Jewish Literature and Other Essays Part 11

Without I seem most calm, But fires rage within-- 'Gainst me, as none before, Thou didst a grievous sin.

What! tell the world my woe!

That were exceeding vain.

With mocking smile they'd say, 'You know, he is not sane!'"

When his lady-love died, he composed the following elegy:

"In pain she bore the son who her embrace Would never know. Relentless death spread straight His nets for her, and she, scarce animate, Unto her husband signed: I ask this grace, My friend, let not harsh death our love efface; To our babes, its pledges, dedicate Thy faithful care; for vainly they await A mother's smile each childish fear to chase.

And to my uncle, prithee, write. Deep pain I brought his heart. Consumed by love's regret He roved, a stranger in his home. I fain Would have him shed a tear, nor love forget.

He seeketh consolation's cup, but first His soul with bitterness must quench its thirst."

Moses ibn Ezra's cup of consolation on not a few occasions seems to have been filled to overflowing with wine. In no other way can the joyousness of his drinking-songs be accounted for. The following are characteristic:

"Wine cooleth man in summer's heat, And warmeth him in winter's sleet.

My buckler 'tis 'gainst chilling frost, My shield when rays of sun exhaust."

"If men will probe their inmost heart, They must condemn their crafty art: For silver pieces they make bold To ask a drink of liquid gold."

To his mistress, naturally, many a stanza of witty praise and coaxing imagery was devoted:

"My love is like a myrtle tree, When at the dance her hair falls down.

Her eyes deal death most pitiless, Yet who would dare on her to frown?"

"Said I to sweetheart: 'Why dost thou resent The homage to thy grace by old men paid?'

She answered me with question pertinent: 'Dost thou prefer a widow to a maid?'"

To his love-poems and drinking-songs must be added his poems of friendship, on true friends, life's crowning gift, and false friends, basest of creatures. He has justly been described as the most subjective of neo-Hebraic poets. His blithe delight in love, exhaling from his poems, transfigured his ready humor, which instinctively pierced to the ludicrous element in every object and occurrence: age dyeing its hair, traitorous friendship, the pride of wealth, or separation of lovers.

Yet in the history of synagogue literature this poet goes by the name _Ha-Sallach_, "penitential poet," on account of his many religious songs, bewailing in elegiac measure the hollowness of life, and the vanity of earthly possessions, and in ardent words advocating humility, repentance, and a contrite heart. The peculiarity of Jewish humor is that it returns to its tragic source.

No mediaeval poet so markedly ill.u.s.trates this characteristic as the prince of neo-Hebraic poetry, Yehuda Halevi, in whose poems the principle of Jewish national poesy attained its completest expression.

They are the idealized reflex of the soul of the Jewish people, its poetic emotions, its "making for righteousness," its patriotic love of race, its capacity for martyrdom. Whatever true and beautiful element had developed in Jewish soul life, since the day when Judah's song first rang out in Zion's accents on Spanish soil, greets us in its n.o.blest garb in his poetry. A modern poet[48] says of him:

"Ay, he was a master singer, Brilliant pole star of his age, Light and beacon to his people!

Wondrous mighty was his singing--

Verily a fiery pillar Moving on 'fore Israel's legions, Restless caravan of sorrow, Through the exile's desert plain."

In his early youth the muse of poetry had imprinted a kiss upon Halevi's brow, and the gracious echo of that kiss trembles through all the poet's numbers. Love, too, seems early to have taken up an abode in his susceptible heart, but, as expressed in the poems of his youth, it is not sensuous, earthly love, nor Gabirol's despondency and unselfish grief, nor even the sentiment of Moses ibn Ezra's artistically conceived and technically perfect love-plaint. It is tender, yet pa.s.sionate, frankly extolling the happiness of requited love, and as naively miserable over separation from his mistress, whom he calls Ophra (fawn). One of his sweetest songs he puts upon her lips:

"Into my eyes he loving looked, My arms about his neck were twined, And in the mirror of my eyes, What but his image did he find?

Upon my dark-hued eyes he pressed His lips with breath of pa.s.sion rare.

The rogue! 'Twas not my eyes he kissed; He kissed his picture mirrored there."

Ophra's "Song of Joy" reminds one of the pa.s.sion of the "Song of Songs":

"He cometh, O bliss!

Fly swiftly, ye winds, Ye odorous breezes, And tell him how long I've waited for this!

O happy that night, When sunk on thy breast, Thy kisses fast falling, And drunken with love, My troth I did plight.

Again my sweet friend Embraceth me close.

Yes, heaven doth bless us, And now thou hast won My love without end."

His mistress' charms he describes with attractive grace:

"My sweetheart's dainty lips are red, With ruby's crimson overspread; Her teeth are like a string of pearls; Adown her neck her cl.u.s.t'ring curls In ebon hue vie with the night; And o'er her features dances light.

The twinkling stars enthroned above Are sisters to my dearest love.

We men should count it joy complete To lay our service at her feet.

But ah! what rapture in her kiss!

A forecast 'tis of heav'nly bliss!"

When the hour of parting from Ophra came, the young poet sang:

"And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet, Let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes.

Forget not, love, the days of our delight, And I our nights of bliss shall ever prize.

In dreams thy shadowy image I shall see, Oh even in my dream be kind to me!"[49]

Yehuda Halevi sang not only of love, but also, in true Oriental fashion, and under the influence of his Arabic models, of wine and friendship. On the other hand, he is entirely original in his epithalamiums, charming descriptions of the felicity of young conjugal life and the sweet blessings of pure love. They are pervaded by the intensity of joy, and full of roguish allusions to the young wife's shamefacedness, arousing the jest and merriment of her guests, and her delicate shrinking in the presence of longed-for happiness. Characteristically enough his admonitions to feed the fire of love are always followed by a sigh for his people's woes:

"You twain will soon be one, And all your longing filled.

Ah me! will Israel's hope For freedom e'er be stilled?"

It is altogether probable that these blithesome songs belong to the poet's early life. To a friend who remonstrates with him for his love of wine he replies:

"My years scarce number twenty-one-- Wouldst have me now the wine-cup shun?"

which would seem to indicate that love and wine were the pursuits of his youth. One of his prettiest drinking songs is the following:

"My bowl yields exultation-- I soar aloft on song-tipped wing, Each draught is inspiration, My lips sip wine, my mouth must sing.

Dear friends are full of horror, Predict a toper's end for me.

They ask: 'How long, O sorrow, Wilt thou remain wine's devotee?'

Why should I not sing praise of drinking?

The joys of Eden it makes mine.

If age will bring no cowardly shrinking, Full many a year will I drink wine."

But little is known of the events of the poet's career. History's n.i.g.g.ardliness, however, has been compensated for by the prodigality of legend, which has woven many a fanciful tale about his life. Of one fact we are certain: when he had pa.s.sed his fiftieth year, Yehuda Halevi left his native town, his home, his family, his friends, and disciples, to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, the land wherein his heart had always dwelt. His itinerary can be traced in his songs. They lead us to Egypt, to Zoan, to Damascus. In Tyre silence suddenly falls upon the singer.

Did he attain the goal he had set out to reach? Did his eye behold the land of his fathers? Or did death overtake the pilgrim singer before his journey's end? Legend which has beautified his life has transfigured his death. It is said, that struck by a Saracen's horse Yehuda Halevi sank down before the very gates of Jerusalem. With its towers and battlements in sight, and his inspired "Lay of Zion" on his lips, his pure soul winged its flight heavenward.

With the death of Yehuda Halevi, the golden age of neo-Hebraic poetry in Spain came to an end, and the period of the epigones was inaugurated. A note of hesitancy is discernible in their productions, and they acknowledge the superiority of their predecessors in the epithet "fathers of song" applied to them. The most noted of the later writers was Yehuda ben Solomon Charisi. Fortune marked him out to be the critic of the great poetic creations of the brilliant epoch just closed, and his fame rests upon the skill with which he acquitted himself of his difficult task. As for his poetry, it lacks the depth, the glow, the virility, and inspiration of the works of the cla.s.sical period. He was a restless wanderer, a poet tramp, roving in the Orient, in Africa, and in Europe. His most important work is his divan _Tachkemoni_, testifying to his powers as a humorist, and especially to his mastery of the Hebrew language, which he uses with dexterity never excelled. The divan touches upon every possible subject: G.o.d and nature, human life and suffering, the relations between men, his personal experiences, and his adventures in foreign parts. The first Makamat[50] writer among Jews, he furnished the model for all poems of the kind that followed; their first genuine humorist, he flashes forth his wit like a stream of light suddenly turned on in the dark. That he measured the worth of his productions by the generous meed of praise given by his contemporaries is a venial offense in the time of the troubadours and minnesingers. Charisi was particularly happy in his use of the "mosaic" style, and his short poems and epigrams are most charming. Deep melancholy is a foil to his humor, but as often his writings are disfigured by levity. The following may serve as samples of his versatile muse. The first is addressed to his grey hair:

"Those ravens black that rested Erstwhile upon my head, Within my heart have nested, Since from my hair they fled."

The second is inscribed to love's tears: