Secular Hebrew poetry in Italy, after Immanuel of Rome (1270-1328), never equaled Immanuel’s exuberance or his excellence. But the following poems, drawn from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, testify to a continuous and vital tradition in Italian Hebrew literature.

When Ashkenazic culture had long since passed into the pale of purely religious concerns, Southern European Jewry did not forget the love song, the song of insult, the epithalamion. And it is no accident that Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, the 18th-century precursor of modern Hebrew poetry, emerged in Italy.

The poets represented below are: Refael da Faenza, who lived about 1450; Agnelo Dato, born in 1525, died between 1591-1601; Jacob Frances, born in 1618, died after 1667; and his brother, Immanuel Frances, born in 1618, died after 1710. The most distinguished member of this quartet is Immanuel Frances, but even his work, like that of his predecessors, is more significant as an expression of the Italian temperament than as the inevitable form of one man’s vision.

In translating the following poems, I have been faithful to that temperament, but not, in the verses of Dato and da Faenza, to the text. The alterations, however, involve re-ordering, tightening, and omission, rather than addition.—Allen Mandelbaum.

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For Pappus the Innkeeper
To his Love

O hearken, crown of glory, incomparably
fair, to Pappus’ song and to his plaint,
O hear the bellow of the bull, the braying
of the ass—thou art his love, his mate.

His soul is scorched grain, his heart, a roast
upon desire’s spit, turns, burns;
O gaze, gazelle, down from thy window, where
with passion and tendresse, thy gallant yearns.

But see his fallen face and form, his pining
paunch, and eyes that have spilled endless tears;
his bald-spot’s chill, his stray gray locks hang damp
With dew, and like the tom-cat he appears

        who stalks the rooftops, solitary,
                howling, wailing bitterly,
        because the fog withholds his she.

—Immanuel Frances

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O Galantina

Beloved, favor now my plea,
        O Galantina.

Thy lips are honey sweetly strong,
feast, comely kind, thy tongue
upon my palate, un
ashamedly, night long
will we loud sing renewal’s song
while love’s own congregations,
as vast as bannered legions,

Hymns of love resound,
O Galantina.

Upon my couch, thy radiance
I have recalled, thy wanton
dress, and dreamt alone
to laud thine excellence
in bright terrazzo halls, to rest
my head between thy breasts,
in the tower built of turrets,

Beloved, summon me,
O Galantina.

—Refael da Faenza

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Grave Notes

The Drunkard
Lifelong, no water touched my lips,
and wine did quench me all my years;
therefore, O reader, I beseech
thee, water not my grave with tears.

The Hothead
Here lies one senseless, prone to fury;
as from archer’s arrows, flee,
O passer-by, lest in his wrath
he hurl this tombstone straight at thee.

The Fair One
A maiden fairer than all others
rests below, yet none is found
among her swains, who now would lie
beside his lovely on this ground.

The Physician
Give gracious thanks, O reader, to thy Lord,
that he who lies here was not thy physician
for had he been, his epitaph thou’d’st never
read—but rest indeed in his position.

—Immanuel Frances

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Love’s Fall

Had I not known thee, Love, of old,
not felt within my flesh, thy power,
nor in my heart, thy flame, not cowered,
like a snail, beneath thy rod,

had I not, at thy fierce ascent,
seen tyranny that, like a sun,
compelled within its wide dominion
human, beast of field, and insect,

then would I now proclaim thee braggart
Prince of Tohu, all desire
a lamb that mimes the leopard’s stance,

for Ophra’s breast disdains thy fire,
thy vaunted shafts are wax against
the marble of indifference.

—Jacob Frances

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Age

O mock me not if I still carol
songs of lust, though I am old;
beneath the ashes glow the coals,
within me wakes my heart though I
may sleep; and if my hair be pale
as moons, not so my quality.

—Agnelo Dato

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In Praise of Sleep

Love, I recall the grace of night,
where, in a dream, you did present
her brightness for my wonderment;
in that darkness, she was light.

My lady’s goodness then did seize
me fast, and vision quickened breath;
but in my waking, weariness—
would that I might never rise.

Dream, return and me entrance,
O then will I name Sleep “my prince,”
for he has resurrected me,

and then confess my sin, for once,
when reason had been thrust from me,
did I call Sleep, Death’s second face.

—Immanuel Frances

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