Early Yiddish Epic

a p p en di x b

419 a p p e n d i x b Briyo and Zimro ‫ה‬ָ ‫ר‬ ְ ‫ימ‬ִ ‫וז‬ ‫ה‬ָ ‫יע‬ ִ ‫ר‬ ְ ‫ב‬ / Briyo ve-Zimro Anonymous, 1585 The inclusion of the heroic prose tale ‫ה‬ָ ‫ר‬ ְ ‫ימ‬ִ ‫וז‬ ‫ה‬ָ ‫יע‬ ִ ‫ר‬ ְ ‫ב‬ Briyo ve-Zimro (Briyo and Zimro) in the appendix to a collection of epic poems has been justified above in the introduction : the narrative is, one might suggest, precisely the kind of material on which chapbook epics (Volksbücher) of the period were based; it is itself a typical late-sixteenth -century epic in all respects except that it is not in poetic form. According to my own definition, however, that is precisely the deciding factor, and thus despite its otherwise “epic” content, it is here included in the appendix as an illustration of that transition between verse epic and its functional cultural replacement in the coming decades by the development of the adventure novel. This remarkable story combines numerous traditional and folkloric motifs, such as the sword in the stone, parental prohibitions that block the union of star-crossed lovers, a verdict that demonstrates a young jurist’s sense of justice, the hero’s journey to the Otherworld on the back of a magical horse (while there attempting to retrieve his beloved), a prohibition on eating (or even touching) anything in the Otherworld, a divinely sanctioned wedding in the afterlife, and a riddling hero who saves his life by means of the intellectual conquest of his nemesis while in his power, among others. The tale thus resonates for the modern reader with Solomon’s judgment of the two mothers, the stories of Orpheus, Persephone, Gawain and/or Perceval, Romeo and Juliet, the Norse warrior poet Egil, and King Arthur—quite a roll call of analogues .1 In early Yiddish literature, the narrative also presents a love story without peer. It is, incidentally, almost exactly contemporary with Shakespeare’s great dramatic love stories, and also with the greatest of the early Yiddish “secular” epics, Pariz un Viene, although it is still more emotionally intense. As is also the case in Pariz un Viene, this narrative offers a significant instance of an important female character who takes a full participatory role in the narrative. While the tale combines a number of motifs from a broad range of Pan-European narrative traditions (not unusual in Ashkenazic literature of the period), it nonetheless remains quintessentially Jewish in content. In fact, even despite its quasi-secular identity (insofar as it 420  Appendix B has no biblical source), it participates to a surprising degree in the mode of midrashic epic and actually draws on midrashic sources.2 There is a profound syncretism in the interplay between fantasy and history in the combination of plot motifs: the narrative is set in a period in which Jewish kings rule, with a king named Hurk(e)nis (Hyrcanus II, thus logically during the late Maccabean period), and there are high priests in Jerusalem (thus logically prior to the destruction of the Second Temple), and a pope in Rome, although the functional primacy of the bishop of Rome was not recognized until at least the early fourth but more generally the sixth century CE, and the conflation of the office of pope with that of quasi-imperial temporal ruler belongs altogether to the realm of fantasy. Although such obvious anachronisms are striking, they are no more so than others commonly found in sixteenth-century European tales set in a fantasized antiquity. The motif of the prideful father’s refusal to allow his daughter to marry a suitor whom he deems of lower status is conventional in postchivalric European literature of the period, linked as it was with the quasi-feudal conceptions of power relations that draw more on medieval than ancient epic traditions. Obviously, this motif dovetails rather closely with the similar issue as it appears in the Jewish tradition—the yikhes motif—as becomes clear through its frequent recurrence in the tales included in the present volume. There are three primary strands of the text tradition that are distinct enough from each other that no critical edition is possible. The earliest text witness, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 100 of 1585, is the base text translated here. That manuscript garbles the introduction of the primary characters, however, such that Hurknis seems to be the unnamed king’s second in command, while Zimro is first identified as the son of Tovas3 and then immediately thereafter (in the judgment episode) as the brother of Tovas and both as the sons...