Prefaces to Their Father’s Poems

Yehosef 

Said Yehosef son of the Nagid our master Samuel ha-Levi: 

In this book, I have gathered what came to my hand from the metered writing of my father and teacher, may God honor him. And I wrote it in my handwriting. And I was eight years and six months old. For, according to the precise note of my father, may God preserve him for me, I was born exactly three hours and fifty-six minutes into the night of the third day, on the 11th of Tishri in the year 4796 [1035 CE] in the counting of the world, which is the 11th day of Dhū al-Qa‘da in the year 426 of the Ḥijra. 

And I started on this compilation just after Passover in the year 1044. And among what I gathered into this dīwān from his metered sayings are the metered poems in many different meters that were performed before him. And even though some of them include words of desire, it was his belief that they refer to the people of Israel and the like, according to that which was said in this way in some of the prophetic books, and may God compensate him for his intention. One who finds something in his words that differs from what was intended, his guilt is on him. 

And when I put them in, I did not worry at all about placing them in chronological order, and indeed I wrote them out as they came. And from God I ask help, for behold all is in His hand.

Eliassaf

Said Eliassaf, the son of our teacher Samuel ha-Levi, may his Rock protect him, after giving thanks to Him to whom gratitude is due, the Eternal One who preceded all things, before whom nothing existed and after whom there shall be none, and acknowledging, in every language and in all places, that He alone is God exalted and that all virtues and good qualities are His:

In this book I have gathered that which my father, may God find favor with him, and teacher composed by way of maxims and parables and which he called “Ben Mishle.” And I set out to copy it and learn it by heart when I was barely six years of age, my birth having occurred, according to an examination of the notation of the one who carefully documented it, in the middle of the seventh hour on the morning of Sunday the twenty-third of Marḥeshvan in the year 4810 [1049] since God’s creation of the world and the morning of the twenty-third of Jumādā I in the year 441 since the Ḥijra. And he wished that I should collect it and arrange its contents according to the letters of the alphabet. All of it is in a lucid style and harmoniously balanced, its subjects and formulations carefully selected and its structures and aims derived from the wisdom of the various nations and the diverse peoples, such as can be found in their books, in their pithy sayings and on the lips of their elites and common folk, together with inventions of his own, composed in accordance with his taste and as time and ability permitted. There will be found in it contradictory things due to a subtle reason to which the reader will be led if he is of sound mind and avails himself of thought as well as repetitions for the purpose of emphasizing an idea or increasing comprehension or to adorn a parable just as can be found in the works of authors like him, and even in our divinely inspired books, which are the word of God, may He be blessed, and His speech and the collections of our prophets, may God’s blessing be upon them. For indeed there is nothing desirable that does not contain opposing elements, and both may be beautiful at one time and not at another, and in one respect and not in another.

And he gave it [the book] as an epigraph these two verses:

Acquire excellent instruction and wondrous counsel in Ben Mishle of Samuel ha-Nagid. He who applies himself to its chapters will transgress not; his actions will be sincere, his speech upright. 

And each of the words in the couplet is tied to the rhyming syllable of the poems that begin each of the alphabetically arranged chapters.¹