wers helped him to complete what Chasdai
had begun. The centre of Judaism became more firmly fixed than ever in
Spain. When Samuel the Nagid died in 1055, the golden age of Spanish
literature was in sight. Above the horizon were rising in a glorious
constellation, Solomon Ibn Gebirol, the Ibn Ezras, and Jehuda Halevi.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHASDAI.

Graetz,--III, p. 215 [220].

DUNASH AND MENACHEM.

Graetz.--III, p. 223 [228].

JANACH.

_Encycl. Brit._, Vol. XIII, p. 737.

CHAYUJ.

M. Jastrow, Jr.--_The Weak and Geminative Verbs in Hebrew by
Hayyug_ (Leyden, 1897).

HEBREW PHILOLOGY.

Steinschneider.--_Jewish Literature_, p. 131.

CHAZARS.

_Letter of Chasdai to Chazars_ (Engl. transl. by Zedner,
_Miscellany of the Society of Hebrew Literature_, Vol. I).

Graetz.--III, p. 138 [140].

SAMUEL IBN NAGDELA.

Graetz,--III, p, 254 [260].

CHAPTER X

THE SPANISH-JEWISH POETS (I)

Solomon Ibn Gebirol.--"The Royal Crown."--Moses Ibn
Ezra.--Abraham Ibn Ezra.--The Biblical Commentaries of Ibn Ezra
and the Kimchis.

"In the days of Chasdai," says Charizi, "the Hebrew poets began to
sing." We have seen that the new-Hebrew poetry was older than Chasdai,
but Charizi's assertion is true. The Hebrew poets of Spain are
melodious, and Kalir is only ingenious. Again, it was in Spain that
Hebrew was first used for secular poetry, for love songs and ballads,
for praises of nature, for the expression of all human feelings. In most
of this the poets found their models in the Bible. When Jehuda Halevi
sang in Hebrew of love, he echoed the "Song of Songs." When Moses Ibn
Ezra wrote penitential hymns, or Ibn Gebirol divine meditations, the
Psalms were ever before them as an inspiration. The poets often devoted
all their ambition to finding apt quotations from the sacred text. But
in one respect they failed to imitate the Bible, and this failure
seriously cramped their genius. The poetry of the Bible depends for its
beauty partly on its form. This form is what is called _parallelism of
line_. The fine musical effect produced by repeating as an echo the idea
already expressed is lost in the poetry of the Spanish Jews.

Thus Spanish-Jewish poetry suffers, on the one side, because it is an
imitation of the Bible, and therefore lacks originality, and on the
other side it suffers, because it does not sufficiently imitate the
Biblical style. In spite of these limitations, it is real poetry. In the
Ps