During the medieval and early modern periods, lions served as a common motif in Ashkenazic Jewish culture, bearing diverse symbolism. Also in literature writ- ten in Yiddish, the vernacular language of Ashkenazic Jews, lions were often men- tioned. In this article, three songs about a man fighting a lion – Samson, David, and Benaiah – found within early modern Yiddish epics, are presented. An analy- sis of these songs’ similar content and form suggests that they are short epic songs which have been initially orally transmitted, and later incorporated into the writ- ten long epics in Yiddish which have come down to us. In two of the songs the hero holds the lion’s mouth with both hands, shortly before subduing him, an im- age common in Jewish art but lacking any basis in Jewish texts. This study iden- tifies a Christian background to this image, namely that Samson’s battle with the lion foreshadows the Harrowing of Hell and Jesus’ releasing mankind’s souls from eternal damnation. The study points to the close cultural ties between Jews and Christians in the medieval and early modern eras, which were possible in the sphere of vernacular Yiddish literature. This closeness brought about influences which do not seem to exist in Hebrew literature.
1 Introduction
The lion has been an important motif in many cultures since Antiq- uity, symbolizing great strength – at times protective and at times de- structive. This cultural significance stems most likely from actual en- counters with lions, in which this animal’s immense physical power and elegant movements (of both males and females), and splendid mane (of males only), were acknowledged. Indeed, the lion was of- ten referred to as ‘king of the animals’ (e.g. BT Hagiga 13b).
Lions can easily win a battle with a human being – especially if that human being does not shoot from a gun or drive a motor vehi- cle. Therefore, a story about a man who wins a fight with a lion, at times only with his bare hands, could have evoked excitement among Abstract
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its audience, as it related great human strength and courage. Such sto- ries appear already in ancient cultures, like Hercules and the Nemean lion in Greek mythology, or in Assyria the lion hunt of King Ashur- banipal. In ancient Rome bestiarii went into public battles with lions, either voluntarily seeking pay or glory, or involuntarily having been sentenced to death (damnatio ad bestias). St. Ignatius of Antioch, for example, is attributed such a death (Brent).
On the other hand, some stories tell of people who encountered lions but were surprisingly unharmed by them, like Daniel who was thrown into the lions’ den (Daniel 68.25), or St. Gerasimos of the Jor- dan who tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing his paw.
During the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, the time frame of this article, lions served as a common motif in Ashkenazic Jewish culture, bearing diverse symbolism. For example, the image of lions was often depicted on Torah Ark curtains, and the given names Arye and Leyb (meanineg ‘lion’ in Hebrew and Yiddish respec- tively) were common among men (Beider 277–78 and 358–62). Also in literature written in Yiddish (Shmeruk et al. 338–44), the vernac- ular language of Ashkenazic Jews, lions were often mentioned. So, for example, in one of the oldest extant literary Yiddish documents, we find a fable on a sick lion (Timm, “Fabel vom alten Löwen” 109– 70). Likewise, in the sixteenth-century novel entitled after its main protagonist, Buovo d’Antona, it is related how two lions entered a hut in which Buovo’s wife – a princess – and their two children were pre- sent, but did not harm them at all:
Then two lions [...] saw the hut; they quickly ran inside. Drusiana began to scream. They sniffed her and the children and began to wag their tails, for a lion will do nothing to a person of noble blood. (“Bovo of Antona”, stanzas 472–73: Early Yiddish Epic 295)1
This presence in Ashkenazic culture is not self-evident, since there were no wild lions in medieval and early modern Europe, and cap- tive lions were uncommon.2 It should therefore be primarily attrib- uted to the ancient strata of Judaism (starting with the Hebrew Bi- ble, see below) in which actual encounters with lions were possible. In addition, the general European fascination by this animal (e.g. nu- merous heraldic signs of European royal dynasties depict an image 2. E.g. in the late eighth century
Charlemagne’s menagerie in Aachen held a lion which had been received as a gift from the Emir of Cairo, see Mullan and Marvin 97.
1. For the readers’ benefit, I chose to use the original Italian name form ‘Drusiana’ over Frakes’ transliteration ‘Druzeyne.’
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of a lion: Fox-Davies 172–90) sustained this motif within Ashkena- zic Jewish culture as well.
In the following lines three songs about a man fighting a lion, found within early modern Yiddish epics, will be presented. The similari- ties between them in both form and content will be examined, as well as the influences of relevant texts from Hebrew and German litera- tures on them. Additionally, possible influences of visual art and Jew- ish and Christian interpretations of the Hebrew Bible will be consid- ered. The great similarities between the Yiddish songs, and the sug- gested explanation for a detail in two of the songs which is unac- counted for in Jewish sources, lay the basis for a theory on the songs’ possible common origin within the literary tradition of Yiddish epic. Epic Poetry on Biblical Narratives in Old Yiddish Literature Retelling single episodes or entire Books of the Hebrew Bible in the Jewish vernacular, the genre of biblical epic held a central role in Yid- dish literature for centuries (Turniansky; Frakes). As vernacular re- tellings of the Bible are an ancient Jewish literary tradition (Levin- son 308; Guez-Avigal; Moreen), this genre’s expression in Yiddish may have begun as early as the tenth century, when Jews settled in southern Germany and the Yiddish language came into existence. The Yiddish genre was certainly well developed by the fourteenth century, as the earliest extant epic poems in this language indicate. Four short songs written in a manuscript dated 1382 which was found in the Cairo Geniza, have reached us.3 The short songs retell scenes from Genesis: the expulsion from Paradise, the death of Aaron, Abra- ham and his father’s idols, and Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. These po- ems draw on two cultural sources which seem to characterize most of the genre’s works: thematically they are mostly based on classical Jewish sources, namely the biblical text and its midrashic (exegeti- cal) elaboration, while stylistically they demonstrate the influence of literary forms and aesthetic norms used in German epics, espe- cially in the depiction of battle scenes and scenes set in the royal court (Frakes xxii).
Although the extant inventory of Yiddish epics is lacking, it does provide reason to assume that at first single episodes were framed as short songs that could have been transmitted orally, setting the stage for much longer renditions of entire Books, composed in writing lat- er (Shmeruk, Aspects 118).
3. This manuscript is found today in the Cambridge University Library (T-S.10.K.22): see Fuks, Das altjiddische Epos; Frakes xxii–xxiv, 1–14; Shmeruk, Aspects 26–29.
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The pinnacle of the genre is considered the epic rendition of the Books of Samuel (known as Shmuel-bukh) which have been pre- served in manuscripts as well as several printed editions.4 Other Yid- dish epics state that they should be sung according to the Shmuel- bukh’s melody (Roman 146, n. 3).
Although print boosted the circulation of Yiddish epics, the sev- enteenth century brought a decline in the creative achievements of this genre, symbolically indicated by the last known edition of the Shmuel-bukh in 1612. The last known printing of any Yiddish biblical epic, however, took place in 1730.5 The genre consecutively fell into oblivion until the late nineteenth century, when manuscripts and print editions of Yiddish biblical epics have been rediscovered in li- braries and archives by researchers of Yiddish literature.
Following their rediscovery, excerpts of these works were print- ed anew and have started to circulate again among a varied reader- ship of Yiddish and German speakers (Grünbaum; Basin; Staerk and Leitzmann). However, as these poems reached their modern reader- ship through written documentation only, and not as a living tradi- tion, their performative aspects have been lost.
For many years researchers of Yiddish literature accepted the texts’ markers of orality, especially the strong presence of a lively ‘in- trusive’ narrator in most of them, at face value. Subsequently, the Spielmann Theory which assumed the existence of a class of wander- ing Jewish trouvères who sustained themselves through public per- formances of the epics, has ruled supreme within the study of Yid- dish literature for most of the twentieth century (Shulman viii–ix; Landau xliii–xliv; Erik 67–129). Later opponents of this theory high- lighted the lack of historical evidence to support the existence of such a Spielmann-class, and argued instead that the Yiddish epics’ au- thors came from rabbinic circles. The opponents of this theory also utterly rejected the significance of orality markers within the texts, dismissing them simply as ‘a literary norm’ (Shmeruk, “Can the Cambridge Manuscript”). Nevertheless, even the most bitter of op- ponents to the Spielmann Theory agreed with the assumption that the tradition of biblical Yiddish epics began in the Middle Ages in the form of short songs which were orally transmitted and sung to a set melody (Shmeruk, Aspects 118). It is important to stress this mat- ter, since unlike written transmission within Jewish society which most often sets the text in the realm of Hebrew-literate rabbinic cir- cles, an oral transmission in the vernacular provides the possibility for additional Jewish voices to be heard. Oral literature, especially in 4. Shmuel-bukh was probably
composed in the last third of the fifteenth century. To date three manuscripts from the early sixteenth century as well as seven print editions (editio princeps 1544, last known edition 1612) are known. See Shmeruk, Aspects 122; Shmeruk, “Shisha defusei Mantova;” Timm, Yiddish Literature 30–31.
5. Doniel-bukh, an epic on the Book of Daniel, printed in Altona 1730. See: Dreeßen and Hermann 1: 15 and 17.
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the Early Modern Era, may draw on narrative traditions preceding print and present variation in narratives which today are considered as canonical texts. This thesis will be demonstrated in the case-study below, highlighting elements of popular entertainment as well as cul- tural transfer from the co-territorial German Christian society with- in the Yiddish texts studied.
The Oral-Formulaic Theory
In their early twentieth-century study of epic poetry in the Balkans, Milman Parry and Albert Lord came up with profound insights re- garding the transmission of oral literature (Lord). Thanks to their Oral-Formulaic Theory, characteristics of oral composition and transmission could be discovered in epic works originating in pre- modern times, which have reached us only in writing. Later re- searchers have expanded this theoretical analysis, often criticizing its dichotomous division between orality and literacy, and suggest- ing also intermediate modes of composition and transmission be- tween the written and the spoken (Green 12 and 169–202). Howev- er, for the purpose of this paper, Lord’s definition of purely oral epic poetry is used:
The singer of tales, equipped with a store of formulas and themes and a technique of composition, takes his place before an audience and tells his story. (Lord 99)
According to Lord, an epic formula is “A group of words which is reg- ularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a giv- en essential idea,” and “provide[s] a means for telling a story in song and verse” (Lord 4).6 The epic themes, however, have to do with the story itself. These are “groups of ideas regularly used in telling a tale,” such as the assembly of people, writing a letter, description of the he- ro’s clothes and horse, or the killing of a monster (Lord 68 and 198– 99). Although the theme usually makes up part of the whole story, it may also circulate as a short independent work (Lord 94).