O gazelle always grazing
About This Entry
This brief Arabic poem picks up on popular themes in Andalusi Jewish and Muslim poetry. This poem laments Qasmūna’s own loneliness. Some scholarly reconstructions present her as having been abandoned by her husband.
O gazelle, always grazing in a meadow,
I’ve imitated your wildness and dark-eyed beauty.
Come evening we are both alone,
without companion, and blaming fate’s decree.
Translated by Jonathan P. Decter.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.
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This brief Arabic poem by the only known female medieval Jewish author of Arabic poetry is about the loneliness of maidenhood.
When I sent you that knife
When I sent you that knife, I thought its name was an omen, and indeed the augury and presage became true: the knife signifies that you are inhabiting my heart, its cutting signifies rupture and…
See the nature of the winds
See the nature of the winds, blowing from four corners,
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Sometimes one is roused up, and its power becomes mighty,
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And the fleas charge
And the fleas charge like war-horses; they swoop down like birds to devour my skin. They caper around me like he-goats, and rouse me out of my sleep. I have become weary of killing both young and old…
And there are men who coveted you
To one of the great men of the generation.And there are men who coveted you, and they are in the depths, and you are far above,And how can a camel be noble as an eagle, and a son of a donkey like…
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To ten lovely fingernails
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To eyes mascaraed with black dye
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Though…