Solomon ibn Gabirol

(ca. 1021/22 to ca. 1051/69)

“The most excellent city hall erected this plaque for the 900th anniversary of Aben Gabirol, poet and philosopher from Málaga”

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

(See caption for English translation.)

The 16-Year-Old Poet
Meditation
In Praise of God
I Look for You
Morning Song
Open the Gate
Invitation
A Lamentation
Arise, O My Rapture
Prayer
Night-Thoughts
From Thee to Thee
Before My Being
The Land of Peace
Lord of the World
Earth’s Embroidery
His Answer to the Critics
On Leaving Saragossa

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 80 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

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).

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).

A LAMENTATION

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.

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).

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).

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).

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.

THE LAND OF PEACE

Whose works, O Lord, like Thine can be,

Who ‘neath Thy throne of grace,

For those pure souls from earth set free,

Hast made a dwelling-place?

There are the sinless spirits bound

Up in the bond of life,

The weary there new strength have found,

The weak have rest from strife.

Sweet peace and calm their spirits bless,

Who reach that heavenly home.

And never-ending pleasantness—

Such is the world to come.

There glorious visions manifold

Those happy ones delight,

And in God’s presence they behold

Themselves, and Him, aright.

In the King’s palace they abide,

And at His table eat,

With kingly dainties satisfied,

Spiritual food most sweet.

This is the rest for ever sure,

This is the heritage,

Whose goodness and whose bliss endure

Unchanged from age to age.

This is the land the spirit knows,

That everlastingly

With milk and honey overflows,

And such its fruit shall be.

Translated by Alice Lucas

from Alice Lucas, The Jewish Year

(New York: Bloch, 1926).

LORD OF THE WORLD

Lord of the world, O hear my psalm,

And as sweet incense take my plea.

My heart hath set its love on Thee

And finds in speech its only balm.

This thought forever haunts my mind,

Some day to Thee I must return,

From Thee I came and backward yearn

My very fount and source to find.

Not mine the merit that I stand

Before Thee thus, since all is Thine,

The glorious work of force divine,

No product of my heart or hand.

My soul to Thee was humbly bent

Even before she had her birth,

Before upon the sphere of earth

Her heav’nly greatness made descent.

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).

EARTH’S EMBROIDERY

With the ink of its showers and rains, with the quill of its lightning, with the hand of its clouds, winter wrote a letter upon the garden, in purple and blue. No artist could ever conceive the like of that. And this is why the earth, grown jealous of the sky, embroidered stars in the folds of the flower-beds.

Translated by T. Carmi

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

HIS ANSWER TO THE CRITICS

Where are the men with the strength to be men?

Where are those who have eyes and can see?

Looking around, I see nothing but cowards and cynics,

And slaves, slaves to their own senses.

And every one of these poor beggars

Thinks of himself as another Aristotle.

You tell me they have written poems—

You call that poetry?

I call it the cawing of crows.

It’s time for the prophet’s anger to purify poetry,

Left too long to the fingers of aesthetes and time-wasters.

I have carved my song in the high forehead of Time.

They know it and hate it—it is too much.

Translated by Robert Mezey

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ON LEAVING SARAGOSSA

My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth,

my throat is parched with pleading,

my heart is loud, my mind confused

with pain and continual grieving.

My sorrow swells and will not bear

sleep’s gift to my eyes:

How long will this rage and yearning

like fire inside me burn?

Who could I turn to for help,

who could I tell of my plight?

If only someone would offer me comfort,

someone have mercy, take hold of my hand,

I’d pour out my heart before him

and manage to reach but the edge of my grief—

though maybe in putting my sorrow to words

my heart’s rushing would find release.

You who seek my peace, come near—

and hear the roar of my heart like the sea.

If your heart has grown hard it will soften,

faced with the hate that faces me.

How could you call me alive,

when you know of my distress;

is it nothing to live among people

who can’t tell their right hand from left?

I’m buried, but not in a graveyard,

in the coffin of my own home.

I suffer with neither father nor mother,

indigent, young, and alone—

on my own without even a brother,

not a friend apart from my mind:

I mix my blood with my tears,

and my tears into my wine.

I’ll be consumed in my thirst

before my thirst for friendship is quenched,

as though the sky and its hosts were arrayed

between me and all that I crave.

I’m treated here as a stranger, despised—

as though I were living with ostriches,

caught between crooks and the fools

who think their hearts have grown wise.

One hands you venom to drink,

another strokes you with words

and lies in wait in his heart,

addressing you: “Please, my lord . . .”

—people whose fathers were not fit

to be dogs to my flock of sheep—

their faces have never known blushing,

unless they were painted with crimson cheeks.

They’re giants in their own eyes,

grasshoppers here in mine.

They quarrel with all my teachings and talk,

as though I were speaking Greek.

“Speak,” they carp, “as the people speak,

and we’ll know what you have to say”—

and now I’ll break them like dirt or like straw,

my tongue’s pitchfork thrust into their hay.

If your ears aren’t able to hear me,

what good could my harmonies do?

Your necks aren’t worthy of wearing

my golden crescents and jewels.

If these boors would only open their mouths

to the rain that descends from my clouds,

my essence would soon come through them

with its cinnamon scent and myrrh.

Have compassion for wisdom,

compassion for me, surrounded by neighbors like these—

people for whom the knowledge of God

is a matter of spirits and ghosts.

Therefore I mourn and wail,

and make my bed in ashes,

and bow my head like a reed and fast on

Monday and Thursday and Monday.

Why should I wait any longer

with nothing like hope in sight?

Let my eyes in the world wander,

they’ll never glimpse what I want:

Death grows daily sweeter to me,

the world’s gossip means less and less;

if my heart returns to that path,

thinking its intrigue might offer success,

whatever I do will come round,

my scheming against me revolve.

So my soul refuses its glory

for its glory brings only disgrace.

I’ll never rejoice again in the world,

my pride will find there no pleasure,

though the stars of Orion call me to come

and take up my station among them.

For the world has always been

like a yoke around my neck—

and what good does it do me to linger

by blindness and grief beset?

My soul in my death will delight

if it leads to the Lord and his rest—

I’d put an end to my life,

an end to this dwelling in flesh.

My delight’s in the day of my downfall,

my downfall the day of my greatest delight,

and I long for heart’s understanding—

the exhaustion of sinew and strength.

For a sigh settles into repose,

and my leanness leads to my meat,

and as long as I live I’ll seek out in search

of all that the elder Solomon preached:

perhaps the revealer of depths, the Lord,

will show me where wisdom lurks—

for it alone is my reward,

my portion and the worth of my work.

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.

Solomon ibn Gabirol

THE 16-YEAR-OLD POET

MEDITATION

IN PRAISE OF GOD

I LOOK FOR YOU

MORNING SONG

OPEN THE GATE

INVITATION

A LAMENTATION

ARISE, O MY RAPTURE

PRAYER

NIGHT-THOUGHTS

FROM THEE TO THEE

BEFORE MY BEING

THE LAND OF PEACE

LORD OF THE WORLD

EARTH’S EMBROIDERY

HIS ANSWER TO THE CRITICS

ON LEAVING SARAGOSSA

Further Reading