Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid
Translated by Peter Cole

Winner of the 1998 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Translation Prize of the Modern Language Association

Paper | 1996 | $22.95 / £13.50
312 pp. | 6 x 9

Shopping Cart | Reviews | Table of Contents

The first major poet of the Hebrew literary renaissance of Moslem Spain, Shmuel Ben Yosef Ha-Levi HaNagid (993-1056 c.e.) was also the Prime Minister of the Muslim state of Granada, battlefield commander of the non-Jewish Granadan army, and one of the leading religious figures in a medieval Jewish world that stretched from Andalusia to Baghdad. Peter Cole's groundbreaking versions of HaNagid's poems capture the poet's combination of secular and religious passion, as well as his inspired linking of Hebrew and Arabic poetic practice. This annotated Selected Poems is the most comprehensive collection of HaNagid's work published to date in English.

"The Multiple Troubles of Man"

The multiple troubles of man,
my brother, like slander and pain,
amaze you? Consider the heart
which holds them all
in strangeness, and doesn't break.

"I'd Suck Bitter Poison from the Viper's Mouth"

I'd suck bitter poison from the viper's mouth
and live by the basilisk's hole forever,
rather than suffer through evenings with boors,
fighting for crumbs from their table.

Reviews:

"Here is indeed a remarkable event . . . the unearthing of a major and until today mostly ignored Andalusian Hebrew poet . . . The poetry itself sings as it once did in another language, culture, and time, thanks to Peter Cole's erudition and poetic sensibility. Not only are major translation problems overcome by intelligence and sensitivity, but the introduction provides informative observations concerning both the Arabic and Hebrew poetic traditions in Moslem Spain. These are poems to be remembered, especially since, in working through conflicting theories of translations, they have perfectly managed to avoid all the current pitfalls, all the circumlocutions and tricks."--Award Citation, 1998 MLA-Scaglione Prize for Translation

". . .a wonder of poetic alchemy. [Cole's] deftly cadenced translations embody, as Pound demanded, 'trace of that power which implies the man'. They are delicately poised between fidelity to the Hebrew and an ear finely-tuned to the possibilities of a modern, poetic idiom in English . . . At last HaNagid's gift resonates for the English reader."--Poetry Nation Review (England)

"Cole's vigorous inventive translation is equal to the task of rendering the work of a poet whose range encompassed commerce and God, war and wine. HaNagid emerges as a man of identifiably modern--even enlightened--breadth, even as the rest of Europe languished in its Dark Ages."--Publishers Weekly

"Thanks to [Cole's] Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid and Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, those of us who don't know Hebrew can, for the first time, hear why HaNagid and Ibn Gabirol have been revered for centuries."--Eliot Weinberger, Lingua Franca (Breakthrough Books)

More reviews

Table of Contents

Series:

• Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation
  Richard Howard, Series Editor

Subject Area:

• Jewish Studies

Shopping Cart:

For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $22.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-01120-2

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £13.50 ISBN13: 978-0-691-01120-2

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 7/1/2008

Questions and comments to: webmaster@press.princeton.edu
Princeton University Press