🌅 Today we explore the lives of two poet-philosophers, one the ultimate well-heeled Andalusi insider and the other an idiosyncratic, semi-tragic genius—both of whom wrote soul-stirring poetry.
Thank you for these incredible posts, I learn so much from them. Toda me'omek halev.
If I may, I just wanted to make two nitpicky comments on the translations of the poems. In the first one, don't you think that the word בן in the last line comes from the word בינה? The full translation therfore should be, My heart understands (from לב מבין) like the heart of an eighty year old.
In the second one, I suspect that the words "I cried" and "they heard me" need to be taken out. They don't appear in the original.
Again, elef todot for the torah you are teaching me and so many others.
K'vod ha-Rav, it is a privilege to have my teacher as a reader! Thank you for the comments. Of course, you are quite right about the Ibn Gabirol. As for the second translation, it is not mine but my teacher's (credit in footnote 2). I too tend to favor a more literal translation style, but his is literary (he often tries to convey the musicality or rhyme of the original in the translation).
Thanks for bringing Moshe ibn Ezra alive. I've never known much about him except that he was the fellow not to get confused with Avraham ibn Ezra.
Thank you for these incredible posts, I learn so much from them. Toda me'omek halev.
If I may, I just wanted to make two nitpicky comments on the translations of the poems. In the first one, don't you think that the word בן in the last line comes from the word בינה? The full translation therfore should be, My heart understands (from לב מבין) like the heart of an eighty year old.
In the second one, I suspect that the words "I cried" and "they heard me" need to be taken out. They don't appear in the original.
Again, elef todot for the torah you are teaching me and so many others.
K'vod ha-Rav, it is a privilege to have my teacher as a reader! Thank you for the comments. Of course, you are quite right about the Ibn Gabirol. As for the second translation, it is not mine but my teacher's (credit in footnote 2). I too tend to favor a more literal translation style, but his is literary (he often tries to convey the musicality or rhyme of the original in the translation).