CONTENTS
To the Reader
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE
Muslim Spain (c. 950–c. 1140)
DUNASH BEN LABRAT
Fragment
Blessing for a Wedding
Drink, He Said
THE WIFE OF DUNASH
Will Her Love Remember?
YITZHAQ IBN MAR SHA’UL
A Fawn Sought in Spain
YOSEF IBN AVITOR
Lament for the Jews of Zion
A Curse
A Plea
Hymn for the New Year
YITZHAQ IBN KHALFOUN
Love in Me Stirs
A Gift of Cheese
SHMU’EL HANAGID
On Fleeing His City
The Miracle at Sea
The Apple
The Gazelle
Jasmine
In Fact I Love That Fawn
Mixed in Spain
Your Years Are Sleep
The House of Prayer
The Critique
On Lifting the Siege
The War with Yaddayir
On the Death of Isaac, His Brother
First War
I’d Suck Bitter Poison
Delay Your Speech
The Rich
People Welcome the Rich
If You Leave a Long-Loved Friend
You Who’d Be Wise
When You’re Desperate
It’s Heart That Discerns
He’ll Bring You Trouble
Could Kings Right a People Gone Bad
What’s Familiar Is Sometimes Distanced
One Who Works and Buys Himself Books
Three Things
Soar, Don’t Settle
Man’s Wisdom Is in What He Writes
Be Glad, She Said
The Multiple Troubles of Man
Gazing through the Night
Earth to Man
The Child at One or Two
I Quartered the Troops for the Night
Luxuries Ease
Why Repeat the Sins
At the Treasury
Know of the Limbs
You Mock Me Now
Time Defies and Betrays
The Market
YOSEF IBN HASDAI
The Qasida
SHELOMO IBN GABIROL
Truth Seekers Turn
I’m Prince to the Poem
Prologue to The Book of Grammar
They Asked Me as though They Were Mystified
See the Sun
On Leaving Saragossa
My Heart Thinks as the Sun Comes Up
Now the Thrushes
Winter with Its Ink
The Garden
The Field
The Bee
I’d Give Up My Soul Itself
Be Smart with Your Love
All in Red
You’ve Stolen My Words
The Altar of Song
The Pen
If You’d Live among Men
I Am the Man
Heart’s Hollow
I Love You
Before My Being
Three Things
I Look for You
Open the Gate
The Hour of Song
Send Your Spirit
Angels Amassing
And So It Came to Nothing
He Dwells Forever
Haven’t I Hidden Your Name
Lord Who Listens
I’ve Made You My Refuge
You Lie in My Palace
From Kingdom’s Crown
YITZHAQ IBN GHIYYAT
My Wandering
YOSEF IBN SAHL
The Fleas
Your Poem, My Friend
A Complaint about the Rich
LEVI IBN ALTABBAAN
Utter His Oneness
Exposed
BAHYA IBN PAQUDA
Duties of the Heart
MOSHE IBN EZRA
Weak with Wine
The Garden
Bring Me My Cup
A Shadow
The Fawn
The Garden, the Miser
The Pen
Heart’s Desire
That Bitter Day
Let Man Remember
The Dove
Why Does Time Hound Me So
Ancient Graves
If You See Me
Ivory Palaces
The World
My Heart’s Secret
I Roused My Thoughts from Slumber
Let Man Wail
On the Death of His Son
The Blind
The Gazelle’s Sigh
Gold
The Day to Come
At the Hour of Closing
YOSEF IBN TZADDIQ
A Wedding Night’s Consolation
Lady of Grace
SHELOMO IBN TZAQBEL
Lines Inscribed on an Apple
Note to a Suitor Now Perplexed
A Fawn with Her Lashes
YEHUDA HALEVI
That Night a Gazelle
A Doe Washes
If Only Dawn
That Day while I Had Him
Another Apple
To Ibn al-Mu‘allim
If Only I Could Give
Epithalamium
When a Lone Silver Hair
If Time
Inscriptions on Bowls
Four Riddles
Departure
On Friendship and Time
Slaves of Time
Heal Me, Lord
True Life
The Morning Stars
His Thresholds
Where Will I Find You
You Knew Me
A Doe Far from Home
A Dove in the Distance
You Slept, Then Trembling Rose
Love’s Dwelling
Lord,
If Only I Could Be
Won’t You Ask, Zion
My Heart Is in the East
How Long Will You Lie
Heart at Sea
My Soul Longed
Has a Flood Washed the World
In the Heart
Above the Abyss
Time Has Tossed Me
Be with Me
Along the Nile
This Breeze
PART TWO
Christian Spain and Provence (c. 1140–1492)
AVRAHAM IBN EZRA
Fortune’s Stars
How It Is
A Cloak
The Flies
World Poetry
All the Rest Is Commentary
I. The Flood
II. Reading Exodus
III. The Miracle (at Lehi)
Pleasure
In Place
The Wedding Night, Continued
An Ancient Battle
Lament for Andalusian Jewry
Elegy for a Son
My Hunger
Sent Out from the Glory
Lord, I Have Heard
My God,
To the Soul
Blessèd Is He Who Fears
I Bow Down
Children of Exile
I Call to Him
You Whose Hearts Are Asleep
YITZHAQ IBN EZRA
On the Death of Yehuda HaLevi
Over His Boy
Conversion
YOSEF QIMHI
Love for the World
Always Be Vigilant
Consider This
Suffer Your Sorrow
On Wisdom
If You Hear Someone Insult You
Wait and Be Saved
Wealth
Silence and Speech
YOSEF IBN ZABARA
Sweet and Sour
My Ex
Look at These People
The Physician
ANATOLI BAR YOSEF
The Test of Poetry
Motto
YEHUDA IBN SHABBETAI
From The Offering of Yehuda the Misogynist
I. Pharaoh’s Wisdom
II. The Misogynist in Love
III. A Raised Offering
IV. Two Things
V. The Sage Lies
YEHUDA ALHARIZI
Born to Baseness
The Hypocrite
The Jerk
A Miser in Mosul
The Miser
On Zion’s Holy Hill
Boys: Two Poems
I. If Amram’s Son
II. An Answer
Masters of Song
Measure for Measure
A Lover Wandered
How Long, My Fawn
Curses’ Composition
A Flashing Sword
Palindrome for a Patron
A Poem No Patron Has Ever Heard
Admiration for the Patron Again I’ll Prove
Two Poems on Karaism
I. For
II. Against
Virtue
I’ll Set Out a Verse and Lay the Foundation . . .
YA‘AQOV BEN ELAZAR
The Hypocrite’s Beard
Four Poems on Subtle Love
I. The Doe
II. A Kiss
III. A Lover’s Transgression
IV. Spats and Squabbles
AVRAHAM IBN HASDAI
Watch Out
ProPortion
Age as Author
Which Is More Bitter
The Lying Word
The Monk’s Advice
Advice for a Future King
I. Wisdom’s Mantle
II. Don’t Believe
III. The Hyssop and the Cedar
MEIR HALEVI ABULAFIA
Plea for a Tax Break
(L)attitude
Fighting Time
YITZHAQ HASNIRI
On the Worship of Wood and a Fool
MESHULLAM DEPIERA
The Poet
On a New Book by Maimonides
Before You Take Up Your Pen
How Could You Press for Song
As One with the Morning Stars
MOSHE BEN NAHMAN (NAHMANIDES)
Before the World Ever Was
From “One Hundred Verses”
SHEM TOV IBN FALAQERA
Career Counseling
A Mystery
On Poets and Poetry
Why God Made You
The Fool Thinks
Poverty’s War
YITZHAQ IBN SAHULA
The Cynic Speaks
On Humility
AVRAHAM ABULAFIA
From The Book of the Letter
AVRAHAM BEN SHMU’EL
To Whom among the Avengers of Blood
YOSEF GIQATILLA
The Nut Garden
TODROS ABULAFIA
I’ve Labored in Love
She Said She Wanted
The Day You Left
That Fine Gazelle
They Fight with Me over Desire
That Girl Emerged
May My Tongue
There’s Nothing Wrong in Wanting a Woman
Strong Poet, Weak Poet
Plaster and Pearls
Nothing Left to Say
Teachers and Writers
Before the King
My King
Poems from Prison
I. As Love Lives
II. Treacherous Time
III. The Filthy Lay in Darkness with Me
IV. My Rings Have Fallen
V. Is It the Lord
Time Tries as I Drift
The Sea Casts Up Mire and Mud
On a Bible Written by Shmu’el HaNagid
Time Spreads Its Nets
Old Age Is Double-Edged
Perversion’s Pigeons
My Thinking Wove
The Lord Is Good and So I’m Tormented
Defiled and Pure Are One
On Hearing Church Bells
I Take Delight in My Cup and Wine
NAHUM
Winter Has Waned
AVRAHAM HABEDERSHI
Why the Poet Refuses to Fight
Your Muse
Lament for a Foe
The Poet’s Distress
YITZHAQ HAGORNI
Would You Tell Me
HaGorni’s Lament
YEDAYA HAPENINI
The World Is a Raging Sea
AVNER [OF BURGOS?]
The Last Words of My Desire
QALONYMOS BEN QALONYMOS
On Becoming a Woman
YITZHAK POLGAR
Faith’s Philosophy, Philosophy’s Faith
SHEM TOV ARDUTIEL (SANTOB DE CARRIÓN)
From The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors
I. Writer, You Hold
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
SHMU’EL IBN SASSON
Man’s Peril
Why Most Poets Are Poor
They Will Be Tried
MOSHE NATAN
Prison
From “The Ten Commandments”
Clothes Make the Man
SHELOMO DEPIERA
Thinkers with Thinking
The Bee and the Grumbler
Medieval Arthritis
Winter in Monzón
After Conversion
Tabernacles: A Prayer
A Prayer for Rain and Sustenance
This Year’s Wine: 1417
VIDAL BENVENISTE
Advice from Wives
What Girls Want
To a Poet-Friend Too Much in Need
Poems for a Doe in a Garden
A Thank You Note
Think about This
Beyond Words
My Son, before You Were Born
To One Who Said His Heart for Verse Was Adamant
Clarity
What Goes Around Comes . . .
The Tongue Speaks and the Hand Records
SHELOMO HALEVI (PABLO DE SANTA MARIA)
Memory’s Wine
SHELOMO BONAFED
World Gone Wrong
A Vision of Ibn Gabirol
Wherever You Go
YITZHAQ ALAHDAB
Inflation
Another Flea
Security
The Elderly Asked if the Doctors
As Sorcerers Spread
Being Poor
State of the Art; or, Poetry Wails
Renaissance Man
MOSHE REMOS
Last Words
‘ELI BEN YOSEF [HAVILLIO?]
Who Soars
MOSHE IBN HABIB
Account
You Come to the House of God
SA‘ADIA IBN DANAAN
Enmity Smolders
Hordes of Readers
Mixed Messenger
She Trapped Me
Chiasmus for a Doe
Notes
Glossary