after 1345)

SHEM TOV ARDUTIEL is best known as the author of a marvelous collection of Spanish epigrams, Proverbios morales , written under the name Santob de Carrión. The modern Spanish poet Antonio Machado—who, like Shem Tov, spent formative time in Old Castile’s stark highlands, which he described as being “so sad, they have a soul”—has testified to the potency of Santob’s wise, doubt-ridden, and down-to-earth “spiritual autobiography,” modeling his own moral proverbs after them. Shem Tov’s Hebrew Milhamot HaEt veHaMisparayim (The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors, 1345) has received much less attention, in part because it adopts a minor mode, but also because it has proven so slippery: modern scholars have had a hard time determining what the work is “about.” Its fluid rhymed prose and interlaced metrical poetry tell the story of a writer who, in utter isolation, sits down at his table one very cold winter’s day to write; after boasting of his skill in verse and singing the extended praises of his pen, he tries to dip his pen into the ink and finds that the latter is frozen solid. An elaborate scene follows, with the author trying to break the ice, as it were, without success. Praise gives way to scorn, the pen defends itself, and then suddenly a voice is heard suggesting, again in highly figurative fashion, that there are other ways to solve this problem. One might, for instance, write with scissors!—by cutting the shapes of the desired letters into parchment. There ensues a debate between the pen and the scissors over which way of writing is preferable. Finally a judge called in from the street issues the verdict that the pen is indeed best suited for writing, the scissors for clipping hair and nails, and order is restored—though we also learn in the end that this story itself has been, it seems, written with scissors. And here it is important to point out that several Andalusian Arabic poems from the early thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries refer to the practice of scissor writing, and that both Hebrew and Arabic etymology link story (sippur), telling or counting (le-sappeir), and scissors (misparayim)—all of which are derived from the s-p-r root, just as in Arabic we find qissa (story) and miqass (scissors).

Interpretations of Shem Tov’s narrative have varied. Some readers have seen it as an allegory of Avner’s apostasy (above); others suggest that it refers to Gonzalo Martinez, the Christian advisor to Alfonso XI who was responsible for the jailing and eventual execution in 1333 of two Jewish officials, which in turn led to the imprisonment of all of Castile’s Jews and their release in exchange for a considerable ransom. It has also been seen as a light-hearted diversion (perhaps for Purim). The most immediate and powerful impression a close reading yields is that the work, at least at some basic level, is about writing, obstacles to writing and isolation in writing, and ways to overcome both. It appears to be cast in the mode of a literary entertainment, possibly a parody of serious debates in the Jewish community (e.g., over the Qabbala, Maimonides’ writing, or the Oral Tradition), or perhaps a send-up of the medieval literary debate itself (between, for instance, the pen and the sword). None of these interpretations, of course, rules out the incorporation of historical or autobiographical echoes, though a straight one-to-one allegorical reading seems to be inconsistent with the details of the story itself.

Shem Tov was born in the town of Carrión de los Condes (west of Burgos on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route) and composed his maqaama while living in Soria. He seems to have served at the court of Alfonso XI, most likely participating in state affairs, where use could be made of his fluency in the three languages of Spanish cultural convivencia. In addition to The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors and his Moral Proverbs, Shem Tov also composed a penitential prayer in Hebrew, a poem of petition (Yam Qohelet—The Sea of Ecclesiastes) consisting of two thousand words beginning with the letter mem, and a qabbalistic treatise called Sefer HaPe’er (The Book of Glory). He also translated a halakhic work from Arabic into Hebrew.

From THE BATTLES OF THE PEN AND THE SCISSORS

II. TO PRAISE THE PEN

III. TOMORROW I’LL WRITE

IV. ENTER THE SCISSORS

V. WORK I WAS CUT OUT TO DO

VI. THE PEN FIGHTS BACK

VII. THE SCISSORS LONGED