He eyes me
About This Entry
In this short Hebrew poem, Ibn Gabirol evokes feelings of loss. The setting is a wine party, at evening, where the beautiful cupbearer is the object of the poet’s contemplation. The young man carries the cup of wine to each of the drinkers in turn, and he and the poet are looking at each other.
Credits
Solomon Ibn Gabirol, “He eyes me,” from Vulture in a Cage: Poems by Solomon Ibn Gabirol, trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Archipelago Books, 2016), 267. Used with permission of the publisher. Image: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Department of Manuscripts, Arabe 6094, fol. 75v, detail.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.
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Come, my friend, and friend of the luminaries
I spent the night
Speak, messenger
Winter kept its vow
Betrothed to the earth’s dust
This 11-century Hebrew poem laments the death of a young unmarried woman, contrasting the waste and humiliation of death with the honors that married life would have brought her.
For the mountain of Zion
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Come, my friend, and friend of the luminaries
I spent the night
Speak, messenger
Winter kept its vow
Betrothed to the earth’s dust
This 11-century Hebrew poem laments the death of a young unmarried woman, contrasting the waste and humiliation of death with the honors that married life would have brought her.