Solomon Ibn Gabirol

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL

(ca. 1021-1058)

Statue of Solomon Ibn Gabirol in a park in Málaga, Spain, his birthplace. The park is down the hill and across the Paseo de Parque from the Alcazaba, the Moorish castle. In 2000, when the photograph was taken, the park was being renovated. The text on the pedestal reads:

EL EXCMO

AYUNTAMIENTO

DE LA CIUDAD

ERIGIO ESTE BRONCE

EN EL IX CENTENARIO DE

ABEN GABIROL

POETA Y FILOSOFO DE

MALAGA

(“The most excellent

city hall

erected this plaque

for the 900^th anniversary of

Aben Gabirol, poet and philosopher

from Málaga”)

And now, herewith,

A SELECTION OF HIS POEMS IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

His Answer to the Critics

ESSAY

Scholarship and Biography

Links to Other Web Sites with Information on Solomon Ibn Gabirol

۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞۞

THE POEMS

THE 16-YEAR-OLD POET

I am the prince the song

‘s my slave I am the

string all singers songmen

tune my song’s a crown for

kings for ministers a

little crown am only

sixteen years old but my

heart holds wisdom like some

poet 8o year old man

Translated by Jerome Rothenberg and Harris Lenowitz

From Jerome Rothenberg and Harris Lenowitz, eds., Exiled in the Word:

Poems & Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present

(Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1989).

Reprinted by permission of the publisher and of Jerome Rothenberg.

MEDITATION

Three things remind me of You,

the heavens

who are a witness to Your name

the earth

which expands my thought

and is the thing on which I stand

and the musing of my heart

when I look within.

Carl Rakosi

After Solomon Ibn Gabirol

From “Eight Songs and Meditations (1971-1975),”

in The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi

(Orono, ME: The National Poetry Foundation/University of Maine, 1986).

Marilyn Kane, for the estate of Carl Rakosi, AKA Callman Rawley.

IN PRAISE OF GOD

Morning and evening I seek You, spreading out my hands, lifting up my face in prayer. I sigh for You with a thirsting heart; I am like the pauper begging at my doorstep. The heights of heaven cannot contain Your presence, yet You have a dwelling in my mind. I try to conceal Your glorious name in my heart, but my desire for You grows till it bursts out of my mouth. Therefore I shall praise the name of the Lord as long as the breath of the living God is in my nostrils.

Translated by T. Carmi

from The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, edited by T. Carmi

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I LOOK FOR YOU

I look for you early,

my rock and my refuge,

offering you worship

morning and night;

before your vastness

I come confused

and afraid for you see

the thoughts of my heart

What could the heart

and tongue compose,

or spirit’s strength

within me to suit you?

But song soothes you

and so I’ll give praise

to your being as long

as your breath-in-me moves.

Translated by Peter Cole

from Peter Cole, trans., Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001).

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6933.html

Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

MORNING SONG

At the dawn I seek Thee,

Refuge and rock sublime,—

Set my prayer before Thee in the morning,

And my prayer at eventime.

I before Thy greatness

Stand, and am afraid:—

All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth

Deep within my bosom laid.

And withal what is it

Heart and tongue can do?

What is this my strength, and what is even

This the spirit in me too?

But verily man’s singing

May seem good to Thee;

So will I thank Thee, praising, while there dwelleth

Yet the breath of God in me.

Translated by Nina Davis

from Nina Davis, Songs of Exile

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1901).

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OPEN THE GATE

Open the gate my beloved—

arise, and open the gate:

my spirit is shaken and I’m afraid.

My mother’s maid has been mocking me

and her heart is raised against me,

so the Lord would hear her child’s cry.

From the middle of midnight’s blackness,

a wild ass pursues me,

as the forest boar has crushed me;

and the end which has long been sealed

only deepens my wound,

and no one guides me—and I am blind.

Translated by Peter Cole

from Peter Cole, trans., Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001).

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6933.html

Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

INVITATION

Come up to me at early dawn,

Come up to me, for I am drawn,

Beloved, by my spirit’s spell,

To see the Sons of Israel.

For thee, my darling, I will spread

Within my court a golden bed,

And I will set a table there

And bread for thee I will prepare,

For thee my goblet I will fill

With juices that my vines distil:

And thou shalt drink to heart’s delight,

Of all my flavours day and night.

The joy in thee I will evince

With which a people greets its prince.

O son of Jesse, holy stem,

God’s servant, born of Bethlehem!

Translated by Israel Zangwill

from Israel Davidson, ed., and Israel Zangwill, trans.,

Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol

(Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1923, 1974).

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A LAMENTATION

Awake.

Your youth is passing like smoke.

In the morning you are vital

a lily swaying

but before the evening is over,

you will be nothing but dead grass.

Why struggle over who in your family

may have come from Abraham?

It’s a waste of breath.

Whether you feed on herbs

or Bashan rams

you, wretched man,

are already on your way into the earth.

Carl Rakosi

After Solomon Ibn Gabirol

From “Eight Songs and Meditations (1971-1975),”

in The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi

(Orono, ME: The National Poetry Foundation/University of Maine, 1986).

Marilyn Kane, for the estate of Carl Rakosi, AKA Callman Rawley.

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ARISE, O MY RAPTURE

Arise, O my rapture, at dawn I exclaim,

Go seeking the face of my love, the King,

I thirst at the thought of Him, burn as with flame,

And chatter like swallow upon the wing.

No gifts can I bring save of heart or of wit,

My cause to my lips I can only trust.

Desires my Redeemer a ritual fit,

How should I suffice who am based on dust?

When I with my self seek communion, I shrink,

Were I mightier far, I should still be small,

Soul and strength in adoring Thee faint and sink,

Yet sing Thee I must till the end of all.

Translated by Israel Zangwill

from Israel Davidson, ed., and Israel Zangwill, trans.,

Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol

(Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1923, 1974).

PRAYER

Unto thy Rock, my soul, uplift thy gaze,

His loving-kindness day and night implore.

Remember thy Creator in the days

Of youth, in song His glorious name adore.

He is thy portion through earth’s troubled maze,

Thy shelter, when life’s pilgrimage is o’er.

Thou knowest that there waits for thee always

A peaceful resting-place His throne before.

Therefore the Lord my God I bless and praise,

Even as all creatures bless Him evermore.

Translated by Alice Lucas

from Alice Lucas, The Jewish Year

(New York: Bloch, 1926).

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NIGHT-THOUGHTS

Will night already spread her wings and weave

her dusky robe about the day’s bright form,

Boldly the sun’s fair countenance displacing,

And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?

So a green wreath of mist enrings the moon

Till envious clouds do quite encompass her.

No wind! and yet the slender stem is stirred,

With faint slight motion as from inward tremor.

Mine eyes are full of grief—who sees me asks,

“Oh wherefore dost thou cling unto the ground?”

My friends discourse with sweet and soothing words;

They all are vain, they glide above my head.

I fain would check my tears; would fain enlarge

Unto infinity, my heart—in vain!

Grief presses hard my breast, therefore my tears

Have scarcely dried ere they again spring forth.

For these are streams no furnace heat may quench,

Nebuchadnezzar’s flames may dry them not.

What is the pleasure of the day for me,

If, in its crucible, I must renew

incessantly the pangs of purifying?

Up, challenge, wrestle and o’ercome! Be strong!

The late grapes cover all the vine with fruit.

I am not glad, though even the lion’s pride

Content itself upon the field’s poor grass.

My spirit sinks beneath the tide, soars not

With fluttering seamews on the moist, soft strand.

I follow Fortune not, where’er she lead.

Lord o’er myself, I banish her, compel

And though her clouds should rain no blessed dew,

Though she withhold the crown, the heart’s desire,

Though all deceive, though honey change to gall,

Still am I lord and will in freedom strive.

Translated by Emma Lazarus

from Emma Lazarus, The Poems of Emma Lazarus, vol. 2

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888).

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FROM THEE TO THEE

When all within is dark,

And former friends misprise;

From them I turn to Thee,

And find Love in Thine eyes.

When all within is dark,

And I my soul despise;

From me I turn to Thee,

And find love in Thing eyes.

When all Thy face is dark,

And Thy just angers rise;

From Thee I turn to Thee,

And find Love in Thine eyes.

Translated by Israel Abrahams

from Israel Abrahams, Festival Studies

(London: Macmillan, 1906; rpt. ed. also available).

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THE APPLE: I

Take, my lord, this sweetness in hand,

and forget about all of your longing—

it’s blushing like a bride on both sides as her breasts

are first caressed by her husband.

She’s an orphan, and has neither father nor sister,

and she’s far from her home and kin.

Her friends envied her going the day she was stripped

from her branch and cried: “Bring

greetings to Isaac, your lord . . . Bless you—

soon you’ll be kissing his lips.

Translated by Peter Cole

from Peter Cole, trans., Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001).

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6933.html

Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

BEFORE MY BEING

Before my being your mercy came through me,

bringing existence to nothing to shape me.

Who is it conceived of my form—and who

cast it then in a kiln to create me?

Who breathed soul inside me—and who

opened the belly of hell and withdrew me?

Who through youth brought me this far?

Who with wisdom and wonder endowed me?

I’m clay cupped in your hands, it’s true;

it’s you, I know, not I who made me.

I’ll confess my sin and will not say

the serpent’s ways, or evil seduced me.

How could I hide my error from you when

before my being your mercy came through me?

Translated by Peter Cole

from Peter Cole, trans., Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol

(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001).

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6933.html

Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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