The Book of Delight and Other Papers by Israel Abrahams

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I praise God who made day and night:
Day thy countenance, and thy hair the night.

Long before him the Hebrew poet Abraham ibn Ezra had written,

On thy cheeks and the hair of thy head
I will bless: He formeth light and maketh darkness.

In the thirteenth century the very same witticism meets us again, in the
Hebrew _Machberoth_ of Immanuel. But obviously it would be an endless task
to trace the similarities of poetic diction between Hebrew and other poets:
suffice it to realize that such similarities exist.

Such similarities did not, however, arise only from natural causes. They
were, in part at all events, due to artificial compulsion. It is well to
bear this in mind, for the recurrence of identical images in Hebrew love
poem after love poem impresses a Western reader as a defect. To the
Oriental reader, on the contrary, the repetition of metaphors seemed a
merit. It was one of the rules of the game. In his "Literary History of
Persia" Professor Browne makes this so clear that a citation from him will
save me many pages. Professor Browne (ii, 83) analyzes Sharafu'd-Din Rami's
rhetorical handbook entitled the "Lover's Companion." The "Companion"
legislates as to the similes and figures that may be used in describing the
features of a girl.

"It contains nineteen chapters, treating respectively of the hair, the
forehead, the eyebrows, the eyes, the eyelashes, the face, the down on
lips and cheeks, the mole or beauty-spot, the lips, the teeth, the mouth,
the chin, the neck, the bosom, the arm, the fingers, the figure, the
waist, and the legs. In each chapter the author first gives the various
terms applied by the Arabs and Persians to the part which he is
discussing, differentiating them when any difference in meaning exists;
then the metaphors used by writers in speaking of them, and the epithets
applied to them, the whole copiously illustrated by examples from the
poets."

No other figures of speech would be admissible. Now this "Companion"
belongs to the fourteenth century, and the earlier Arabic and Persian
poetry was less fettered. But principles of this kind clearly affected the
Hebrew poets, and hence there arises a certain monotony in the songs,
especially when they are read in translation. The monotony is not so
painfully prominent in the originals. For the translator can only render
the substance, and the substance is often more conventional than the
nuances of form, the happy turns and subtleties, which evaporate in the
process of translation, leaving only the conventional sediment behind.

This is true even of Jehudah Halevi, though in him we hear a genuinely
original note. In his Synagogue hymns he joins hands with the past, with
the Psalmists; in his love poems he joins hands with the future, with
Heine. His love poetry is at once dainty and sincere. He draws
indiscriminately on Hebrew and Arabic models, but he is no mere imitator. I
will not quote much from him, for his best verses are too familiar. Those
examples which I must present are given in a new and hitherto unpublished
translation by Mrs. Lucas.

MARRIAGE SONG

Fair is my dove, my loved one,
None can with her compare:
Yea, comely as Jerusalem,
Like unto Tirzah fair.

Shall she in tents unstable
A wanderer abide,
While in my heart awaits her
A dwelling deep and wide?

The magic of her beauty
Has stolen my heart away:
Not Egypt's wise enchanters
Held half such wondrous sway.

E'en as the changing opal
In varying lustre glows,
Her face at every moment
New charms and sweetness shows.

White lilies and red roses
There blossom on one stem:
Her lips of crimson berries
Tempt mine to gather them.

By dusky tresses shaded
Her brow gleams fair and pale,
Like to the sun at twilight,
Behind a cloudy veil.

Her beauty shames the day-star,
And makes the darkness light:
Day in her radiant presence
Grows seven times more bright

This is a lonely lover!
Come, fair one, to his side,
That happy be together
The bridegroom and the bride!

The hour of love approaches
That shall make one of twain:
Soon may be thus united
All Israel's hosts again!

OPHRAH

_To her sleeping Love_

Awake, my fair, my love, awake,
That I may gaze on thee!
And if one fain to kiss thy lips
Thou in thy dreams dost see,
Lo, I myself then of thy dream
The interpreter will be!

TO OPHRAH

Ophrah shall wash her garments white
In rivers of my tears,
And dry them in the radiance bright
That shines when she appears.
Thus will she seek no sun nor water nigh,
Her beauty and mine eyes will all her needs supply.

These lovers' tears often meet us in the Hebrew poems. Ibn Gabirol speaks
of his tears as fertilizing his heart and preserving it from crumbling into
dust. Mostly, however, the Hebrew lover's tears, when they are not tokens
of grief at the absence of the beloved, are the involuntary confession of
the man's love. It is the men who must weep in these poems. Charizi sings
of the lover whose heart succeeds in concealing its love, whose lips
contrive to maintain silence on the subject, but his tears play traitor and
betray his affection to all the world. Dr. Sulzbach aptly quotes parallels
to this fancy from Goethe and Brentano.

This suggestion of parallelism between a medieval Hebrew poet and Goethe
must be my excuse for an excursion into what seems to me one of the most
interesting examples of the kind. In one of his poems Jehudah Halevi has
these lines:

SEPARATION

So we must be divided! Sweetest, stay!
Once more mine eyes would seek thy glance's light!
At night I shall recall thee; thou, I pray,
Be mindful of the days of our delight!
Come to me in my dreams, I ask of thee,
And even in thy dreams be gentle unto me!

If thou shouldst send me greeting in the grave,
The cold breath of the grave itself were sweet;
Oh, take my life! my life, 'tis all I have,
If I should make thee live I do entreat!
I think that I shall hear, when I am dead,
The rustle of thy gown, thy footsteps overhead.

It is this last image that has so interesting a literary history as to
tempt me into a digression. But first a word must be said of the
translation and the translator. The late Amy Levy made this rendering, not
from the Hebrew, but from Geiger's German with obvious indebtedness to Emma
Lazarus. So excellent, however, was Geiger's German that Miss Levy got
quite close to the meaning of the original, though thirty-eight Hebrew
lines are compressed into twelve English. Literally rendered, the Hebrew of
the last lines runs:

Would that, when I am dead, to mine ears may rise
The music of the golden bell upon thy skirts.

This image of the bell is purely Hebraic; it is, of course, derived from
the High Priest's vestments. Jehudah Halevi often employs it to express
melodious proclamation of virtue, or the widely-borne voice of fame. Here
he uses it in another context, and though the image of the bell is not
repeated, yet some famous lines from Tennyson's "Maud" at once come into
one's mind:

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so light a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

It is thus that the lyric poetry of one age affects, or finds its echo in,
that of another, but in this particular case it is, of course, a natural
thought that true love must survive the grave. There is a mystical union
between the two souls, which death cannot end. Here, again, we meet the
close connection between love and mysticism, which lies at the root of all
deep love poetry. But we must attend to the literary history of the thought
for a moment longer. Moses ibn Ezra, though more famous for his Synagogue
hymns, had some lyric gifts of a lighter touch, and he wrote love songs on
occasion. In one of these the poet represents a dying wife as turning to
her husband with the pathetic prayer, "Remember the covenant of our youth,
and knock at the door of my grave with a hand of love."

I will allude only to one other parallel, which carries us to a much
earlier period. Here is an Arab song of Taubah, son of Al-Humaiyir, who
lived in the seventh century. It must be remembered that it was an ancient
Arabic folk-idea that the spirits of the dead became owls.

Ah, if but Laila would send me a greeting down
of grace, though between us lay the dust and flags of stone,
My greeting of joy should spring in answer, or there should cry
toward her an owl, ill bird that shrieks in the gloom of graves.

C.J.L. Lyall, writing of the author of these lines, Taubah, informs us
that he was the cousin of Laila, a woman of great beauty. Taubah had loved
her when they were children in the desert together, but her father refused
to give her to him in marriage. He led a stormy life, and met his death in
a fight during the reign of Mu'awiyah. Laila long survived him, but never
forgot him or his love for her. She attained great fame as a poetess, and
died during the reign of 'Abd-al-Malik, son of Marwan, at an advanced age.
"A tale is told of her death in which these verses figure. She was making a
journey with her husband when they passed by the grave of Taubah. Laila,
who was travelling in a litter, cried, By God! I will not depart hence till
I greet Taubah. Her husband endeavored to dissuade her, but she would not
hearken; so at last he allowed her. And she had her camel driven up the
mound on which the tomb was, and said, Peace to thee, O Taubah! Then she
turned her face to the people and said, I never knew him to speak falsely
until this day. What meanest thou? said they. Was it not he, she answered,
who said

Ah, if but Laila would send a greeting down
of grace, though between us lay the dust and flags of stone,
My greeting of joy should spring in answer, or there should cry
toward her an owl, ill bird that shrieks in the gloom of graves.

Nay, but I have greeted him, and he has not answered as he said. Now, there
was a she-owl crouching in the gloom by the side of the grave; and when it
saw the litter and the crowd of people, it was frightened and flew in the
face of the camel. And the camel was startled and cast Laila headlong on
the ground; and she died that hour, and was buried by the side of Taubah."

The fascination of such parallels is fatal to proportion in an essay such
as this. But I cannot honestly assert that I needed the space for other
aspects of my subject. I have elsewhere fully described the Wedding Odes
which Jehudah Halevi provided so abundantly, and which were long a regular
feature of every Jewish marriage. But, after the brilliant Spanish period,
Hebrew love songs lose their right to high literary rank. Satires on
woman's wiles replace praises of her charms. On the other hand, what of
inspiration the Hebrew poet felt in the erotic field beckoned towards
mysticism. In the paper which opens this volume, I have written
sufficiently and to spare of the woman-haters. At Barcelona, in the age of
Zabara, Abraham ibn Chasdai did the best he could with his misogynist
material, but he could get no nearer to a compliment than this, "Her face
has the shimmer of a lamp, but it burns when held too close" ("Prince and
Dervish," ch. xviii). The Hebrew attacks on women are clever, but
superficial; they show no depth of insight into woman's character, and are
far less effective than Pope's satires.

The boldest and ablest Hebrew love poet of the satirical school is Immanuel
of Rome, a younger contemporary of Dante. He had wit, but not enough of it
to excuse his ribaldry. He tells many a light tale of his amours; a pretty
face is always apt to attract him and set his pen scribbling. As with the
English dramatists of the Restoration, virtue and beauty are to Immanuel
almost contradictory terms. For the most part, wrinkled old crones are the
only decent women in his pages. His pretty women have morals as easy as the
author professes. In the second of his _Machberoth_ he contrasts two girls,
Tamar and Beriah; on the one he showers every epithet of honor, at the
other he hurls every epithet of abuse, only because Tamar is pretty, and
Beriah the reverse. Tamar excites the love of the angels, Beriah's face
makes even the devil fly. This disagreeable pose of Immanuel was not
confined to his age; it has spoilt some of the best work of W.S. Gilbert.
The following is Dr. Chotzner's rendering of one of Immanuel's lyrics. He
entitles it

PARADISE AND HELL

At times in my spirit I fitfully ponder,
Where shall I pass after death from this light;
Do Heaven's bright glories await me, I wonder,
Or Lucifer's kingdom of darkness and night?

In the one, though 'tis perhaps of ill reputation,
A crowd of gay damsels will sit by my side;
But in Heaven there's boredom and mental starvation,
To hoary old men and old crones I'll be tied.

And so I will shun the abodes of the holy,
And fly from the sky, which is dull, so I deem:
Let hell be my dwelling; there is no melancholy,
Where love reigns for ever and ever supreme.

Immanuel, it is only just to point out, occasionally draws a worthier
character. In his third Machbereth he tells of a lovely girl, who is
intelligent, modest, chaste, coy, and difficult, although a queen in
beauty; she is simple in taste, yet exquisite in poetical feeling and
musical gifts. The character is the nearest one gets in Hebrew to the best
heroines of the troubadours. Immanuel and she exchange verses, but the path
of flirtation runs rough. They are parted, she, woman-like, dies, and he,
man-like, sings an elegy. Even more to Immanuel's credit is his praise of
his own wife. She has every womanly grace of body and soul. On her he
showers compliments from the Song of Songs and the Book of Proverbs. If
this be the true man revealed, then his light verses of love addressed to
other women must be, as I have hinted, a mere pose. It may be that his wife
read his verses, and that his picture of her was calculated to soothe her
feelings when reading some other parts of his work. If she did read them,
she found only one perfect figure of womanliness in her husband's poems,
and that figure herself. But on the whole one is inclined to think that
Immanuel's braggartism as to his many love affairs is only another aspect
of the Renaissance habit, which is exemplified so completely in the similar
boasts of Benvenuto Cellini.

Be this as it may, it is not surprising to find that in the _Shulchan
Aruch_ (_Orach Chayyim_, ch. 317, Section 16), the poems of Immanuel are
put upon the Sabbath Index. It is declared unlawful to read them on
Saturdays, and also on week-days, continues the Code with gathering anger.
Those who copy them, still more those who print them, are declared sinners
that make others to sin. I must confess that I am here on the side of the
Code. Immanuel's _Machberoth_ are scarcely worthy of the Hebrew genius.

There has been, it may be added, a long struggle against Hebrew love songs.
Maimonides says ("Guide," iii. 7): "The gift of speech which God gave us to
help us learn and teach and perfect ourselves--this gift of speech must not
be employed in doing what is degrading and disgraceful. We must not imitate
the songs and tales of ignorant and lascivious people. It may be suitable
to them, but it is not fit for those who are bidden, Ye shall be a holy
nation." In 1415 Solomon Alami uses words on this subject that will lead me
to my last point. Alami says, "Avoid listening to love songs which excite
the passions. If God has graciously bestowed on you the gift of a sweet
voice, use it in praising Him. Do not set prayers to Arabic tunes, a
practice which has been promoted to suit the taste of effeminate men."

But if this be a crime, then the worst offender was none other than the
famous Israel Najara. In the middle of the sixteenth century he added some
of its choicest lyrics to the Hebrew song-book. The most popular of the
table hymns (Zemiroth) are his. He was a mystic, filled with a sense of the
nearness of God. But he did not see why the devil should have all the
pretty tunes. So he deliberately wrote religious poems in metres to suit
Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Spanish, and Italian melodies, his avowed purpose
being to divert the young Jews of his day from profane to sacred song. But
these young Jews must have been exigent, indeed, if they failed to find in
Najara's sacred verses enough of love and passion. Not only was he, like
Jehudah Halevi, a prolific writer of Wedding Odes, but in his most
spiritual hymns he uses the language of love as no Hebrew poet before or
after him has done. Starting with the assumption that the Song of Songs was
an allegory of God's espousal with the bride Israel, Najara did not
hesitate to put the most passionate words of love for Israel into God's
mouth. He was strongly attacked, but the saintly mystic Isaac Luria
retorted that Najara's hymns were listened to with delight in Heaven--and
if ever a man had the right to speak of Heaven it was Luria. And Hebrew
poetry has no need to be ashamed of the passionate affection poured out by
these mystic poets on another beloved, the Queen Sabbath.

This is not the place to speak of the Hebrew drama and of the form which
the love interest takes in it. Woman, at all events, is treated far more
handsomely in the dramas than in the satires. The love scenes of the Hebrew
dramatists are pure to coldness. These dramas began to flourish in the
eighteenth century; Luzzatto was by no means an unworthy imitator of
Guarini. Sometimes the syncretism of ideas in Hebrew plays is sufficiently
grotesque. Samuel Romanelli, who wrote in Italy at the era of the French
Revolution, boldly introduces Greek mythology. It may be that in the
Spanish period Hebrew poets introduced the muses under the epithet
"daughters of Song." But with Romanelli, the classical machinery is more
clearly audible. The scene of his drama is laid in Cyprus; Venus and Cupid
figure in the action. Romanelli gives a moral turn to his mythology, by
interposing Peace to stay the conflict between Love and Fame. Ephraim
Luzzatto, at the same period, tried his hand, not unsuccessfully, at Hebrew
love sonnets.

Love songs continued to be written in Hebrew in the nineteenth century, and
often see the light in the twentieth. But I do not propose to deal with
these. Recent new-Hebrew poetry has shown itself strongest in satire and
elegy. Its note is one of anger or of pain. Shall we, however, say of the
Hebrew race that it has lost the power to sing of love? Has it grown too
old, too decrepid?

And said I that my limbs were old,
And said I that my blood was cold,
And that my kindly fire was fled,
And my poor withered heart was dead,
And that I might not sing of love?

Heine is the answer. But Heine did not write in Hebrew, and those who have
so far written in Hebrew are not Heines. It is, I think, vain to look to
Europe for a new outburst of Hebrew love lyrics. In the East, and most of
all in Palestine, where Hebrew is coming to its own again, and where the
spring once more smiles on the eyes of Jewish peasants and shepherds, there
may arise another inspired singer to give us a new Song of Songs in the
language of the Bible. But we have no right to expect it. Such a rare thing
of beauty cannot be repeated. It is a joy forever, and a joy once for all.

A HANDFUL OF CURIOSITIES

I

GEORGE ELIOT AND SOLOMON MAIMON

That George Eliot was well acquainted with certain aspects of Jewish
history, is fairly clear from her writings. But there is collateral
evidence of an interesting kind that proves the same fact quite
conclusively, I think.

It will be remembered that Daniel Deronda went into a second-hand book-shop
and bought a small volume for half a crown, thereby making the acquaintance
of Ezra Cohen. Some time back I had in my hands the identical book that
George Eliot purchased which formed the basis of the incident. The book may
now be seen in Dr. Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London. The few words
in which George Eliot dismisses the book in her novel would hardly lead one
to gather how carefully and conscientiously she had read the volume, which
has since been translated into English by Dr. J. Clark Murray. She, of
course, bought and read the original German.

The book is Solomon Maimon's Autobiography, a fascinating piece of
self-revelation and of history. (An admirable account of it may be found in
chapter x of the fifth volume of the English translation of Graetz's
"History of the Jews.") Maimon, cynic and skeptic, was a man all head and
no heart, but he was not without "character," in one sense of the word. He
forms a necessary link in the progress of modern Jews towards their newer
culture. Schiller and Goethe admired him considerably, and, as we shall
soon see, George Eliot was a careful student of his celebrated pages. Any
reader who takes the book up, will hardly lay it down until he has finished
the first part, at least.

Several marginal and other notes in the copy of the Autobiography that
belonged to George Eliot are, I am convinced, in her own handwriting, and I
propose to print here some of her jottings, all of which are in pencil, but
carefully written. Above the Introduction, she writes: "This book might
mislead many readers not acquainted with other parts of Jewish history. But
for a worthy account (in brief) of Judaism and Rabbinism, see p. 150." This
reference takes one to the fifteenth chapter of the Autobiography. Indeed,
George Eliot was right as to the misleading tendency of a good deal in
Maimon's "wonderful piece of autobiography," as she terms the work in
"Daniel Deronda." She returns to the attack on p. 36 of her copy, where she
has jotted, "See infra, p. 150 _et seq._ for a better-informed view of
Talmudic study."

How carefully George Eliot read! The pagination of 207 is printed wrongly
as 160; she corrects it! She corrects _Kimesi_ into "Kimchi" on p. 48,
_Rabasse_ into "R. Ashe" on p. 163. On p. 59 she writes, "According to the
Talmud no one is eternally damned." Perhaps her statement needs some slight
qualification. Again (p. 62), "Rashi, i.e. Rabbi Shelomoh ben Isaak, whom
Buxtorf mistakenly called Jarchi." It was really to Raymund Martini that
this error goes back. But George Eliot could not know it. On p. 140, Maimon
begins, "Accordingly, I sought to explain all this in the following way,"
to which George Eliot appends the note, "But this is simply what the
Cabbala teaches--not his own ingenious explanation."

It is interesting to find George Eliot occasionally defending Judaism
against Maimon. On p. 165 he talks of the "abuse of Rabbinism," in that the
Rabbis tacked on new laws to old texts. "Its origin," says George Eliot's
pencilled jotting, "was the need for freedom to modify laws"--a fine
remark. On p. 173, where Maimon again talks of the Rabbinical method of
evolving all sorts of moral truths by the oddest exegesis, she writes, "The
method has been constantly pursued in various forms by Christian Teachers."
On p. 186 Maimon makes merry at the annulment of vows previous to the Day
of Atonement. George Eliot writes, "These are religious vows--not
engagements between man and man."

Furthermore, she makes some translations of the titles of Hebrew books
cited, and enters a correction of an apparently erroneous statement of fact
on p. 215. There Maimon writes as though the Zohar had been promulgated
after Sabbatai Zebi. George Eliot notes: "Sabbatai Zebi lived long after
the production of the Zohar. He was a contemporary of Spinoza. Moses de
Leon belonged to the fourteenth century." This remark shows that George
Eliot knew Graetz's History, for it is he who brought the names of Spinoza
and Sabbatai Zebi together in two chapter headings in his work. Besides,
Graetz's History was certainly in George Eliot's library; it was among the
Lewes books now at Dr. Williams's. Again, on p. 265, Maimon speaks of the
Jewish fast that falls in August. George Eliot jots on the margin, "July?
Fast of Ninth Ab."

Throughout passages are pencilled, and at the end she gives an index to the
parts that seem to have interested her particularly. This is her list:

Talmudic quotations, 36.
Polish Doctor, 49.
The Talmudist, 60.
Prince R. and the Barber, 110.
Talmudic Method, 174.
Polish Jews chiefly Gelehrte, 211.
Zohar, 215.
Rabbinical Morality, 176.
New Chasidim, 207.
Elias aus Wilna, 242.
Angels (?), 82.
Tamuz, II., 135.

It is a pleasure, indeed, to find a fresh confirmation, that George Eliot's
favorable impression of Judaism was based on a very adequate acquaintance
with its history. Sir Walter Scott's knowledge of it was, one cannot but
feel, far less intimate than George Eliot's, but his poetic insight kept
him marvellously straight in his appreciation of Jewish life and character.

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