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Home  »  The Standard Book of Jewish Verse  »  Princess Sabbath

Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.

By Heinrich Heine (Trans. Margaret Armour)

Princess Sabbath

IN Arabia’s book of fable

We behold enchanted princes

Who at times their form recover,

Fair as first they were created.

The uncouth and shaggy monster

Has again a king for father;

Pipes his amorous ditties sweetly

On the flute in jewelled raiment.

Yet the respite from enchantment

Is but brief, and, without warning,

Lo! we see his Royal Highness

Shuffled back into a monster.

Of a prince by fate thus treated

Is my song. His name is Israel,

And a witch’s spell has changed him

To the likeness of a dog.

As a dog, with dog’s ideas,

All the week, a cur, he noses

Through life’s filthy mire and sweepings,

Butt of mocking city Arabs;

But on every Friday evening,

On a sudden, in the twilight,

The enchantment weakens, ceases,

And the dog once more is human.

And his father’s halls he enters

As a man, with man’s emotions,

Head and heart alike uplifted,

Clad in pure and festal raiment.

“Be ye greeted, halls beloved,

Of my high and royal father!

Lo! I kiss your holy door-posts,

Tents of Jacob, with my mouth!”

Through the house there passes strangely

A mysterious stir and whisper,

And the hidden master’s breathing

Shudders weirdly through the silence.

Silence! save for one, the steward

(Vulgo, synagogue attendant)

Springing up and down, and busy

With the lamps that he is lighting.

Golden lights of consolation,

How they sparkle, how they glimmer!

Proudly flame the candles also

On the rails of the Almemor.

By the shrine wherein the Thora

Is preserved, and which is curtained

By a costly silken hanging,

Whereon precious stones are gleaming.

There, beside the desk already

Stands the synagogue precentor,

Small and spruce, his mantle black

With an air coquettish shouldering;

And, to show how white, his hand is,

At his neck he works—forefinger

Oddly pressed against his temple,

And the thumb against his throat.

To himself he trills and murmurs,

Till at last his voice he raises;

Till he sings with joy resounding,

“Lecho dodi likrath kallah!”

“Lecho dodi likrath kallah—

Come, beloved one, the bride

Waits already to uncover

To thine eyes her blushing face!”

The composer of this poem,

Of this pretty marriage song,

Is the famous minnesinger,

Don Jehudah ben Halevy.

It was writ by him in honour

Of the wedding of Prince Israel

And the gentle Princess Sabbath,

Whom they call the silent princess.

Pearl and flower of all beauty

Is the princess—not more lovely

Was the famous Queen of Sheba,

Bosom friend of Solomon,

Who, Bas Bleu of Ethiopia,

Sought by wit to shine and dazzle,

And became at length fatiguing

With her very clever riddles.

Princess Sabbath, rest incarnate,

Held in hearty detestation

Every form of witty warfare

And of intellectual combat.

She abhorred with equal loathing

Loud declamatory passion—

Pathos ranting round and storming

With dishevelled hair and streaming.

In her cap the silent princess

Hides her modest, braided tresses,

Like the meek gazelle she gazes,

Blooms as slender as the myrtle.

She denies her lover nothing

Save the smoking of tobacco;

“Dearest, smoking is forbidden,

For to-day it is the Sabbath.

“But at noon, as compensation,

There shall steam for thee a dish

That in very truth divine is—

Thou shalt eat to-day of schalet!

“Schalet, ray of light immortal!

Schalet, daughter of Elysium!”

So had Schiller’s song resounded,

Had he ever tasted schalet,

For this schalet is the very

Food of heaven, which, on Sinai,

God Himself instructed Moses

In the secret of preparing,

At the time He also taught him

And revealed in flames of lightning

All the doctrines good and pious,

And the holy Ten Commandments.

Yes, this schalet’s pure ambrosia

Of the true and only God:

Paradisal bread of rapture;

And, with such a food compared,

The ambrosia of the pagan,

False divinities of Greece,

Who were devils ’neath disguises,

Is the merest devils’ offal.

When the prince enjoys the dainty,

Glow his eyes as if transfigured,

And his waistcoat he unbuttons;

Smiling blissfully he murmurs,

“Are not these the waves of Jordan

That I hear—the flowing fountains

In the palmy vale of Beth-el,

Where the camels lie at rest?

“Are not these the sheep-bells ringing

Of the fat and thriving wethers

That the shepherd drives at evening

Down Mount Gilead from the pastures?”

But the lovely day flits onward,

And with long, swift legs of shadow

Comes the evil hour of magic—

And the prince begins to sigh;

Seems to feel the icy fingers

Of a witch upon his heart;

Shudders, fearful of the canine

Metamorphosis that waits him.

Then the princess hands her golden

Box of spikenard to her lover,

Who inhales it, fain to revel

Once again in pleasant odours.

And the princess tastes and offers

Next the cup of parting also—

And he drinks in haste, till only

Drops a few are in the goblet.

These he sprinkles on the table,

Then he takes a little wax-light,

And he dips it in the moisture

Till it crackles and is quenched.