"Well, then, I'll resign myself to fate, And seek consolation in the thought that life comes to an end. Our sages tell us everywhere That for all things we must praise God, With loud rejoicing for all good, In submission for evil fortune. So I will force my lips, However they may resist, to say the olden blessing: My Lord and God accept my thanks That thou has made of me a man." One of Kalonymos's friends was Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome, called the "Heine of the middle ages," and sometimes the "Jewish Voltaire." Neither comparison is apt. On the one hand, they give him too high a place as a writer, on the other, they do not adequately indicate his characteristic qualities. His most important work, the _Mechabberoth_, is a collection of disjointed pieces, full of bold witticisms, poetic thoughts, and linguistic charms. It is composed of poems, Makamat, parodies, novels, epigrams, distichs, and sonnets--all essentially humorous. The poet presents things as they are, leaving it to reality to create ridiculous situations. He is witty rather than humorous. Rarely only a spark of kindliness or the glow of poetry transfigures his wit. He is uniformly objective, scintillating, cold, often frivolous, and not always chaste. To produce a comic effect, to make his readers laugh is his sole desire. Friend and admirer of Dante, he attained to a high degree of skill in the sonnet. In neo-Hebraic poetry, his works mark the beginning of a new epoch. Indelicate witticisms and levity, until then sporadic in Jewish literature, were by him introduced as a regular feature. The poetry of the earlier writers had dwelt upon the power of love, their muse was modest and chaste, a "rose of Sharon," a "lily of the valleys." Immanuel's was of coarser fibre; his witty sallies remind one of Italian rather than Hebrew models. A recent critic of Hebrew poetry speaks of his Makamat as a pendant to "Tristan and Isolde,"--in both sensuality triumphs over spirituality. He is at his best in his sonnets, and of these the finest are in poetic prose. Female beauty is an unfailing source of inspiration to him, but of trust in womankind he has none: "No woman ever faithful hold, Unless she ugly be and old." The full measure of mockery he poured out upon a deceived husband, and the most cutting sarcasm at his command against an enemy is a comparison to crabbed, ugly women: "I loathe him with the hot and honest hate That fills a rake 'gainst maids he can not bait, With which an ugly hag her glass reviles, And prostitutes the youths who 'scape their wiles." His devotion to woman's beauty is altogether in the spirit of his Italian contemporaries. One of his most pleasing sonnets is dedicated to his lady-love's eyes:[54]