HISPANO-HEBREW STROPHIC POETRY* Ulf Haxen

University of Copenhagen

The conquest of Spain by the Arabs, allegedly christlichen Westgoten ein kümmerlichen Da- prompted by leaders of the Jewish population sein aufrecht zu erhalten hatten, atmeten un- after the fall of the Visigothic regime, 711, ter den Arabern auf und eigneten sich schnell opened up an era in Medieval European his- genug deren Bildung und Sprache an, um zei- tory which stands unmatched as far as cul- tig an deren Pflege thätigen Anteil zu neh- tural enlightenment is concerned. Philosophy, men".1 belles lettres and the natural sciences flourished In the wake of the cultural revolution2, of- in the academies established by the Arab sa- ten referred to as the "Golden Age", a new vants in such main urban centres as Cordoba, branch of scholarship came into being — Sevilla and Toledo. The Arab conquerors, who Hebrew Philology. Grammatical schools of named the newly acquired land Al-Andalus differing approaches vied with one another ("the country of the Vandals"), quickly thus creating literature on etymology, syntax, adapted themselves to an environment, dif- lexicography etc. The importance of this de- fering markedly in climate, population and velopment for Biblical and Talmudic studies language from their countries of origin (Iraq, was, of course, immeasurable3. Syria, Yemen etc.), or the North-African count- Steinschneider writes about Moses ibn Ezra, ries, through which they had passed on their c. 1070-1134, famous for his Hebrew liturg- march westwards. ical poems, "Moses hat die arabische Bildung From the year 711 to the establishment of ('adab) derart sich angeeignet und liebgewon- the Caliphate in Cordoba, in 932, under Rah- nen, dass er sie unter seinen Glaubensgenossen man III, political stability had been created literarisch zu verbreiten suchte"4. Moses ibn on all administrative levels. During the course Ezra acknowledged the debt of the Jews to of time the cultural and religious centres of their Arab counterparts and in his principal gravity shifted from the East to the Western treatise on Poetics, written in Arabic, he pos- part of the Muslim Empire. The once so fa- es the rhetorical question, "How can it be mous Gaonic academies of Babylonia closed explained that poetry is congenital among the down in 1038, and new schools of Jewish Arabs, whereas among other people it seems learning consolidated themselves on the Iber- an acquired skill"5. His deep admiration for ian peninsular and gained full recognition as the 'adab (belles-lettres) of the Arabs was independent authorities from the Jewish com- to a certain extent shared by his younger con- munities as well as the Arabic Caliphate. temporary and friend, Yehuda Ha-Levi, c. The situation of the Jews under Muslim 1075-1140, although the latter, for "zionis- rule has been well described by Morits Stein- tic" reasons, denounced his attachment to schneider: "Die Juden, welche unter den Arabic culture towards his old age6. Another of the great Hebrew litterati, the paytan and neoplatonic philosopher, Salomon ibn Gabirol, d. c. 1060, the latinized name * To the memory of Professor Bertil Maler. of whom is Avicebron, realized the impending risk of complete assimilation into a Hispano-

36 Arabic socio-culture, and voiced his concern, Maghreb)". His principal source was, how- "They (the Jews) know no Hebrew; half of ever, a man of the East, the Egyptian mag- them talk the language of the Christians, and istrate and poet, Ibn Sana al-Mull‹, c. 1155- the other half Arabic"7 . We have similar state- 1211. He lived in a turbulent time and expe- ments from the Christian camp. As early rienced the overthrow of the Shi'ite Fatimid as the middle of the ninth century the Bishop dynasty, the so-called "Anti-Caliphs", by the of Cordoba, Alvaro, complains that his co- renowned Saladin, who gave name to the suc- religionists are better versed in the theology, ceeding dynasty, the Ayyubids, 1171-1250, of philosophy and literature of the Arabs than Sunni (Orthodox) rule. with the Christian Holy Scriptures and more Besides his administrative duties Ibn Sana conversant with Arabic than with Latin. "Alas", al-Mulk cultivated theological interests and, he exclaims, "the Christians have forgotten above all, poetry and rhetorics. He created their own language ... they spend immense around him an intellectual and literary salon sums of money in collecting Arabic books for and got in this way in contact with itenerant their libraries, and proclaim exerywhere that Arabic, Jewish and Christian poet-musicians this literature is admirable"8. In other words, and men of letters from the Eastern as well the conquered Spanish population yielded, as the Western part of the Islamic Empire. head over heels, to the culture of their con- Ibn Sana al-Mulk's enthusiasm for the nov- querors, infinitely superior to their own. el poetic art of Andalusia inspired him to Reinhardt Dozy, the Dutch Semitist, ascribes write poems in the fashion of the Westerners, the success, militarily, politically and cultural- to the disregard of the "paralysingly conven- ly, of the Arabs in Spain to the achievements tional" (Nicholson) classical Arabic poetry. of the abovementioned Abd al-Rahman III, But he admitted frankly that his muwashshahs, the "hard-working" (l'ouvrier), who laid the which is the technical term for Andalusian foundation of the Western Islamic Caliphate strophic poetry, were only "mere shadows" in Cordoba. In an epitome of his person, and of the genuine art, for the obvious reason that an epoch, Dozy summarizes: "This subtle and he was born and educated far from Andalu- sagacious man, who centralises, who by means sia. of his alliances establishes a sort of political As was costumary among poets Ibn Sana equilibrium, who in his large tolerance calls al-Mulk's muwashshahs, 35 in all, were com- the professors of another religion into his piled in an anthology, a "diwan"; but cont- councils, is a modern king rather than a me- rary to practice our author attached to it, as diæval Caliph"9. an introduction, a reader's manual, describing From the midst of this syncretistic, "Mo- in often painstaking detail the compositional zarabic", milieu a remarkable poetic genre act, the structure of the muwashshah and the emerged. function of its various parts, and depicting the fundamental deviations from classical poetry, e. g. regarding language and proso- The Muwashshah dy. Most important of all is his description of the essential feature of the muwashshah, The study of Mozarabic (from Arabic, mus- which bears the specific name of kharja12, ta'riba, to become arabicized) poetry has proved the last refrainlike stanzas of the muwash- as one of the most fertile, and controversial, shah-poem. fields of research for Semitist and Romanist As far as the subject-matter of the mu- scholars, during the past three decades. washshah is concerned "it can have as its It commenced with Martin Hartmann's theme any of the subjects of classical poetry, pioneering work, Das arabische Strophenge- i.e. love, panegyrics, laments for the dead dicht, "Das Muwashshah"lo. Hartmann's stu- and satire on indecent or ascetic themes". The dy was based upon the available material, ex- author included in the Ars Poetica a collec- tracted from literary encyclopedias, compen- tion of 34 muwashshahs by 11th-12th cen- dious works of belleslettres ('adab), history tury Andalusian poets, employing some of books etc. written by Arabic scholars who lived them as illustrative examples13. and worked the majority of their lifetime in Hartmann's book from 1897 contained a Spain (Al-Andalus) or North Africa (Al- biographical chapter of Arabic muwashshah 37

poets, a descriptive part ("Formenliste" and Qasidals "Versmasse"), and a chapter dealing with the A A history of the muwashshah genre. His ap- b A proach to strophic poetry was classically biased c A (occassionally he strikes a polemic note, when, d A for example, he reproaches the 600 year ear- etc. lier Ibn Sana al-Mulk with his positive atti- tude to Andalusian poetry and his manner Mazwashshahl9 of expressing it; similarly, when Hartmann matla' A blames the Andalusian poets for their dis- pizmon A regard of the rules of the Arabic language, ghusn b their use of "vulgar" themes and "corruption" b of the little short of sacrosanct constituent of b Arabic verse, the metre, he appears more qufl A papal than the Pope). ghusn c Commenting in passing on the Jewish par- c ticipation in the poetic school of Andalusia, c Hartmann opined overtly: "Es wird sich viel- qufl A mehr wohl zeigen: taugten die Juden nichts, so taugten die Andren ebenso wenig oder weniger''14. ghusn d d d A technical parenthesis kharja . A A Muwashshah poetry, and its sister genre the zagal15, broke with three of classical Arabic with nzatld ; ghusn + qufl constitute a strophe poetry's canonized laws, (1) the unity of = bayt. language, e. g. the strict adherence to the gram- Finally the kharja (AA), which according matical rules, established by the philologists. to our chief authorities, Ibn Sana al-Mulk and There was allowance for poetic license, but Ibn Bassam, sets the theme, rhyme and metre they were also codified; (2) unity of rhyme, of the whole muwashshah221. by W. Wright explained thus, "according to The Jewish poets and theoreticians used ancient rule, the two hemistichs of the first Arabic terminology or employed adaptations. verse of a Qasida (classical ode of ab. 25-100 In one case, however, they applied a "Hebrew" verses) must rhyme with one another, and the term, borrowed from liturgical poetry, viz. same rhyme must be repeated at the end of piz zon22, equivalent to nzatld (supra). every verse throughout the whole poem"16; and (3) unity of metre. Once, as a rule, one of the sixteen classical metres had been chos- The theory of Julian Ribera y Tarrago en for a particular ode this metric pattern should be retained troughout the poeml7. Hartmann was more occupied with the study Graphically the difference between the of the formal criteria of the muwashshah than Qasida-like poem and the muwashshah appears with the actual artistic performance. as in the table, capital letters denoting common To Ribera it seemed obvious that the strop- rhymes and small letters the changing rhyme- hic form presupposed antiphonal singing. In patterns. his famous address to the Spanish academy, The termini technici of the parts of the delivered in 1912, he expounded a thesis to strophe follow two traditions20. For practical the effect that the muwashshah was the imi- reasons we adopt the following terminology: tation of a popular strophic form of lyric in mallet', the prelude, being the first stanza(s) Spanish. Referring to strophic verses from the with common rhyme (AA); ghusn, the part of song collection of Alphonso the Wise, d. 1284, the strophe with separate rhymes (bbb, ccc, and popular villancicos and cantigas de amigo, etc.); qufl (A), having rhyme(s) in common he reconstructed the performance of the mu-

38 washshah23: The soloist, claimed Ribera, sang wish poets of Spain adopted the practice of the matla' (pizmon), which was repeated by writing their liturgical and secular poetry in the choir. Then the soloist went on to sing "the metres of the Arabs"28. Less was however the ghusn (the part of the strophe with separ- known about their imitatory practice, contra- ate rhyme) and the qu f l (part of strophe factum, i. e. the modelling of the poems on with common rhyme) — and the choir con- already existing rhythmic and textual patterns cluded each strophe by repeating the matig. (cf. the abovementioned pizmon concept). But there was still the song-technical func- Stern referred to several cases of the phenom- tion of the kharja, the last refrain-like stan- enon from the so-called classical period, tak- zas, to be accounted for, the component which ing his examples from the great Hebrew poets, according to Ibn Sana al-Mulk "is the be- Yehuda Ha-Levi, Moses ibn Ezra, Abraham ginning (of the muwashshah) although it co- ibn Ezra and others. According to Stern the mes at the end". Hebrew imitation of Arabic muwashshah poet- Ribera's theory as regards the matig is con- ry was done in either of two ways. They cop- firmed by the Jew, Tanchumn Yerushalmi, c. ied the metre and rhyme of a given poem 1250, by some referred to as "Abraham in Ezra or took the entire kharja ("refrain") or part of the East", due to his philological and ex- thereof in order to use these patterns as a egetic research. In his dictionary to the Code of base for their own compositions. Mu'arada, Maimonides24 he writes a detailed exposition as this technique was called, played an im- of the manner in which the muwashshah was portant role in all subsequent muwashshah sung in Egypt (!), "... And in the termino- studies by Stern29. His theory that Hebrew logy of the muwashshah, when the person strophic poetry originated from the Arabic reciting has finished each verse, those present muwashshah still stands uncontested30. answer him with the matig, which is the first Stern's second contribution addressed itself verse of the composition. The rhymes of all to Semitic- and Romanse philology: "Les Vers the other strophes correspond to this verse at finaux en espagnol dans les muwashshahs his- the beginning of the composition which is the pano-hebraique: une contribution a l'historie matla'. The matla' is termed pizmon ("re- du muwashshah et a l'étude du vieux dialecte frain") because it is given as a response as the espagnol "mozarabe""31. reciter ends each strophe25." If Fleischer is In this study, revised with the inclusion of correct in assuming that the term pizmon Arabic muwashshahs with Romance kharjas "should be considered as a musical term rather in 1953, Stern touched at the very core of than a prosodic or poetical one", borrowed the strophic problem. Before presenting his from Greek prosomoion, "employed in early material, Stern briefly bridged the gap between Byzantine manuscripts to denote poetical texts the two proposed theories of origin, "The Arab- fashioned on the melodic prototype of another ic thesis", propounded by Hartmann and the poem" interesting considerations arise as to theory advanced by Ribera to the effect that the part played by the Jewish poets in the the muwashshah developed from an "estrofa formation of the Hispano-Semitic poetry2S. zejelsca con vuelta"32, popular strophic poetry in Spain, "the theories of Hartmann and Ri- bera, although at first sight contradictory, are Samuel Miklos Stern's discovery not in fact mutually exclusive. One might well conceive how the musammat33, in that it pre- In the years 1947-8 scholarly research in the pared the way for a strophic form of poetry, field of Hispano-Arabic and -Hebrew strophic made it easier for a Romance popular form of poetry took a completely fresh change of di- poetry, the muwashshah to be accepted"34. rection. S. M. Stern published two articles, This was as far Stern would go on the ori- which may well be considered as preliminary gin of the muwashshah. He refrained from studies to his doctoral thesis (op. cit.). The speculations and when he made cautious con- first article entitled, "Imitations of Arabic mu- jectures about strophic archetypes, patterns of washshahs in Hispano-Hebrew poetry"27 dealt development and ways of influences he did with the dependence of the Hebrew on the so "sitting on the fence"35. Arabic muwashshahs. As a demonstration of the problems facing It was a well established fact that the Je- the one who attempts to decipher Mozarabic 39 kharjas three examples will be given from the .rur Diwan (anthology) of Yehuda Ha-Levi, edited by Chaim Brody36 and based upon ms .np5t71 01»~~ Oxford 1971 and ms Schocken 37. Both mss have this explanatory introduction: "Panegyric .`,henC p [pal C';11:K [1.24] L K poems love songs composed in the metres of muwashshahs or zajals; their kharjas may be p T„ composed in Hebrew, Arabic or Spanish". The -in first two specimens belong to panegyric poems : "rzrr ?me: while the third is taken from a love poem with an underlying quality of eroticism. It should be noted, however, that a precise dis- tinction between panegyric and love-poetry often is out of sight.

Ex. 1. (no. 2 according to Stern's enumera- tion37, no. 31 in Sola-Solé)

b'lhq g'r shwsh dbynh 'dbynsh g'rm knd mbrn'd mn hbyby 'shq

Apart from a minor emendation of the Hebrew consonantal text, suggested by Stern himself, scholars agree to this transliterated version, and the following vocalisation: gare: shosh debina e debinash bi-l-haq? 1CT1_, 10L`12 rt gar-me kand me bernad mio habibi 'Ishaq? -C:tC ent: Modern Spanish: rxn+ 27; Dime: eres adivinadora / y adivinas con ver- dad ? 7r,r -e-~_ ~ n~v Dime entonces cuåndo vendrå a mi / mi amigo . Ishaq? :7r" (Tell me, are you a soothsayer / and do -you tell the truth ? Tell me, when will he come to me / my friend Isaac?)38

Commentary: The transitional strophe (ghusn) to the kharja which like the rest of the muwashshah is in Hebrew runs as follows: "If each heart has the passionate desire to see the lord who is like "a mountain of myrrh"39, so as to drink from his spring and listen to his words, we shall go to ask the soothsayer : (the kharja). In the kharja Yehuda Ha- Levi employs Arabic glosses as rhyme words, haq (truth) / Ishaq (Isaac) an ingenious prac- . ' '~1 ttr1:, 1K.1 tice which is also used in no. 3 (Sola-Solé, -K„= "CM 01K1. 32), no. 6 (34), etc. This practice had an important bearing on the ensuing combat after Stern's discovery, viz. whether these kharjas Ex. 1. Panegyric poem by Yehuda Ha-Levi. The belonged to an oral popular tradition or were kharja is transliterated, translated, and com- literary creations by the poets themselves4O. mented in the text. 40 Ex. 2., (Stern, no. 7 b, Sola-Solé, no. 37 b, As this kharja belongs to the group of Gomez, no. 7 b and 18. The kharja has come kharjas presenting difficulties due to linguistic down in two versions, the present one and in ambiguities, readers are referred to the com- an anonymous Arabic muwashshah no. 7 a, mentaries44. The mozarabic "tone" is, how- etc.) 41, ever, unmistakable, revealing those essential traits of Spanish and Gallico-Portuguese erot- Consonantal text: ico-love lyric apparent in villancicos and can- flywl 'lynw nnmsh 'drmysh 'mw sh'nw tigas de amigo45. In a chapter of his thesis46 "The Evidence Vocalized text: of the Kharja — Traces of Lost Spanich Love filyol alyenu non mas adormis a meu senu Poetry ?"47, Stern concludes the controversial problem with a series of questions, e. g. ".. Translation: may we give free rein to our imagination and assume that these Romance poems were in Hijo ajeno no mas te duermes en mi senu strophic form, that the Arabic muwashshah48 (Estranged son / you sleep no longer in my was modelled on them, and that the kharjas heart) 42, are taken, say, from the beginnings of these Romance "muwashshahs'' ?49. Stern leaves the Ex. 3., (Stern no. 8 c, Sola-Solé, nr. 29 c, conjectures in suspense, "From whichever Gomez, no. 8 ref. XXII a and b. The kharja angle we approach it, we find that the enig- is extant in three versions the present one by ma of the origins of the muwashshah keeps 50. Yehuda Ha-Levi and two more in Arabic mu- its secret" washshas43). The testimony of Ibn Sana al-hulk Theme: Erotico-love. Although Ibn Sana al-Mulk does not provide Consonantal text: the answer to the questions raised by Stern, nn mt'nqsh y' hbyby f'nkr dn'shw he gives valuable hints pertinent to the khar- 'lghl 'lh rhsh bsht't hfrmshw j a. As to the content, he says that it must allude Vocalized text: to a pungent and piquant theme, with a touch non me tanges ya habibi fa-ankara danosho on impudence and hooliganism. Its language al-ghilala rakhsahu ... me refuso was foreign and unintelligible (scil. Romance), and the muwashshah composer took, arranged Translation: or composed a kharja before he dealt with the text, metre and rhyme of the muwashshah it- No me toques, oh mi amigo pues todavia es self. Ibn Sana al-Mulk emphasizes that the danoso kharja, although it concludes the poem, in ac- El corpino (es) fragil (a todo, basta,) me tual fact is the beginning, viz. it must come rehuso to the mind of the poet, intuitively, before (Do not touch me, my friend / it may still he proceeds to the more conscious (literary) be harmful the under-garment is fragile act of composing. The kharja is in short the (enough!), I witdraw!) quintessence of the poem — in the words of Ibn Sana al-Mulk, ... "the spice of the Commentary: The thematic connection be- muwashshah, its salt, its sugar, its musk and tween the kharja and the rest of the muwash- its ambrosia"51. shah by Yehuda Ha-Levi is struck in the last Ibn Sana al-Mulk was neither a historian nor transitional strophe (ghusn), in Hebrew: "The a methodical scholar. He was rather a poet day my hands wandered in the garden of her with a highly developed and subtle artistic bosom / she said, TAKE YOUR HANDS sense. His Ars Poetica does not claim to be AWAY! I have not yet known such things / a historical treatise or a chronological account she said to me words which melted my heart: of the evolution of the muwashshah but it (the kharja). certainly reveals a thorough knowledge and 41 a deep understanding of the creative process remained in vogue to the present day. Also underlying the art of the poet. Stern has been cited in support of this theory Unfortunately neither our Egyptian author- in spite of the fact that Stern after the doc- ity nor the Andalusian Ibn Bassam provide toral thesis attached very little importance to the us with examples of kharjas written in Rom metrical issue. The two characteristic conclu- ance52. Ibn Bassam, the classicist, to whom sions (1) "metre is not an essential feature"56 the strophic poems appeared unworthy of re- and (2) "in the present stage of our know- gistration and inclusion in literary anthologies, ledge, speculations about the origins of Arabic would consider the muwashshahs as odd curio- strophic poetry, based on the metrical struc- sities. ture, end in a non liquet"57, are in full ag- Ibn Sana al-Mulk, on the other hand, took reement with Stern's reluctance to commit him- the Andalusian poetic art seriously — but he self to hypotheses. Not unexpectedly the one was unable to record the final "unintelligible" to challenge the "quantitative metric approach" lines, i. e. transcribe the Romance kharjas in was a Spanish scholar. Emilio Garcia Gomez the Arabic alphabet. He limited himself to radically dismissed the traditional line of a registration of kharjas in vulgar Arabic and thinking and proposed a syllabico-accentual the valuable information on Romance kharjas approach. His argument was as follows : The in general, making it abundantly clear that he kharjas represented the ealiest known Spanish was thrilled at the peculiar sounding refrains lyric (archetypical cantigas de amigo, villan- and appreciated their essential role. The lack cicos etc.); according to our chief authority, of documentary evidence in the works of Ibn Ibn Sana al-Mulk, Arabic (and Hebrew) mu- Sana al-Mulk and Ibn Bassam explains why washshahs depended entirely on a preconceived Stern's discovery of Romance kharjas in Hebrew kharja; hence, Gomez concludes, as all pop- and later Arabic muwashshahs was sensation- ular traditional poetry is syllabic, the metric al53. His findings corroborated the allusions structure of the muwashshah would, suppos- in the Egyptian Ars Poetica and supplied the edly, also rest on the syllabic principle. Go- necessary proof as to the author's veracity. mez has decisively directed what may be cal- From this evidence the following conclusions led a somewhat barren scholastic dispute on suggested themselves : the metric problem towards new vistas.58. Contrary to Stern, Gomez allots the metric 1. The muwaslishah was in its original shape issue a first priority in his deliberations. And composed upon a Romance versicle (khar- most important of all, he emphasizes the close ja, estribillo, cantiga etc.), and as a logic- relationship between poetic meter and musical consequense, al rhythm. He stresses the necessity of an 2. the metre of the proto-muwashshah was interdisciplinary co-operation of Romance and unclassical. Semitic philology in future research, and adds As the implications of the first fact have "... car nous n'oublions pas qu'au moyen age been mentioned, we proceed to the subject of musique et poesie étaint indissolublement prolonged controversy, the metric problem. liees — qu'une troisieme competence encore plus rare serait souhaitable: celle d'un musi- cologue connaissant bien les techniques musi- Metric theories cales et l'evolution historique des mélodies médiévales"59. Both Ibn Sana al-hulk and Ibn Bassam ex- Gomez was the first to recognize the value plicitly state that the metres of the muwash- of the prosodic part in Ibn Sana al-Mulk's shahs "followed other patterns than those of Ars Poeticaso. classical poetry"54. Hartmann interpreted their statements to the effect that they were unable to scan correctly. He insisted that all muwash- A Hebrew origin shah metres were quantitative, i. e. two short syllabic entities equalled one long, and con- Was Hispano-Hebrew strophic poetry mere structed a system of 146 metric patterns imitation of its sister genre, the Arabic mu- claiming them to be variants of the 16 canon- washshah? Is Stern's claim true: "The Hebrew ized metres55. The quantitative approach has muwashshah ... derives from Arabic literatu-

42 re, but in its turn exercised no influence what- linguistically and metrically more "primitive" soever upon it"61. than the kharjas of Yehuda Ha-Levi or any The "passive role" of the Jews in the crea- of the extant muwashshahs in Arabic64. tive process of Andalusian literature has won general acceptance among scholars. Two Spanish Hebraists, J. M. Millas Val- Concluding note licrosa and Fransisco Cantera, objected to this view and posed a "liturgical theory", sug- gesting an active participation of Hebrew li- The discovery of the kharjas in Hebrew and turgical piyyut-pizmon poetry in the forma- Arabic muwashshahs is, as we have seen, of tion of the secular muwashshah in Spain62. gross significance for a correct understanding In a schematic representation of the deve- of the muwashshah genre, its origin and struc- lopment of the muwashshah, they set the point tural development. Scholars have been liberal of departure in Biblical "strophic" poetry, with theories on all the intricate questions of which at least in theme has striking re- which the problem concerning the role of semblances with the themes of muwashshahs the metre probably has given rise to the most and kharjas (see Yehuda Ha-Levi, above). The piercing controversies. technical and formal perfection was assumed The metric problem still remains to be solv- to have taken place under influence of Byzan- ed. GÖmez' "syllabico-accentual theory" re- tine responsorium and Hebrew pizmon, 5th- quires a thorough re-examination, especially 7th century, finally resulting in popular and with regard to its application to the Hebrew profane Hispano-Hebrew and Arabic strophic and Arabic part of the muwashshahs, and the poetry63. paragraphs on prosody in Ibn Sana al-Mulk's The liturgical theses leaves the Arabic-Per- Ars Poetica, being a sine qua non in kharja sian massamat (Hartmann) out of considera- and muwashshah research, demands a re-newed tion and does little to explain the very crux analysis and appraisa165. of the strophic formation, viz, the function But there are other perspectives around the of the kharja. It would, however, not seem Romance kharjas to be considered in future hazardous, to conjecture that the Jewish "res- research, viz. Did there exist a preliterary po- ponsorium", to use a phrase from Stern in pular school of Romance poetry in Spain, a another connection "prepared the way for "pre-troubadourian tradition"66 which miracul- strophic poetry (and) made it easier for a ously survived in the kharjas of the Hebrew Romance popular form of poetry, the mu- and Arabic muwashshah composition J67 Was washshah, to be accepted". In the Geniza ma- it from Spain that the Provencal troubadours terial discovered in the Fustat Synagogue in received "sinon leurs modeles, du mains l'image Egypt a wealth of Hebrew liturgical and mu- cristallisatrice"bS for their court poetry? And, washshah poetry, has been brought to light. ultimately, what was the inmost cause of the In some anonymous Hebrew muwashshahs, poetic symbiosis, which sprung from the genii kharjas in Romance and Arabic exhibit traits, of Semites and Europeans, the muwashshah?

Footnotes Bible with that of the Halacha and Haggada", Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, (Hildesheim, 1 Die arabische Literatur der Juden, (Hildesheim, 1967), 131. Repr. of London edition, 1857. 1964), 114 sq., repr. of the Frankfurt a. M. 4 Steinschneider, Arab. Lit. d. Juden, op. cit., 149. (1902) edition, Bibliotheca Arabico-Judaica se- 5 M. ibn Ezra, Kitab al-Muchadara w'al-Mudhaka- ries; see also, I. Epstein, Judaism (First publ. ra, ms. Bodleian, Nb. 1974, ("Book of Notions 1959, repr. Pelican Book, 1979), 192 sq. and Memoirs"), transl. from the original Arabic 2 See, S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious His- into Hebrew by B. Z. Halper, Shirat Yisrael, tory of the Jews, (Philadelphia, 1958), VII, 135 ("Song-poetry of Israel"), (Jerualem, 1967, new sq. ed.). "Die einzige jüdische Adab-schrift", M. 3 "It is important also to observe the connexion, Schreiner. often hostile, of the philological study of the 6 Cf. Steinschneider, op. cit., 152-54. 43 7 'Anaq, lines 14-16. Gabirol's grammatical and ular" correlates to the synagogal piyyutim. Cf. A. didactic poem on the Hebrew letters of the alp- Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music (Schocken ed., N. Y. habet. 1975), 124 sq. 8 R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs 27 TARBIZ, XVIII (Jerusalem, 1946-7), 166- (Cambridge, ed. 1956), 414-15. 86. 9 R. Dozy, Histoire des Musulman d'Espagne, 711 28 Allegedly introduced by Dunash ibn Labrat, c. —1110, (Leiden, ed. 1932), I1/3, 175. English 920-990- transl. Nicholson, op. cit., 412. On Jewish part- 29 See especially, "An Arabic Muwashshah and its icipation in Muslim rule, see Epstein, op. cit. Hebrew Imitations", Al-Andalus, XXVIII (1963), 10 Ergänzungshefte zur Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 155-170. Semitische Studien, Heft 13/14 (Weimar, 1897). 30 The theory has been challenged by the Hispano- 11 Ibn Abd Rabbihi, 10th century, Ibn Bassam, Hebraists, F. Cantera and J. M. Millås Val- 12th century, Ibn Khaldun, 14th century, al- licrosa, cf. "La canciön mozårabe", Publ. de la Maqqari, 16th century a. o. Univ. Internacional Menendez Pelayo, VII (San- 12 Called by others markaz, "point d'appui". tander, 1957), but the challenge has been met 13 Ibn Sana al-Mulk's text was edited by J. Rika- with little response. by, Dar al-Tiraz, Poetique du Muwassah. Edi- 31 Al-Andalus, XIII (1948), 299-348. English tion critique d'apres les mss du Caire et de translation in Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, Leyde (Damas, 1949). op. cit., 123-60. Revised and enlarged edition, 14 Hartmann, op. cit., 45-6, note 3. Chansons Mozarabes, (Palermo, 1953). 15 The muwashshah and zagal differ in the language 32 A penetrating exposition of the "Spanish" theory they employ, the zagal being dialectical throught. is found in R. Menendez Pidal's essay, "Poesia 16 A Grammar of the Arabic Language, rev. 3rd. europea y poesia årabe", Bulletin Hispanique, ed. (Cambridge, 1955), II, 351. XL (1938), 337-423, repr. in Colecciön Austral, 17 ibid., 358 sq. And Nicholson, op. cit., 71 sq. (Madrid, 1941). As in Greek and Latin, the classical metres are 33 A strophic form af Persian origin with an A bbb quantitative. A rhyme pattern. 18 Nicholson, op. cit., 78. 34 Hisp. Arab. Poetry, op. cit., p. 124. 19 In contradistinction to the qasida, the muwash- 35 Introduction to Chansons Mozarabes, op. cit., p. shah has five or seven strophes with stanzas of xx, "Comme le present livre a pour but de alternating rhyme and of differing lenght. Ref. presenter les faits sur la kharja sans avancer de S. M. Stern, The Old Andalusian Muvashshah, theories, je ne me propose pas de discuter des (Oxford doctoral thesis, 1950), edited and pub- questions comme celle de l'origine du muwash- lished, posthumously, by L. P. Harvey, Hispano- shah ...". Arabic Strophic Poetry (Oxford, 1974). The edi- 36 Diwan des Abu-l-Hasan Jehuda Ha-Levi (Berlin, tion contains five other important studies by 1894/1930). Stern, including his paper at the Spoleto Con- 37 Cf. the kharja concordance in, R. Hitchcock, The ference (1964), "Esistone dei rapporti letterari Kharjas, a critical bibliography (London, 1977), tra it mondo islamico e l'Europa occidentale 11-13. nell:alto medio evo?". 38 Vocalisation and translation of the kharja based 20 Cf. Stern, op. cit., 13-15. on E. Garcia Gomez, Las jarchas romances de 21 Ibn Sana al-Mulk applies the term guff, techni- la serie årabe en su marco, App. I, Jarchas de cally, to the kharja, which he names "the last la serie hebrea (Madrid, 1965), ed. 1975, 113 qufl of the muwashshas". —4. 22 See E. Fleischer, "Enquiries ..." TARBIZ 39 Song of Songs IV, 6. (1979), 189-91. 40 See, W. Ross, "Sind die Hargas Reste einer frü- 23 Ribera, Disertaciones y Opüsculos, (Madrid, hen romanischen Lyrik?", Archiv für das Stu- 1928), I, 3-92. dium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 24 W. Bacher, "Aus dem Wörterbuche Tanchum CXCIII (1959), 129-38 and G. Hilty "La Jerushalmi's", Jahresberichte der Landes-Rabbi- Poesie mozarabe", Travaux de Linguistique et nerschule in Budapest (1903). de Literature, VIII, 1 (1970), 85-100. 25 Transl. from Stem, op. cit., 17. 41 mü arade ("contrafactum"), infra. The question 26 In Geniza mss of piyyutim and secular Hebrew "who copies whom?", cf. supra p. 10 n. 3. poetry the word pizmon appears with regular 42 The long process of restoration of delapidated intervals in the margin after each strophe, pos- kharjas and the difficulties of decipherment will sibly as an instructional indication to the pre- appear from Hitchcock, "Some doubts about the centor and frequently in abbreviated form, pz', Reconstruction of the Kharjas", Bulletin of His- pzm' etc. Pizmonim, conceivably, existed as in- panic Studies, L (1973), 109-19. dependent strophe-like versicles in the Jewish 43 Both included in the Ibn Bushra anthology, dis- secular and liturgical repertory as more "pop- covered after the publication of Stern's, "Vers

44 finaux ... ", op. cit. One of the muwashshahs —38. French transl. Arabica, V (1958), 113- is by Ibn Baqi, "... in spite of his youth a 44. sparkle of cleverness", (Ibn Bassam), whose mu- 60 See also the present writer, Al-Andalus, op. cit. washshahs served as models for Abraham ibn 61 Stern, op. cit., 76. Ezra. He lived in Toledo but had to flee to 62 "Versos espanoles en las muwashshahas hispano- the South after the capture of the town by the hebreas", Sefarad, IX (1949), 197-234. Cf. Christians in 1086. The second is by Ibn Ru- also, J. M. Millas Vallicrosa, "Sobre los mås haim, of whom less is known. He, too, was a antiguos versos en lengua cassellana", Sefarad, comtemporary of Yehuda Ha-Levi. Again we VI (1946), 363. are faced with the problem "who imitates whom" 63 The Villacrosa-Cantera view was vehemently at- or do all three of them base their compositions tacked by Gomez, "Las jaryas mozarabes y los on an "archetype" from the oral tradition? judios de Al-Andalus", Boletin de la Real Aca- 44 Stern, Les Chansons Mozarabes (Palermo, 1953). demia Espanola, XXXVII (1957), 337-94. Gomez, (Madrid, 1965 and 1975), op. cit. and 64 Jefim Schirmann, New Hebrew Poems from the J. M. Sola-Sole, Corpus de Poesia Mozårabe (Bar- Geniza (Jerusalem, 1965). See especially nos. celona, 1974). See also, Hitchcock's bibliography 140, 180 and 197. op. cit., Index, p. 67. 65 Cf. the present writer, Al-Andalus, XLIII 45 Transferred to Arabic kharjas, too. Cf. precent (1978), op. cit. writer in Journal of Arabic Literature, VII 66 "La poesia pretrovadoresca", cf. M. F. Alatorre, (1976), 24-7. Las Jarchas Mozarabes, (Mexico, 1975) and P. 46 op. cit. Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of Europ- 47 ibid., 56-62. ean Love-lyric (Oxford, 1965), 26-32, 274-7. 48 And its Hebrew "imitation". g7 Cf. the opposite view held by Ross, op. cit. 49 ibid. 62 68 P. Zumthor, "Au berceau du lyrisme europeen", 50 ibidem. Cahiers du Sud, XL (1954), 3-61. 51 Dar al-Tiraz, Rikaby ed., op. cit., 30-31. Cf. the translated extracts of the treatise by Hart- mann and Stern, op. cit. A complete translation, in Spanish, has been provided by E. G. Gomez, Bibliography "Estudio del Dar at-Tiraz", Al-Andalus, XXVII (1962), 21-104. See also, the present writer, of standard works referred to and other studies Al-Andalus, XLIII (1978), 113-24. relating to the subject: 52 Cf. Stern's discussion, The Old Andalusian Mu- washshah, op. cit., 33 sq. Alatorre, M. F., Las Jarchas Mozarabes y los 53 One year after his publication of the kharjas in Hebrew muwashshahs, Stern published the comienzos de la lirica romanica (Mexico, first kharja in a Arabic muwashshah, of which 1975). no satisfactory interpretation has as yet been proposed, "Un Muwashshah arabe avec termi- Compton, L. F., Andalusian lyrical poetry and naison espagnol", Al-Andalus, XIV (1949), 214 old Spanish love songs: the Muwashshah —28. and its Kharja, (New York Univ. Press, 54 Ibn Bassam goes to the extent of asserting, that 1976). he does not register muwashshahs, because they do not follow classical Arabic prosody. 55 His method was opposed by Rikaby, op. cit., Cummins, J. G., The Spanish Traditional Ly- P. 9. ric (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977). 56 Stern's thesis, op. cit. 12. 57 ibidem, 56. Cf. Stern's conssesion, p. 27, "Hart- Corriente, F.: A Grammatical Sketch of the mann, so far as the main facts are concerned, assessed correctly the main points concerning the Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle. Prologue metres in the muwashshah". by E. Garcia Gomez (Madrid, 1977). 58 His views have also received strong opposition, especially from "Anglo Saxon" scholarship, cf. Garcia Gomez, E., Las Jarchas romanes de la T. J. Gorton "The metre of Ibn Quzman: A serie årabe (y hebrea) en su marco (Mad- classical approach", Journal of Arabic Literature, rid, 1965, repr. 1975). VI (1975), 1-29. 59 Cf. Gömel lucid apercu of the complex problem in "La lirica hispano-årabe y la aparaciön de la Hartmann, M., Das arabische Strophengedicht, lirica romånica", Al-Andalus, XXI (1956), 303 I, Das Muwashshah (Weimar, 1897). 45 Haxen, U., The Arabic and Hebrew Muwash- Sola-Solé, J. M., Corpus de Poesia Mozårabes, shah in Al-Andalus, with special reference Las Harga-s Andalusies (Ed. Hispam, Bar- to Kharja-imitations (Unpubl. thesis, in Da- celona, 1974). nish, Univ. of Copenhagen, 1974). Stern, S. M.: The Old Andalusian Muwash- Heger, K., Die bisher veröffentlichten Hargas shah, doctoral thesis, ed. and publ. by L. P. und ihre Deutungen, Zeitschrift für Ro- Harvey in, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry manische Philologie, Beihefte CI (Tü- (Oxford, 1974). bingen, 1960). Stern, S. M., Les Chansons Mozarabes, Les vers Hitchcock, R., The Kharjas, a critical biblio- finaux (kharjas) en Espagnol dans les mu- graphy (London, 1977). washshahs Arabes et Hebreux (Palermo, 1953, repr. Oxford, 1964). Schirmann, H., New Hebrew Poems from the Geniza, Publication of the Israel Academy Zafrani, H., Poesie Juive en Occident Musul- of Sciences and Humanities (Jerusalem, man (Paris, 1977). 1965), in Hebrew.