Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Birth of Castilian Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Chapter 2 Early Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Chapter 3 Sem Tob’s Proverbios Morales:The Epitome of Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Chapter 4 The Legacy of Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Conclusion
- Index
Chapter 4 - The Legacy of Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Birth of Castilian Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Chapter 2 Early Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Chapter 3 Sem Tob’s Proverbios Morales:The Epitome of Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Chapter 4 The Legacy of Jewish Cuaderna Vía Poetry
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
SEM TOB'S PROVERBIOS MORALES was preserved in five fifteenth-century manu-scripts. One of these manuscripts, housed today by the Cambridge University Library as Ms. Add. 3355, contains a fragment in Hebrew aljamiado of the so-called “Coplas de Yoçef,” which is a fourteenth-century example of an aljamiado tradition that began in the thirteenth century with works such as “Cuando el rey Nimrod al campo saldriya.” Like this poem, “Coplas de Yoçef” also centres on an Old Testament Patriarch, Joseph, whose life is narrated in forty-two quatrains of what was originally a much longer work. The versification employed in “Coplas de Yoçef” finds parallels with works composed by anonymous thirteenth-century Jewish cuaderna vía poets, including the manipulation of the zéjel strophic form through the construction of quatrains with estribillos that vary greatly, but that always end with the name “Yoçef” (Joseph), as in the following examples:
And since Joseph knew of his coming
,he arose quickly and went forth to meet his worthy father.
He asked for his hand and kissed it.
Jacob delighted exceedingly in Joseph.
Then well spake Jacob in this wise:
“Joy have I seen even were I now to die,
for I knew not that Joseph was alive.
Pleased I am today with Joseph, my son.”
With great humility thus spake Joseph unto him:
“To the king thus truly I shall say
how my father has come unto the city
and with him Joseph's brethren.
Deske ya lo sopiera Yoçef mui privado
a reçebir saliera asu padre onrado.
La mano le pidiera; Luego la ovo besado.
Mui gran plazer obiera Gakob kon Yoçef.
Gakob luego dezia bien de akesta manera:
“Vistu e alegria, aun ke agora muera
ke yo nunka sabia ke Yoçef bivo era;
Plazer e este dia kon mi figo Yoçef.”
Yoçef le dixera kon mui gran omildath:
“Dire desta manera Al rei por verdath,
komo venido era Mi padre ala çibdath,
e ke konel viniera ermanos de Yoçef.”
As is evident in González Llubera's transcription into Castilian of the Hebrew aljamiado, the composer of “Coplas de Yoçef” utilized consonant rhyme (-ado, -era, -ath) to distinguish the initial three verses in each quatrain as in “Cuando el rey Nimrod al campo saldriya” and “Cuando a Yerušaláyim vide en tanta fatiga.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019