The Book of Delight, and Other Papers

The Book of Delight, and Other
Papers

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Title: The Book of Delight and Other Papers
Author: Israel Abrahams

Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9886] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 28,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK
OF DELIGHT ***

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Proofreading Team.

THE BOOK OF DELIGHT
AND
OTHER PAPERS
BY
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A.
Author of "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages," "Chapters on Jewish
Literature," etc.
1912

PREFACE
The chapters of this volume were almost all spoken addresses. The
author has not now changed their character as such, for it seemed to

him that to convert them into formal essays would be to rob them of
any little attraction they may possess.
One of the addresses--that on "Medieval Wayfaring"--was originally
spoken in Hebrew, in Jerusalem. It was published, in part, in English in
the London Jewish Chronicle, and the author is indebted to the
conductors of that periodical for permission to include this, and other
material, in the present collection.
Some others of the chapters have been printed before, but a
considerable proportion of the volume is quite new, and even those
addresses that are reprinted are now given in a fuller and much revised
text.
As several of the papers were intended for popular audiences, the
author is persuaded that it would ill accord with his original design to
overload the book with notes and references. These have been supplied
only where absolutely necessary, and a few additional notes are
appended at the end of the volume.
The author realizes that the book can have little permanent value. But
as these addresses seemed to give pleasure to those who heard them, he
thought it possible that they might provide passing entertainment also
to those who are good enough to read them.
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS
CAMBRIDGE, ENG., September, 1911

CONTENTS
I. "THE BOOK OF DELIGHT"
II. A VISIT TO HEBRON
III. THE SOLACE OF BOOKS

IV. MEDIEVAL WAYFARING
V. THE FOX'S HEART
VI. "MARRIAGES ARE MADE IN HEAVEN"
VII. HEBREW LOVE SONGS
VIII. A HANDFUL OF CURIOSITIES
i. George Eliot and Solomon Maimon ii. How Milton Pronounced
Hebrew iii. The Cambridge Platonists iv. The Anglo-Jewish Yiddish
Literary Society v. The Mystics and Saints of India vi. Lost Purim Joys
vii. Jews and Letters viii. The Shape of Matzoth
NOTES
INDEX
[Transcriber's Note: Index not included in this e-text edition.]

"THE BOOK OF DELIGHT"
Joseph Zabara has only in recent times received the consideration justly
due to him. Yet his "Book of Delight," finished about the year 1200, is
more than a poetical romance. It is a golden link between folk-literature
and imaginative poetry. The style is original, and the framework of the
story is an altogether fresh adaptation of a famous legend. The
anecdotes and epigrams introduced incidentally also partake of this
twofold quality. The author has made them his own, yet they are mostly
adapted rather than invented. Hence, the poem is as valuable to the
folklorist as to the literary critic. For, though Zabara's compilation is
similar to such well-known models as the "Book of Sindbad," the
Kalilah ve-Dimnah, and others of the same class, yet its appearance in
Europe is half a century earlier than the translations by which these
other products of the East became part of the popular literature of the
Western world. At the least, then, the "Book of Delight" is an important

addition to the scanty store of the folk-lore records of the early part of
the thirteenth century. The folk-lore interest of the book is, indeed,
greater than was known formerly, for it is now recognized as a variant
of the Solomon-Marcolf legend. On this more