Venice masks

Sunday 15 October 2017

The Hour - Samuel Hanagid

She said: “Be happy that God has helped you reach
The age of fifty in this world,” not knowing
That to me there is no difference between my life’s
Past and that of Noah about whom I heard.
For me there is only the hour in which I am present in this world:
It stays for a moment and then like a cloud moves on.

Samuel Hanagid (also Samuel ibn Naghrillah)  (993-1056) Spain
Translated by Leon J. Weinberger
Source: Jewish Prince in Moslem Spain: Selected Poems of Samuel ibn Nagrela transtaed by Leon J. Weinberger, The University of Alabama Press, 1997, on Medieval Hebrew Poetry

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