The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 » (ANN)

Peter Cole is a poet and translator of Hebrew and Arabic poetry. He has received numerous awards for his work, including prizes from the "Times Literary Supplement" and the Modern Language Association, and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Winner of the 2004 PEN-America Translation Award, he lives in Jerusalem, where he coedits Ibis Editions. He was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2007.

"A sterling work of translation of unsurpassed scope, quality and importance."--Ross Brann, Cornell University

"The finest labor of poetic translation I have seen in many years.... An entire revelation."--Richard Howard, University of Houston

— The New York Times - Eric Ormsby

Virtually stagnant since late Biblical times, Hebrew poetry and the language itself would be transformed by a succession of poets of genius and their imitators. In Peter Cole's rich new anthology, the extent of their astonishing achievement is fully revealed for the first time in English.

To the Reader     xxi
Acknowledgments     xxiii
Introduction     1
Muslim Spain (c. 950-c. 1140)
Dunash Ben Labrat     23
Fragment     24
Blessing for a     Wedding24
Drink, He Said     24
The Wife of Dunash     27
Will Her Love Remember?     27
Yitzhaq Ibn Mar Sha'ul     28
A Fawn Sought in Spain     28
Yosef Ibn Avitor     30
Lament for the Jews of Zion     31
A Curse     32
A Plea     33
Hymn for the New Year     33
Yitzhaq Ibn Khalfoun     35
Love in Me Stirs     35
A Gift of Cheese     36
Shmu'el Hanagid     37
On Fleeing His City     38
The Miracle at Sea     40
The Apple     44
The Gazelle     45
Jasmine     45
In Fact I Love That Fawn     45
Mixed in Spain     46
Your Years Are Sleep     46
The House of Prayer     47
The Critique     48
On Lifting the Siege     49
The War with Yaddayir     50
Onthe Death of Isaac, His Brother     53
First War     58
I'd Suck Bitter Poison     59
Delay Your Speech     59
The Rich     59
People Welcome the Rich     60
If You Leave a Long-Loved Friend     60
You Who'd Be Wise     60
When You're Desperate     61
It's Heart That Discerns     61
He'll Bring You Trouble     61
Could Kings Right a People Gone Bad     61
What's Familiar Is Sometimes Distanced     62
One Who Works and Buys Himself Books     62
Three Things     62
Soar, Don't Settle     62
Man's Wisdom Is in What He Writes     63
Be Glad, She Said     63
The Multiple Troubles of Man     63
Gazing through the Night     64
Earth to Man     65
The Child at One or Two     65
I Quartered the Troops for the Night     66
Luxuries Ease     66
Why Repeat the Sins     67
At the Treasury     67
Know of the Limbs     67
You Mock Me Now     68
Time Defies and Betrays     68
The Market      68
Yosef Ibn Hasdai     70
The Qasida     71
Shelomo Ibn Gabirol     74
Truth Seekers Turn     75
I'm Prince to the Poem     76
Prologue to The Book of Grammar     76
They Asked Me as though They Were Mystified     77
See the Sun     78
On Leaving Saragossa     78
My Heart Thinks as the Sun Comes Up     81
Now the Thrushes     81
Winter with Its Ink     82
The Garden     82
The Field     83
The Bee     83
I'd Give Up My Soul Itself     84
Be Smart with Your Love     84
All in Red     85
You've Stolen My Words     85
The Altar of Song     85
The Pen     86
If You'd Live among Men     86
I Am the Man     86
Heart's Hollow     88
I Love You     39
Before My Being     90
Three Things     90
I Look for You     91
Open the Gate     91
The Hour of Song     92
Send Your Spirit     92
Angels Amassing     93
And So It Came to Nothing     94
He Dwells Forever     95
Haven't I Hidden Your Name     97
Lord Who Listens     98
I've Made You My Refuge     98
You Lie in My Palace     99
From Kingdom's Crown     99
Yitzhaq Ibn Ghiyyat     111
My Wandering     112
Yosef Ibn Sahl     114
The Fleas     114
Your Poem, My Friend     115
A Complaint about the Rich     115
Levi Ibn Altabbaan     117
Utter His Oneness     117
Exposed     118
Bahya Ibn Paquda     119
Duties of the Heart     119
Moshe Ibn Ezra     121
Weak with Wine     122
The Garden     123
Bring Me My Cup     123
A Shadow     123
The Fawn     124
The Garden, the Miser     124
The Pen     125
Heart's Desire     125
That Bitter Day     127
Let Man Remember     127
The Dove     127
Why Does Time Hound Me So     128
Ancient Graves     128
If You See Me     129
Ivory Palaces     129
The World     130
My Heart's Secret     130
I Roused My Thoughts from Slumber     130
Let Man Wail     132
On the Death of His Son     132
The Blind     133
The Gazelle's Sigh     133
Gold     134
The Day to Come     134
At the Hour of Closing     135
Yosef Ibn Tzaddiq     137
A Wedding Night's Consolation     137
Lady of Grace     139
Shelomo Ibn Tzaqbel     141
Lines Inscribed on an Apple     142
Note to a Suitor Now Perplexed     142
A Fawn with Her Lashes     142
Yehuda Halevi     143
That Night a Gazelle     145
A Doe Washes     146
If Only Dawn     146
That Day while I Had Him     146
Another Apple     146
To Ibn al-Mu'allim     147
If Only I Could Give     147
Epithalamium     149
When a Lone Silver Hair     149
If Time     150
Inscriptions on Bowls     150
Four Riddles     150
Departure      150
On Friendship and Time     152
Slaves of Time     154
Heal Me, Lord     154
True Life     154
The Morning Stars     155
His Thresholds     155
Where Will I Find You     155
You Knew Me     156
A Doe Far from Home     156
A Dove in the Distance     157
You Slept, Then Trembling Rose     158
Love's Dwelling     158
Lord     159
If Only I Could Be     160
Won't You Ask, Zion     162
My Heart Is in the East     164
How Long Will You Lie     164
Heart at Sea     165
My Soul Longed     167
Has a Flood Washed the World     167
In the Heart     168
Above the Abyss     168
Time Has Tossed Me     168
Be with Me     169
Along the Nile     169
This Breeze     170
Christian Spain and Provence (c. 1140-1492)
Avraham Ibn Ezra     173
Fortune's Stars     174
How It Is     175
A Cloak     175
The Flies     176
World Poetry      176
All the Rest Is Commentary     177
The Flood     177
Reading Exodus     177
The Miracle (at Lehi)     177
Pleasure     177
In Place     177
The Wedding Night, Continued     178
An Ancient Battle     179
Lament for Andalusian Jewry     181
Elegy for a Son     182
My Hunger     184
Sent Out from the Glory     184
Lord, I Have Heard     184
My God     185
To the Soul     185
Blessed Is He Who Fears     186
I Bow Down     188
Children of Exile     189
I Call to Him     189
You Whose Hearts Are Asleep     190
Yitzhaq Ibn Ezra     192
On the Death of Yehuda HaLevi     193
Over His Boy     194
Conversion     195
Yosef Qimhi     196
Love for the World     197
Always Be Vigilant     197
Consider This     197
Suffer Your Sorrow     197
On Wisdom     198
If You Hear Someone Insult You     198
Wait and Be Saved      198
Wealth     199
Silence and Speech     199
Yosef Ibn Zabara     200
Sweet and Sour     201
My Ex     201
Look at These People     202
The Physician     202
Anatoli Bar Yosef     203
The Test of Poetry     203
Motto     204
Yehuda Ibn Shabbetai     205
From The Offering of Yehuda the Misogynist     206
Pharaoh's Wisdom     206
The Misogynist in Love     206
A Raised Offering     207
Two Things     207
The Sage Lies     207
Yehuda Alharizi     208
Born to Baseness     209
The Hypocrite     210
The Jerk     210
A Miser in Mosul     210
The Miser     211
On Zion's Holy Hill     211
Boys: Two Poems     212
If Amram's Son     212
An Answer     212
Masters of Song     212
Measure for Measure     212
A Lover Wandered     213
How Long, My Fawn     213
Curses' Composition     213
A Flashing Sword      214
Palindrome for a Patron     214
A Poem No Patron Has Ever Heard     215
Admiration for the Patron Again I'll Prove     215
Two Poems on Karaism     215
For     215
Against     216
Virtue     216
I'll Set Out a Verse and Lay the Foundation...     216
Ya'aqov Ben Elazar     218
The Hypocrite's Beard     219
Four Poems on Subtle Love     220
The Doe     220
A Kiss     220
A Lover's Transgression     220
Spats and Squabbles     220
Avraham Ibn Hasdai     221
Watch Out     222
ProPortion     222
Age as Author     222
Which Is More Bitter     223
The Lying Word     223
The Monk's Advice     223
Advice for a Future King     223
Wisdom's Mantle     223
Don't Believe     224
The Hyssop and the Cedar     224
Meir Halevi Abulafia     225
Plea for a Tax Break     226
(L)attitude     226
Fighting Time     226
Yitzhaq Hasniri     227
On the Worship of Wood and a Fool     228
Meshullam Depiera     229
The Poet     230
On a New Book by Maimonides     230
Before You Take Up Your Pen     230
How Could You Press for Song     231
As One with the Morning Stars     232
Moshe Ben Nahman (Nahmanides)     233
Before the World Ever Was     234
From "One Hundred Verses"     237
Shem Tov Ibn Falaqera     240
Career Counseling     241
A Mystery     241
On Poets and Poetry     241
Why God Made You     242
The Fool Thinks     242
Poverty's War     242
Yitzhaq Ibn Sahula     243
The Cynic Speaks     244
On Humility     244
Avraham Abulafia     245
From The Book of the Letter     247
Avraham Ben Shmu'el     252
To Whom among the Avengers of Blood     253
Yosef Giqatilla     254
The Nut Garden     255
Todros Abulafia     256
I've Labored in Love     258
She Said She Wanted     258
The Day You Left     258
That Fine Gazelle      259
They Fight with Me over Desire     259
That Girl Emerged     259
May My Tongue     259
There's Nothing Wrong in Wanting a Woman     260
Strong Poet, Weak Poet     260
Plaster and Pearls     261
Nothing Left to Say     261
Teachers and Writers     261
Before the King     262
My King     262
Poems from Prison     262
As Love Lives     262
Treacherous Time     263
The Filthy Lay in Darkness with Me     263
My Rings Have Fallen     263
Is It the Lord     264
Time Tries as I Drift     264
The Sea Casts Up Mire and Mud     264
On a Bible Written by Shmu'el HaNagid     265
Time Spreads Its Nets     265
Old Age Is Double-Edged     266
Perversion's Pigeons     266
My Thinking Wove     266
The Lord Is Good and So I'm Tormented     267
Defiled and Pure Are One     267
On Hearing Church Bells     267
I Take Delight in My Cup and Wine     268
Nahum     270
Winter Has Waned     270
Avraham Habedershi     272
Why the Poet Refuses to Fight     273
Your Muse     273
Lament for a Foe     274
The Poet's Distress     274
Yitzhaq Hagorni     275
Would You Tell Me     276
HaGorni's Lament     276
Yedaya Hapenini     278
The World Is a Raging Sea     279
Avner [of Burgos?]     281
The Last Words of My Desire     282
Qalonymos Ben Qalonymos     284
On Becoming a Woman     285
Yitzhak Polgar     287
Faith's Philosophy' Philosophy's Faith     288
Shem Tov Ardutiel (Santob de Carrion)     289
From The Battles of the Pen and the Scissors     290
Writer, You Hold     290
To Praise the Pen     291
Tomorrow I'll Write     291
Enter the Scissors     291
Work I Was Cut Out to Do     291
The Pen Fights Back     292
The Scissors Longed     292
Shmu'el Ibn Sasson     293
Man's Peril     294
Why Most Poets Are Poor     294
They Will Be Tried     296
Moshe Natan     297
Prison      297
From "The Ten Commandments"     298
Clothes Make the Man     298
Shelomo Depiera     299
Thinkers with Thinking     301
The Bee and the Grumbler     301
Medieval Arthritis     301
Winter in Monzon     302
After Conversion     303
Tabernacles: A Prayer     303
A Prayer for Rain and Sustenance     303
This Year's Wine: 1417     304
Vidal Benveniste     305
Advice from Wives     306
What Girls Want     306
To a Poet-Friend Too Much in Need     307
Poems for a Doe in a Garden     307
A Thank You Note     308
Think about This     308
Beyond Words     308
My Son, before You Were Born     309
To One Who Said His Heart for Verse Was Adamant     309
Clarity     309
What Goes Around Comes...     309
The Tongue Speaks and the Hand Records     310
Shelomo Halevi (Pablo de Santa Maria)     312
Memory's Wine     313
Shelomo Bonafed     314
World Gone Wrong     315
A Vision of Ibn Gabirol      317
Wherever You Go     318
Yitzhaq Alahdab     320
Inflation     320
Another Flea     321
Security     321
The Elderly Asked if the Doctors     321
As Sorcerers Spread     321
Being Poor     322
State of the Art; or, Poetry Wails     322
Renaissance Man     323
Moshe Remos     326
Last Words     327
'Eli Ben Yosef [Havillio?]     330
Who Soars     330
Moshe Ibn Habib     331
Account     332
You Come to the House of God     332
Sa'adia Ibn Danaan     333
Enmity Smolders     334
Hordes of Readers     334
Mixed Messenger     334
She Trapped Me     334
Chiasmus for a Doe     335
Notes     337
Glossary     527