The Book of Delight, and Other Papers | Page 4

a good deal of mere rudeness, which the

author seems to mistake for cutting repartee. This, I take it, is another
characteristic of the so-called new humor.
The probable explanation of the marked divergence between Zabara's
stories and the moral he draws from them lies, however, a little deeper.
The stories themselves are probably Indian in origin; hence they are
marked by the tone hostile to woman so characteristic of Indian
folk-lore. On the other hand, if Zabara himself was a friendly critic of
woman, his own moralizings in her favor are explained. This theory is
not entirely upset by the presence even of the additional stories, for
these, too, are translations, and Zabara cannot be held responsible for
their contents. The selection of good anecdotes was restricted in his day
within very narrow limits.
Yet Zabara's reading must have been extensive. He knew something of
astronomy, philosophy, the science of physiognomy, music,
mathematics, and physics, and a good deal of medicine. He was
familiar with Arabian collections of proverbs and tales, for he informs
his readers several times that he is drawing on Arabic sources. He knew
the "Choice of Pearls," the Midrashic "Stories of King Solomon," the
"Maxims of the Philosophers," the "Proverbs of the Wise"; but not
"Sendabar" in its Hebrew form. His acquaintance with the language of
the Bible was thorough; but he makes one or two blunders in quoting
the substance of Scriptural passages. Though he disclaimed the title of
a Talmudic scholar, he was not ignorant of the Rabbinic literature.
Everyone quotes it: the fox, the woman, Enan, and the author. He was
sufficiently at home in this literature to pun therein. He also knew the
story of Tobit, but, as he introduces it as "a most marvellous tale," it is
clear that this book of the Apocrypha was not widely current in his day.
The story, as Zabara tells it, differs considerably from the Apocryphal
version of it. The incidents are misplaced, the story of the betrothal is
disconnected from that of the recovery of the money by Tobit, and the
detail of the gallows occurs in no other known text of the story. In one
point, Zabara's version strikingly agrees with the Hebrew and Chaldee
texts of Tobit as against the Greek; Tobit's son is not accompanied by a
dog on his journey to recover his father's long-lost treasure.

One of the tales told by Zabara seems to imply a phenomenon of the
existence of which there is no other evidence. There seems to have
been in Spain a small class of Jews that were secret converts to
Christianity. They passed openly for Jews, but were in truth Christians.
The motive for the concealment is unexplained, and the whole passage
may be merely satirical.
It remains for me to describe the texts now extant of the "Book of
Delight." In 1865 the "Book of Delight" appeared, from a fifteenth
century manuscript in Paris, in the second volume of a Hebrew
periodical called the Lebanon. In the following year the late Senior
Sachs wrote an introduction to it and to two other publications, which
were afterwards issued together under the title Yen Lebanon (Paris,
1866). The editor was aware of the existence of another text, but,
strange to tell, he did not perceive the need of examining it. Had he
done this, his edition would have been greatly improved. For the
Bodleian Library possesses a copy of another edition of the "Book of
Delight," undated, and without place of issue, but printed in
Constantinople, in 1577. One or two other copies of this edition are
extant elsewhere. The editor was Isaac Akrish, as we gather from a
marginal note to the version of Tobit given by Joseph Zabara. This
Isaac Akrish was a travelling bookseller, who printed interesting little
books, and hawked them about. Dr. Steinschneider points out that the
date of Isaac Akrish's edition can be approximately fixed by the type.
The type is that of the Jaabez Press, established in Constantinople and
Salonica in 1560. This Constantinople edition is not only longer than
the Paris edition, it is, on the whole, more accurate. The verbal
variations between the two editions are extremely numerous, but the
greater accuracy of the Constantinople edition shows itself in many
ways. The rhymes are much better preserved, though the Paris edition
is occasionally superior in this respect. But many passages that are
quite unintelligible in the Paris edition are clear enough in the
Constantinople edition.
The gigantic visitor of Joseph, the narrator, the latter undoubtedly the
author himself, is a strange being. Like the guide of Gil Bias on his
adventures, he is called a demon, and he glares and emits smoke and

fire. But he proves amenable to argument, and quotes the story of the
washerwoman, to show