I have seen a damsel

Moses Dar‘ī

Late 12th Century

What I also said about a young maiden, with swift perception and memory, who recites the accurate reading [of the Torah] with diligence and talent, and she is meticulous with the melody and the tune, without any mistakes or mispronunciation.

I have seen a damsel reciting the book of the Law
  of Moses, may God make it great,
In plain tongue, and pure language
  and with a pleasant voice and magnificent singing.
Therefore, I announced on beholding her splendor
  and on hearing her with my two ears:
Many daughters have done valiantly
  but you surpass them all (Proverbs 31:29).

Source: St. Petersburg RNL Evr. I 803, fol. 157b.

Translated by Renée Levine Melammed and Uri Melammed.

Credits

Moses Dar‘ī, “I have seen a damsel,” MS St. Petersburg RNL Evr. I 803 (dated to the sixteenth century). Film no. 51263 in IMHM [Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts], NLI fol. 157b, no. 182.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.

Engage with this Source

Moses Dar‘ī wrote this brief poem to praise a young, learned woman. While it was less common for women to be literate and educated in Torah than men, it was not completely unusual. In the medieval Islamicate world, some Jewish women earned a reputation for learning and teaching Torah, although there is no evidence that they studied Jewish law like their educated male counterparts. Here, Moses appreciates the woman’s knowledge of Torah, noting her accuracy and pleasing voice. The poem is in Hebrew, but the headnote is in Judeo-Arabic.

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Related Guide

Early Medieval Poetry

9th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

Moses Dar‘ī

12th Century

Moses ben Abraham Dar‘ī was a poet whose family apparently hailed from Dra‘, Morocco. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, into a Rabbanite family, Dar‘ī moved to Fātimid Fustāt (Old Cairo), where he worked as a physician. He joined the Karaites in his youth and in his writing frequently asserts his Karaite allegiances. More than five hundred of his Hebrew poems are extant, collected in a dīwān (anthology) dated to 1163 or 1171, which he called The Garden of Flowers of Qasīdas and Poems (Firdaws azhār al-qaṣā’id wa-’l-ash‘ār), and a supplement to it. He adopted many Andalusi forms in both religious and secular poetry, which included love and wine songs, riddles, poems for holidays, poems about his own Karaism, and more.

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