Dominion Built of Praise. Jonathan Decter
continued at this point. One would expect, as Shulamit Elizur suggests, that after expressing thanks for the bounty that Dunash received from his patron, the poet would have offered in exchange a dedication in the remaining lines. I would further assume that the conclusion made reference to the poem’s value and possibly described it as a gift (given in exchange for the gifts mentioned above). The ethical nature of the embedded exchange was not undermined by the fact that it included objects of value. The relationship was not predicated on a simple quid pro quo but rather on a deeper and more enduring bond whose cyclical nature would be expected to continue.31
The superscription to a panegyric by Yehudah Halevi to an anonymous recipient states that the poem was sent as “thanks (todah) to someone who had given him a gift.”32 Another addressed to Yosef Ibn Ṣadīq states that the mamdūḥ had sent Halevi “a gift of a poem and a gift” (teshurat shir u-matanah).33 Thus poems could accompany, be given in exchange for, or quite simply be gifts. More elaborately, another poem by Halevi for the same figure was composed upon Halevi’s departure from Córdoba; the poet adjures himself to glean all that he can from Ibn Ṣadīq’s wisdom, which is described as provisions for a journey. The poem is an offering (minḥah) in exchange:
Take delicacies from [Ibn Ṣadīq’s] mouth as a provision,
And his words, behold a cake baked on hot stones!34 Eat and go with the strength of the meal!
Gather for yourself manna today, for tomorrow you will seek it as one who seeks something lost.
In exchange give him (hashev lo) truth, a gift (minḥah) sent forth, pearls of poetry with every precious stone!
Perhaps it will delight him, and perhaps the gift of Yehudah (minḥat Yehudah) will be sweet.35
Here there is no monetary exchange, but there is an intellectual exchange that captures and reinforces the social bond between the two men. The place of panegyric in the mutuality of a relationship is sometimes stated expressly. After pleading with Abū al-Ḥasan Ibn Murīl to send him a letter, Halevi wrote: “Read my poem and forget not my covenant (briti).”36 Failing to recognize the covenant between the two men could lead to the dissolution of the relationship.
A panegyric written during Mosheh Ibn Ezra’s youth to a certain Abū al-Fatḥ Ben Azhar asks the mamdūḥ to intercede with another patron who had looked unfavorably upon the poet, requests a letter from the mamdūḥ, and offers him the poem, “Bind upon your throat a necklace made from the finest of our jacinth and beryl.”37 Here there is no request for money but rather for the performance of a favor.
The very first poem of Ibn Ezra’s collection of homonymic epigrams, Sefer ha-‘anaq (Book of the necklace), dedicated to Avraham Ibn al-Muhājir, refers to poetry as a gift and alludes to the name of the patron (father of many nations, i.e., Abraham; cf. Gn 17:4):
Listen to these [verses], O princes of poetry, singers of the age,
and raise up their preciousness as an offering and gift
to the father of many nations, a prince who holds power38 so much that he struggled with men and with God!39
In all likelihood, Ibn Ezra received financial support from the known courtier though the patron-poet relationship likely extended beyond the dedication of a single book in exchange for pay. We might presume that the intellectual bond preceded the commissioning of the work and that the dedication functioned within a system of embedded exchange.
Gift language also permeates Ibn Ezra’s poems sent to fellow intellectuals from the late stage of his life after he had left al-Andalus; one poem bears the superscription, “He wrote from Castile to the exalted Nasi, his brother, may God have mercy on him, before he met him.” In the poem, Ibn Ezra refers to the “covenant of love” between himself and the mamdūḥ (“should I forget it, may my right hand wither”; cf. Ps 137:5) and concludes with a dedicatory section whereby the poet consecrates the poem to the mamdūḥ as a gift, “Here is a gift of poetry.”40 This subject brings us to the next section of this chapter.
Dedicating Poems
Beatrice Gruendler calls attention to the dedicatory section of Arabic panegyric as a “speech act,” phrasing that combines “action and utterance,” whereby the words of dedication have the effect of constituting the poem as the recipient’s possession (even when delivered orally). Arabic panegyrics sometimes collapse the entire relationship between poet and patron, with the poem as a mediating device, into a single neat word, manaḥtukahā, “[Herewith] I dedicate it to you.” Gruendler stresses the reciprocal nature of the patron-poet relationship, how the “benefits and duties of the patron mesh with the benefits and rights of the poet,” engendered most poignantly in the dedication, “which ties a firm and far-reaching bond between the two.”41
As Dan Pagis notes, Mosheh Ibn Ezra used dedications with great frequency both in poems and in letters, most often using phrases such as “take this poem” or “behold this poem.”42 In a poem appended to a letter for Shelomoh Ibn Ghiyat, itself a response to a poem, Yehudah Halevi includes a dedication that fills eight lines.43 Prior to this, Shemuel ha-Nagid used dedications in the few panegyrics that he composed for others.44 In one, the Nagid praises his mamdūḥ, “I love you, beloved of my soul, as I love my own soul” and stresses the mamdūḥ’s wisdom, knowledge in Talmud, and alacrity in religious observance before concluding: “Take from me words chosen from bdellium, rhymes on a scroll.”45 There is no reason to think that the Nagid was paid for these verses, especially given the intimacy of the language suggesting near social parity.
Again, dedicatory language appears in poems that participated in patronage relationships that included the bestowing of material objects. A poem by Ibn Gabirol begins with a dedication, “Take this poem and its hidden stores, its precision and poetic themes…. Lord of my soul, may his heart and ears be attentive to understand my eloquence, also my poem and its supplications.” The poet thus gives the mamdūḥ the poem and hopes that his pleas will be heard in return. We do not know exactly what these requests entailed; they might have been for something tangible, such as money or a garment, or possibly something more abstract, but the exchange was portrayed as belonging to the world of embedded, rather than disembedded, exchange.46
Dedications seem to have been introduced into Hebrew panegyric in al-Andalus and to have spread from there to authors in the Islamic East. An anonymous panegyric sent to the Yemeni merchant and community leader Maḍmūn II refers both to the gifts given by the mamdūḥ to the community and to the poet’s gift to the mamdūḥ. The poet praises the “nagid of the nation of God” for his valor and kindness and includes, “He succored the whole nation and supported its falling, young and old alike. His generosity is like the rain; those who seek his gifts are glad.” In the lengthy dedication, the poet identifies himself as a Levite (i.e., a singer) and writes, “Hear this, nagid of the wise men of Torah,47 lord of the rulers and glory of the gaons, take this gift that is here presented; I sent it to remove anguish.”48 The poet’s gift was not presented in the hope of specific remuneration but was inscribed within a reciprocal bond between leader and community.
We close this part of the chapter with a translation and discussion of a fascinating epistolographic poem (TS 13 J 19.21; Figure 7) mentioned and transcribed by Goitein and later published by Yehudah Ratzhaby.49 It was sent by the student (talmid) Yiṣḥaq Ibn Nissim Parsi to his peer Abū Zikri Yiḥye Ibn Mevorakh. The author had received a letter from the latter that contained verses based on a famous poem by Ibn Gabirol (“I am the poet and the poem is my slave!”).50 Parsi now responds with a letter of his own, opening with the Jewish version of the basmallah (be-shem ha-raḥman, “in the name of the Merciful”) and two biblical verses, all typical of letter introductions. He then inscribes a poem in the same meter and rhyme as Ibn Gabirol’s and undoubtedly of the poem he had received from