THE PIOUS AND TnE MEN OF RENOWN.
"O happy youth, devoted sage, Who will not put to shame our age !
TIIF. PENITENTS.
"O happy, also, is our age, Which now atones for youth, not sage 1
CHORUS.
"O happy be on whom no guilt doth rest, And he who sinn'd with pardon shall be blest."
These songs were accompanied by the musical instru- ments of the Levites. who stood on the fifteen steps which led to the court of the women. Here is another, a sort of confession made bv the Levites at the same
feast. " When the Levites," says the Mishna, " reached the gate that leads out to the east, they turned west- ward, their faces being towards the Temple, and em- ployed these words :
"Our fathers, here established by thy grace,
Had turn'd their backs upon thy holv place,
And to the rising sun they set their 'face ;
But we will turn to thee, Jehovah God,
Our eyes are set on thee, Jehovah God."
Another fragment of a song has been preserved in the Mishna (Taanith, ad fin.), and was sung on the 15th day of Ab, when the collection of wood required in the sanctuary was finished. Then the maidens all went forth, arrayed in white garments specially lent them, that so rich and poor might be on an equality, into the vineyards around Jerusalem, where they danced and sung :
"Around in circle gay the Hebrew maidens see,
From them the happy youth their partners choose;
Remember beauty soon its charms must lose, And seek to win a maid of fair degree. "When fading grace and beauty low are laid,
Yet her who fears the Lord shall praise await ;
God blessed her handiwork, and, in the gate, 'Her works have followed her,' it shall be said."
IV. The Mashal. — This word, according to its San- scrito-Shemitic root, denotes comparison or resemblance. "In the older Hebrew writings the word is applied to prophecy, to doctrine, to history in the loftier style, and to instruction given in a kind of poetic form, sometimes with the accompaniment of the harp or other music; because, in these various manners of instruction, mate- rial things are employed in the way of parallel or com- parison, to illustrate those which are supersensible or spiritual. Hence mashal became a general name for all poetry which relates to the ordinary or every-day econ- omy of life, with a still more specific application to a distinct epigrammatic saying, proverb, maxim, or re- flection, carrying in itself some important principle Or rule of conduct. The mashal, then, may be said to con- sist commonly of two elements: the thesis, principal fact or lesson, and the type, emblem, or allusion by which it is explained or enforced. The latter may be one of the phenomena of nature, or an imaginary trans- action in common life (parable); or an emblematic group of human agents (apoloqite) ; or of agents non- human, with an understood designation (fable'). Some- times the mashal takes a mathematical cast ; and the doctrine or principle is laid down after a certain arith- metical proportion or canon, midah (Prov. vi, 16; xxx, 15, 18, 21 ; Ecclus. xxiii, 1G ; xxv, 1, 8, 9 ; xxvi, 5, 25 ; 1, 27, 28). When there is no image or allusion of these kinds used, the mashal becomes sometimes an acute, recondite, yet generally pleasant assertion or problem — gryphos, the 'riddle,' or 'enigma;' in Hebrew, chidah, i~l"Pn (Judg. xiv, 12) ; and sometimes an axiom or oracle of practical wisdom — massa, N'£"2, a 'burden,' a weighty saying, from masa, 'to bear;' and when con- veyed in a brilliant, sparkling style of speaking it be- comes melitsah, n^nP^2, the pleasant witticism or the pungent reproof. The remaining form of the mashal is the motto (apophthegm), where some moral is senten- tiously expressed without a simile, and generally with- out the parallelism, as we see in the mottoes of the Hel now sages in the book A both." Of such mottoes, we mention the following of Hillel :
"The more flesh, the more worms; The more riches, the more care: The more wives, the more witchcraft," etc. ; or:
" Because thou madest float, They made thee float : In turn, who made thee float Shall also float"—
this having reference to a skull floating on the water;
'Each one who seeks a name, Shall only lose his fame ;
POETRY
328
POGGIO
Who - lore,
more;
erisb : Who • • e. of learning or merit) does
A vahn
known n ' '"• "'■ ■sV" "■>'
..,„i which we will quote a few sentences:
• II iysii i.in before you require bis aid"
(xxxviii, l '. "I bree things arc contrary to all reason :
. a rich man who denies ii (lives and
: and an old man who commits
adultery" (xxv, 8, l . "A g I wife is a good gift;
ranted to him \\li" fears the Lord. A bad wife -v to her husband ; let him divorce her, and be will !»■ < ur.-.l of his leprosy" (ch. xxvi). " I' vow, consider the vow" (xxviii, rablk.
The non-Palestinian poetry of this time we pass over,
it being writtet Delitzsch, Zur GeschichU
. 17 29, 177 Bq. ; Etheridge, In-
B : ew Literature, p. 92 sq. ; Steinschnei-