The Book of Delight, and other papersAbrahams, Israel
Religion
The Book of Delight, and other papers
Abrahams, Israel
Ibn Zabara, Joseph ben Meir, 1140?- Sefer sha'ashu'im; Jews -- Intellectual life; Love poetry, Hebrew -- History and criticism
the king recognized him for the selfsame man whom he had seen in the
stars as the destined husband of his daughter. Then Solomon rejoiced with
exceeding joy and exclaimed, Blessed is the Omnipresent who giveth a wife
to man and establisheth him in his house."
The moral of which seems to be that, though marriages are made in Heaven,
love must be made on earth.
HEBREW LOVE SONGS
Palestine is still the land of song. There the peasant sings Arabic ditties
in the field when he sows and reaps, in the desert when he tends his flock,
at the oasis when the caravan rests for the night, and when camels are
remounted next morning. The maiden's fresh voice keeps droning rhythm with
her hands and feet as she carries water from the well or wood from the
scanty forest, when she milks the goats, and when she bakes the bread.
The burden of a large portion of these songs is love. The love motive is
most prominent musically during the long week of wedding festivities, but
it is by no means limited to these occasions. The songs often contain an
element of quaint, even arch, repartee, in which the girl usually has the
better of the argument. Certainly the songs are sometimes gross, but only
in the sense that they are vividly natural. With no delicacy of expression,
they are seldom intrinsically coarse. The troubadours of Europe trilled
more daintily of love, but there was at times an illicit note in their
lays. Eastern love songs never attain the ideal purity of Dante, but they
hardly ever sink to the level of Ovid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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