Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia
Encyclopedia
Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia (1247 – after 1300) was a Jewish
poet
who wrote primarily in Hebrew
. He also wrote poems in Arabic
.
Abulafia collected his poems in diwan
, which he called Gan HaMeshalim veHaHidot (The Garden of Parables and Riddles). The collection of poems was written mostly in Hebrew and included poems by other authors as well. Also included were 35 poems that represented a poetic debate between Todros Abulafia and the poet Phinehas Halevi.
Angel Sáenz-Badillos, Professor in the Hebrew Department of Complutense University of Madrid
, Spain
, believes that Abulafia was "probably the best and most prolific author of Christian Spain during the reign
s of Alfonso the Learned
and his son Sancho IV of Castile
."
, Todros Abulafia was born in 1247 in Toledo. He mastered Arabic, and was well educated in both Arabic and Christian
poetry and literature.
Early in his career Abulafia became a courtier
in the court of Alfonso X of Castile
. The court of Alfonso, who was called Alfonso the Wise and Alfonso the Learned, attracted an ambitious poet because it was a cultural center of Castile at that time.
Besides being a poet, Abulafia was also a diplomat
and a financier
. In 1279 the king ordered him to collect an enormous amount of taxes from the Jewish community of Castile. The king needed the money to pay for his religious military campaign. The collected money never reached the army because one of the king's sons used it for his own purpose. The angry king ordered the execution
of two leading tax collectors, one of whom was Abulafia's patron. Some time later Abulafia and most other Jews of Castile were taken from a synagogue
and arrested. Ransom
was set as the condition for their release. Abulafia continued to write poems while in prison. After he was released he became a courtier once again, this time in the court of Alfonso's son Sancho IV of Castile
.
Little is known about Abulafia's life after 1298.
.
In some ways, his poetry differs from the poetry written by his Jewish Andalusia
n predecessors, who were forced to flee Southern Spain during the Berber-Almohad invasion of 1147–1148; at the same time, common motifs like the use of hyperbole
still can be seen. One example is a poem that Abulafia dedicated to Ibn Shoshan, a Jew who had just arrived in Toledo from Morocco
. In the poem, titled "Flowers' debate", "the author's tapestried earth, encircled by a jeweled necklace of flowers, frames the rivalry of a group of prominent flowers: the red rose, vere the pale rose,shoshan, and the narcissus, havasele". In the poem each flower debates its characteristics, but none could overcome the pale rose,shoshan, which also stands for the honoree of the poem, Ibn Shoshan and his family. In the poem the pale rose, shoshan, won the debate of the flowers because it presented the best characteristics: "righteous, courageous, humble, philanthropic and praiseworthy."
His preference for Arab women finds confirmation in some of his poems.
Todros led a life of adventures, and "prosperous sensuality" and this sexual realism with some degree of lustfulness gets reflected in many of his poems.
Abulafia's poems continue the tradition of the troubadour
s who were always welcomed in the court of Alfonso the Wise, and this "troubadouresque fin’amor" is not found in Andalusian Hebrew tradition.
In discussing Abulafia's poetry, Peter Cole
states: "Above all, Todros’s work is distinguished by its freshness and candor: he managed to introduce a vivid (though not always straight forward) personal dimension into his verse that went well beyond anything medieval Hebrew poetry had seen before him. He filled the classical conventions with irony, turned them on their heads, or did away with them altogether and created new poetic space in which to work."
poems written in Hebrew, presents some challenges because some words could be interpreted with several meanings. A good example of such challenge is the poem "Figs". Asking a friend for some figs, the poet writes: "[S]end a ripening fig, give a portion for seven of them, even for eight." The next line of the poem was translated as "And in return, here is my flatus." The Hebrew word used in the poem was zemorah that means "vine twig". Howard Tzvi Adelman from Queen's University
says that "Zemorah means 'penis' and 'fig,' a reference to 'vagina.' I think that this is a sexual and not a scatological reference; both, however, fit the category of the grotesque. The next line—'Henceforth I won't give it to strangers'—could fit either way."
. For the next few centuries, this copied manuscript traveled between Iraq
and India
, changing hands among antiquarian
collectors from different countries. In the late 1800s, the manuscript became the property of Sha'ul 'Abdullah Yosef, an Iraqi scholar and businessman, who obtained the manuscript while working in Hong Kong
. (It is unclear how the manuscript got to Hong Kong.) Yosef understood the manuscript's value because he was very knowledgeable in Hebrew. After his death in 1906, the manuscript became the possession of David Yellin, who was a leading scholar in medieval Hebrew poetry at that time. Yellin published the manuscript between 1934 and 1937 in three volumes, adding around twelve hundred poems to "the medieval Hebrew canon".
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
who wrote primarily in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. He also wrote poems in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
.
Abulafia collected his poems in diwan
Diwan (poetry)
-Etymology:The English usage of the phrase Diwan Poetry comes from the Arabic word diwan , which is loaned from Persian means designated a list or register. The Persian word derived from the Persian dibir meaning writer or scribe...
, which he called Gan HaMeshalim veHaHidot (The Garden of Parables and Riddles). The collection of poems was written mostly in Hebrew and included poems by other authors as well. Also included were 35 poems that represented a poetic debate between Todros Abulafia and the poet Phinehas Halevi.
Angel Sáenz-Badillos, Professor in the Hebrew Department of Complutense University of Madrid
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, believes that Abulafia was "probably the best and most prolific author of Christian Spain during the reign
Reign
A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation or of a people . In most hereditary monarchies and some elective monarchies A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office...
s of Alfonso the Learned
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
and his son Sancho IV of Castile
Sancho IV of Castile
Sancho IV the Brave was the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1284 to his death. He was the second son of Alfonso X and Yolanda, daughter of James I of Aragon.-Biography:...
."
Life
A distant relative of Meir AbulafiaMeir Abulafia
Meir ben Todros HaLevi Abulafia , also known as the Ramah , was a major Sephardic Talmudist and Halachic authority in medieval Spain...
, Todros Abulafia was born in 1247 in Toledo. He mastered Arabic, and was well educated in both Arabic and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
poetry and literature.
Early in his career Abulafia became a courtier
Courtier
A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
in the court of Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
. The court of Alfonso, who was called Alfonso the Wise and Alfonso the Learned, attracted an ambitious poet because it was a cultural center of Castile at that time.
Besides being a poet, Abulafia was also a diplomat
Diplomat
A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
and a financier
Financier
Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...
. In 1279 the king ordered him to collect an enormous amount of taxes from the Jewish community of Castile. The king needed the money to pay for his religious military campaign. The collected money never reached the army because one of the king's sons used it for his own purpose. The angry king ordered the execution
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
of two leading tax collectors, one of whom was Abulafia's patron. Some time later Abulafia and most other Jews of Castile were taken from a synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
and arrested. Ransom
Ransom
Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.In an early German law, a similar concept was called bad influence...
was set as the condition for their release. Abulafia continued to write poems while in prison. After he was released he became a courtier once again, this time in the court of Alfonso's son Sancho IV of Castile
Sancho IV of Castile
Sancho IV the Brave was the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1284 to his death. He was the second son of Alfonso X and Yolanda, daughter of James I of Aragon.-Biography:...
.
Little is known about Abulafia's life after 1298.
Poetry
The poetry of Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia was influenced by his living in Christian Spain, where Arabic was still spoken 150 years after Christian rulers retook Iberia from the MoorsReconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
.
In some ways, his poetry differs from the poetry written by his Jewish Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
n predecessors, who were forced to flee Southern Spain during the Berber-Almohad invasion of 1147–1148; at the same time, common motifs like the use of hyperbole
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....
still can be seen. One example is a poem that Abulafia dedicated to Ibn Shoshan, a Jew who had just arrived in Toledo from Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
. In the poem, titled "Flowers' debate", "the author's tapestried earth, encircled by a jeweled necklace of flowers, frames the rivalry of a group of prominent flowers: the red rose, vere the pale rose,shoshan, and the narcissus, havasele". In the poem each flower debates its characteristics, but none could overcome the pale rose,shoshan, which also stands for the honoree of the poem, Ibn Shoshan and his family. In the poem the pale rose, shoshan, won the debate of the flowers because it presented the best characteristics: "righteous, courageous, humble, philanthropic and praiseworthy."
His preference for Arab women finds confirmation in some of his poems.
Todros led a life of adventures, and "prosperous sensuality" and this sexual realism with some degree of lustfulness gets reflected in many of his poems.
Abulafia's poems continue the tradition of the troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
s who were always welcomed in the court of Alfonso the Wise, and this "troubadouresque fin’amor" is not found in Andalusian Hebrew tradition.
In discussing Abulafia's poetry, Peter Cole
Peter Cole
Peter Cole is an American Jewish poet who lives in Jerusalem and New Haven.-Early life:Cole was born in 1957 in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended Williams College and Hampshire College, and moved to Jerusalem in 1981.-Literary career:...
states: "Above all, Todros’s work is distinguished by its freshness and candor: he managed to introduce a vivid (though not always straight forward) personal dimension into his verse that went well beyond anything medieval Hebrew poetry had seen before him. He filled the classical conventions with irony, turned them on their heads, or did away with them altogether and created new poetic space in which to work."
Translation challenges
Translation of Abulafia's poems, as well as other medievalMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
poems written in Hebrew, presents some challenges because some words could be interpreted with several meanings. A good example of such challenge is the poem "Figs". Asking a friend for some figs, the poet writes: "[S]end a ripening fig, give a portion for seven of them, even for eight." The next line of the poem was translated as "And in return, here is my flatus." The Hebrew word used in the poem was zemorah that means "vine twig". Howard Tzvi Adelman from Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
says that "Zemorah means 'penis' and 'fig,' a reference to 'vagina.' I think that this is a sexual and not a scatological reference; both, however, fit the category of the grotesque. The next line—'Henceforth I won't give it to strangers'—could fit either way."
Gan HaMeshalim veHaHidot
Little is known about the poet's life after 1298. After his death, his poetry was almost forgotten for more than six hundred years. Then the diwan was discovered and copied in 17th century EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. For the next few centuries, this copied manuscript traveled between Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, changing hands among antiquarian
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient objects of art or science, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts...
collectors from different countries. In the late 1800s, the manuscript became the property of Sha'ul 'Abdullah Yosef, an Iraqi scholar and businessman, who obtained the manuscript while working in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. (It is unclear how the manuscript got to Hong Kong.) Yosef understood the manuscript's value because he was very knowledgeable in Hebrew. After his death in 1906, the manuscript became the possession of David Yellin, who was a leading scholar in medieval Hebrew poetry at that time. Yellin published the manuscript between 1934 and 1937 in three volumes, adding around twelve hundred poems to "the medieval Hebrew canon".
External links
- Poems by Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia, International PENInternational PENPEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
- Poems by Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia, in