Dunash ben Labrat
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920/925 – after 985)
Life
Dunash was, according to
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, who lived in Córdoba, invited Dunash to Spain. Córdoba was then the center of culture and poetry in the Islamic world, and Hasdai endeavored to bring the best minds there. In Córdoba, Dunash met Menahem ben Saruq, also an important grammarian, though the two did not get along because of their many grammatical disputes as well as Menahem's tough criticism of Saadia Gaon, Dunash's mentor. Their dispute turned into personal rivalry, which included many polemic compositions and exchanges of accusations to Hasdai ibn Shaprut.[4]
Dunash died in Córdoba in 990.
Work
Dunash is called the founder of Andalusian Hebrew poetry.
This body of poetry includes the riddles of Dunash ben Labrat, among the first known Hebrew riddles.[6]
In the field of grammar, Dunash's major work was a book attacking Menahem ben Saruq and his Mahberet ("Notebook") for violating religious standards and opposing the teachings of the sages. He dedicated his work to the leader of the Jews of Spain at the time, Hasdai ibn Shaprut. In his book, he was the first Hebrew grammarian to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs, the first to list verbs by their three-letter roots in the Paal construction, and the first to distinguish between "light" and "heavy" roots. He also condemned Menahem ben Saruq for failing to see the relationship between Hebrew and Arabic. Dunash also wrote a book containing two hundred reservations about the teachings of his old mentor, Saadia Gaon.
The students of Menahem ben Saruq responded with a scathing attack on Dunash, condemning him for using Arabic meter and grammar in studying the Hebrew language, as well as on issues of
The debates between Dunash and others were finally decided in the centuries after his death by
Poetry of Dunash's wife
Though her name is unknown, Dunash's wife is held to be the author of a poem on the subject of Dunash's exile. This makes it the only known medieval Hebrew verse by a woman (and the only known medieval verse by a Jewish woman apart from those of Qasmuna and, if she was Jewish, Sarah of Yemen).[8] Giving both verse and prose translations, it reads:
Hebrew | Transliteration | Translations |
---|---|---|
הֲיִזכוׂר יֵעֲלַת הַחֵן יְדִידָהּ |
Ha-yizkor ya‘alat ha-ḥen yedidah |
Will her love remember his graceful doe, |
An incomplete text of the poem was discovered and published in the 1940s in two fragments from one eleventh-century manuscript, Mosseri IV.387 and Mosseri VIII.202.2. At that time, the poem was assumed to be by Dunash.[11][12] But a manuscript declaring the poem to be by Dunash's wife came to light in the 1980s, in the form of a probably eleventh-century fragment from the Cairo Geniza (where it is now catalogued as Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 143.46), and first edited by Ezra Fleischer.[13][14] This manuscript includes an incomplete reply from Dunash to his wife:[8]
Were you seeking the day of my death when you wrote:
"Have you betrayed and abandoned your vows?"
Could I betray a woman so wise
given by God as the bride of my youth?
Had my heart ever thought to leave you
I would have torn it into pieces.
For those who betray their beloved companion,
God brings down with the trials of foes.
Lions soon will devour his flesh,
and vultures will consume his blood.
Who resembles the stars of dawn [...]
The circumstances of this separation are unclear; it is thought that Dunash's wife composed her poem shortly after Dunash's departure, around 950.[15] A further poem, found in 1985 written on the corner of a letter composed by Hasdai ibn Shaprut (T-S J2.71, f. 2v), identified as being a complaint from Dunash about his service under Hasdai, seems further to describe his feelings on leaving his wife. Following two illegible lines, the text reads:[16]
Hebrew original | translation |
---|---|
בּֽיָגוׄן לְעָבֽדֽךָ כִּי אִם סֽחוׂרַת יָד [גּֽ]אוּלָה |
I served you in sorrow, for all your wares are loathsome. |
Editions and translations
Poetry
- Aluny, Nehemya (ed.), 'Ten Dunash Ben Labrat's Riddles', The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, 36 (1945), 141-46.
- Cole, Peter (trans.), The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 23-27 ("Dunash Ben Labrat" and "The wife of Dunash").
- Del Valle Rodríguez, Carlos (trans.), El diván poético de Dunash ben Labraṭ: la introducción de la métrica árabe (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigciones Cinetí cas, 1988).
Shirim
- Allony, Nehemiah (ed.), Dunash ben Labraṭ: Shirim (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1947).
Teshuvot
- Filipowski, H. (ed.), Teshuvot Dunash ben Labraṭ (London and Edinburgh: Meorere Yeshenim, 1855).
- Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (ed. and trans.), Tešuḇot de Dunaš BenLabraṭ (Granada: Univ. de Granada, 1980).
- Schröter, Robert (ed.), Tešuḇot Dunaš ha-Levi ben Labraṭ ʻal R.Seʻadyah Gaʾon (Breslau, 1866).
Manuscript facsimiles
- Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, T-S NS 143.46 (the poem of Dunash's wife, and his reply)
- Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Mosseri IV.387.2, Mosseri VIII.202.2 (another manuscript of Dunash's wife's poem)
- University of Pennsylvania Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library Halper 317, fol. 2v (lines 21 to the end are a set of ten verse riddles attributed to Dunash ben Labrat)
Notes
- ^ Another translation reads: "Will her beloved remember the elegant doe, her only son in her arms at the moment of his departure? On the day he placed the signet ring from his right hand on her left and she placed her bracelet on his arm, she took his cloak as a memento and he took her cloak as a memento. If he could hold half the prince’s kingdom, is there anywhere in Sefarad he would remain?"[10]: 149
References
- ^ José Martínez Delgado, 'Dunash ben Labraṭ ha-Levi', in Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, ed. by Norman A. Stillman and others (Leiden: Brill, 2010), s.v.
- ^ David Goldstein, Hebrew Poems from Spain, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1965, p. 13
- ^ Peter Cole, The dream of the poem: Hebrew poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 23
- ^ a b Talmide Menaḥem, Tĕšubotde los discípulos de Mĕnahem contra Dunaš ben Labrat, ed. and trans. by S. Benavente Robles (Granada: Univ. de Granada, 1986).
- ^ D.G. Blaunder, "The Early Literary Riddle", Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Spring, 1967), pp. 49-58.
- ^ Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 33-35.
- ^ Yehudi ben Sheshet, Tešubotde Yĕhudi Ibn Šešet, ed. and trans. by E. Varela Moreno (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1981).
- ^ a b c The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, ed. and trans. by Peter Cole (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 27.
- ISBN 1-55861-223-8.
- .
- ^ Nehemya Aluny, 'Four Poems', The Jewish Quarterly Review, new series, 35.1 (July, 1944), 79-83 (pp. 79-80).
- ^ Poetry (Mosseri IV.387.2).
- ^ E. Fleischer, 'ʿAl Dunash Ben Labrat veIshto uVeno' ['On Dunash Ben Labrat, his Wife and his Son; New Light on the Beginnings of the Hebrew-Spanish School'], Mehqerei Yerushalayim be-Sifrut Ivrit [Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature], 5 (1984), 189-202 (p. 196).
- ^ Poetry (T-S NS 143.46).
- ^ Emily Taitz, Sondra Henry, and Cheryl Tallan, 'Wife of Dunash Ben Labrat of Spain, Hebrew Poet (10th century)', in The JPS Guide to Jewish Women: 600 B.C.E. to 1900 C.E. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2003), pp. 58-59 (p. 59).
- ^ ISBN 9780805242584.
- ^ Ezra Fleischer, “לתולדות שירת החול העברית בספרד בראשיתה” [le-toldot shirat ha-ḥol ha-ivrit bi-sefarad bi-reshitah, 'On the Emergence of Hebrew Secular Poetry in Spain'], in Menahem Ben-Sasson, et al., eds., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson Jubilee Volume (Jerusalem: Shazar, 1989), 197-225 (pp. 217-18) (Hebrew).
Further reading
- Eisenberg, Ronald (2006). Lash Balint, Judy; Barak, Daniella (eds.). The Streets of Jerusalem. Devora Publishing Company. p. 56. ISBN 1-932687-54-8.
- Kolatch, Yonatan (2006). "Chapter 6: The Spanish Linguists". Masters of the Word: Traditional Jewish Bible Commentary from the First through Tenth Centuries. ISBN 0-88125-936-5.
- Maman, Aaron. Comparative Semitic philology in the Middle Ages, Brill, 2004, p. 289-295 (Chapter 11, "Dunash ben Labrat").