Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid [Paperback]

Shmuel HaNagid (Author), Peter Cole (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation | Publication Date: March 4, 1996

The first major poet of the Hebrew literary renaissance of Moslem Spain, Shmuel Ben Yosef Ha-Levi HaNagid (993-1056 c.e.) was also the Prime Minister of the Muslim state of Granada, battlefield commander of the non-Jewish Granadan army, and one of the leading religious figures in a medieval Jewish world that stretched from Andalusia to Baghdad. Peter Cole's groundbreaking versions of HaNagid's poems capture the poet's combination of secular and religious passion, as well as his inspired linking of Hebrew and Arabic poetic practice. This annotated Selected Poems is the most comprehensive collection of HaNagid's work published to date in English.

"The Multiple Troubles of Man"

The multiple troubles of man,

my brother, like slander and pain,

amaze you? Consider the heart

which holds them all

in strangeness, and doesn't break.

"I'd Suck Bitter Poison from the Viper's Mouth"

I'd suck bitter poison from the viper's mouth

and live by the basilisk's hole forever,

rather than suffer through evenings with boors,

fighting for crumbs from their table.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a leading light of Andalusia (Muslim Spain), Shmuel Ben Yosef Ha-Levi HaNagid (993-1056) had many public roles: spice trader, battlefield commander, tax collector, Chief Vizier of Grenada. He was also, according to poet and translator Cole (Rift), the first great poet of the Hebrew renaissance of Muslim Spain. The poems of the first section, "After Psalms," formally evoke the songs of King David, another poet-warrior, while treating epic events of the poet's own time, such as "The Miracle at Sea" or a "Victory Over Seville." While the psalm-like poems read very much like the King James translation, the 37 aphorisms of the second section, "After Proverbs," often seem to prefigure the worldy-wise irony of later Yiddish literature ("The rich are small in number/ and the brilliant likewise are few;/ and the number of each is further reduced/ when they step side by side into view."). The final section, "After Ecclesiastes," shows HaNagid coping with age: "I'm old, but I've seen the carpenters/ building their coffins for boys." Cole's vigorous inventive translation is equal to the task of rendering the work of a poet whose range encompassed commerce and God, war and wine. HaNagid emerges as a man of identifiably modern?even enlightened?breadth, even as the rest of Europe languished in its Dark Ages. Notes and a bibliography are included.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Just turn to any poem in this volume and read it without knowing anything about the poet. It will strike you as fresh, worldly, intimate, and wise. Then turn to the informative introduction and discover that HaNagid (993^-1056) was a Spanish Hebrew poet and political leader, a key figure in the flowering of Jewish and Arabic culture in medieval Spain. His works were lost for centuries, until the 1920s when a Hebrew poet and scholar named Haim Nahman Bialik came across a "crate of old manuscripts. . . an incomparable treasure," and HaNagid was resurrected. Now, in Peter Cole's brand-new, supple, and sensitive translations, we can absorb HaNagid's highly personal interpretations of biblical lore, history as he knew it, and politics, particularly (talk about dejavu) the animosity between Arab and Jew. HaNagid was lyrical and epic, witty and emotional, religious and secular, traditional yet, to our ears, all but modern. Donna Seaman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; annotated edition edition (March 4, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691011206
• ISBN-13: 978-0691011202
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,380,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a singing, full-bodied and essential translation, October 7, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid (Paperback)

Cole's translations of the poet Shmuel Hanagid, long ranked as one of the great untranslatables of medieval Hebrew poetry for his packed, punning and allusive lines, is a kind of miracle of transhistorical perfect pitch. The poems can be savored for the richness and variety of their diction on a piecemeal basis, but when the book is read whole, a man emerges with remarkable amplitude and roundness. This is a translation that ranks up there with those of Robert Fitzgerald. For all lovers of poetry, medieval studies, or the difficult art of translation, I say grab this book and savor it

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, February 16, 2007

By 

Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid (Hardcover)

This book sat on my shelf for years until I turned to it in a search of a specific poem concerning the 1013 sack of Cordoba. Unfortunately, that particular work is not included.

Nevertheless, this is an extraordinary collection of magnificent translations. The poems are as bright and fresh as far more famous classics, and the best contemporary works.

The first piece, "On Fleeing his City," is particularly heartrending. HaNagid opens, "Spirit splits in its asking,/ and soul wanting is balked;" and continues to deride those who mistake his "pitching from place to place,/ my hair wild, my eyes/ charcoaled with night--" as the results of "ease or gain."

He then pinions them as men whom "not a one speaks wisely,/ their souls blunted, or blurred,/ goat-footed thinkers."

But he rises above his tormentors, vowing to "sew the edge of desert to desert,/ and split the sea/ and every gorge,/ and sail in mountainous ascent,/ until the word 'forever' makes sense..." and "your soul which He loves be delivered,/ and the God of sentence/ send aegis,/ both beyond the sun and the moon."

Many short poems glint with wisdom of the ages. For example:

In business, don't get involved
with a man who tells all he knows;
if he can't keep track of a word,
how could you trust him with gold?

And the collection also offers many longer poems, including the second of HaNagid's 41 battle works, "The Victory over Seville," a "psalm of praise" to God, composed on Erev Sukkot, 1039, upon the miraculous defeat of Ben Abbad, the son of Seville's qadi (Islamic judge), whose followers had "slandered my people," "weakened and crushed them" and "divided their plunder,/ casting lots for their lands..." and who had "thought us already their chattel...."

HaNagid also writes of friends, and children, of his brother Isaac, of gardens and trees, and his forced exile from his home, which he describes as

"...ink
in God's book
across my soul, and every shore;
and all on whom wandering is
written...."

This is truly delightful work. All poetry lovers should read it.

--Alyssa A. Lappen