The Prisoner of Desire

Judah Zarco was born and raised in Rhodes, and it seems that he wrote most of his poems there. He later lived in Salonika, where he was welcomed with great acclaim. At the time, circles of Hebrew poets existed in a number of major Ottoman cities. During their meetings, the members of such groups read out their poetry and discussed it, sometimes also holding competitions. Zarco became a member of the Salonika circle, known as ḥakhme ha-shir. In addition to his poems, some of Zarco’s letters have been published in collections. His work Leḥem Yehudah (The Bread of Judah; Istanbul, 1560) is an intricately structured fictional tale, written in rhymed prose interspersed with poems, that tells the story of a king’s daughter and her suitors.