Poems I–X: On the Death of His Brother

In the year 1041, at the age of forty-eight, Samuel ha-Nagid lost his older brother Isaac, who died after a brief illness. Samuel had been very close to Isaac, an important figure in his own right, and in the year after Isaac’s death, ha-Nagid composed nineteen poems of mourning that express his feelings of despair, loss, and eventual consolation. As is the case throughout ha-Nagid’s dīwān (collection of poetry), his son Yehosef provided superscriptions that offer the context for each of the poems. In ha-Nagid’s retelling, he was initially so distraught that he repeatedly refused to accept consolation. He was then forced to confront the world without his beloved brother.