Biblical Hebrew Forum

["J. Leake" <john.leake AT yahoo.co.uk>]

[Apologies, Isaac, the system didn't like the PDF, so I've put it all in the email.]

My point was really (and I didn't make it clear) that this Andalusian usage fits almost flawlessly with the voiced shewas and ḥaṭūphīm as we've come to expect them learning Hebrew via Weingreen and Gesenius (i.e. outwith the living spoken Israeli Hebrew tradition).  Here are four Andalusian poems I've . The Abulafia was the first one that came into my head, while the three Shemuel ha-Nagid poems were the first that came to hand in differing metres (I had meant to include another short poem in hazaj, but this was at hand. The other also behaved itself metrically as far as I checked).

But of course while this confirms the quantity, it says nothing about the quality - all these ḥaṭūphīm could be indistinct shewas in isolation, as you suggest, as far as the metre goes. Metre at least has nothing to say on this issue, just on the vowel length!

John Leake, Open University.

Voiced shewa in four short Andalusian Hebrew poems

red indicates voiced shewa used as regular short

green indicates silent shewa where voiced expected

blue waw indicates וּ where voiced shewa/ḥaṭūph expected metrically (an apparent Hebrew licence)
Note: All metric schemata run left-to-right.

Shemuel ha-Nagid (in basīṭ   ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ¯  )

קַח מִצְּבִיָּה דְמֵי עֵנָב בְּאֶקְדָּחָה / בָּרָה, כְּמוֹ אֵשׁ בְּתוֹך בָּרָד מְלֻקָּחָה.

בַּעְלַת שְׂפָתוֹת כְּחוּט שָׁנִי, וְחֵךְ לָהּ כְּיֵין / הַטּוֹב, וּפִיהָ כְגוּפָתָהּ מְרֻקָּחָה.

מִדַּם חֲלָלִים קְצֵה יָדָהּ מְאָדָּם – לְכֵן / חֶצְיָהּ כְּאֹדֶם וּמַחְצִיתָהּ בְּדֹלָחָה

Shemuel ha-Nagid (in rajaz    ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ¯  (˘ ) ¯ )

אֶרֶץ לְאָדָם בֵּית כְּלוּא כָּל יָמָיו / לָכֵן אֲנִי אוֹמֵר אֱמֶת לַסָּכָל:

תָּרוּץ — וְשָׁמַיִם סְבִיבוֹתֶיךָ / מִכָּל עֲבָרִים; קוּם וְצֵא אִם תּוּכָל.

Shemuel ha-Nagid (in hazaj  ˘ ¯ ¯ ¯  |˘ ¯ ¯ ¯  |˘ ¯ ¯  )

הֲבִזְקוּנִים לְךָ מַרְפֵּא לְהַשְׁקִיט / בְּךָ יֵצֶר, לְקִנְיָן יַחֲרִידָךְ

וְזֹקֶן יַחֲלִישׁ גּוּפָךְ — וְיַגְבִּיר / בְּךָ עֵצָה לְהוֹסִיף הוֹן בְּיָדָךְ

Todros Abulafia (in rajaz   ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ¯ ˘ ¯  | ¯ ¯  (˘ ) ¯ )

בָּאַהֲבָה חַלְתִּי וְלֹא יָלַדְתִּי / וּבְפַח צְבִיָּה בַּת עֲרָב נִלְכַּדְתִּי.

לִנְשֹׁק בְּפִיהָ אִוְּתָה נַפְשִׁי עֲדֵי / לִהְיוֹת נְקֵבָה בַעֲדָהּ חָמַדְתִּי —

כִּי הַנְּקֵבוֹת הִיא מְנַשֶּׁקֶת, וּבִשְׁ־ / בִיל שֶׁאֲנִי זָכָר, אֲנִי הִפְסַדְתִּי!

The בְ at the start of the second hemistich in line 1 seems to close the syllable rather than be voiced. I don't think there's any Arabic licence here to replace a single long syllable with two short ones (i.e. reading /ū.və-/ for /wə.və-/) (though that would often work in Greek poetry), so I think this must be either a Hebrew licence or perhaps the poet's actual usage where וּבְ- starts a word. This is rather like modern Israeli usage, isn't it?