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no quarrel in love, how can there be gentle, friendly rebuking or pleasing
bookmaking?”^69 Sahar agrees, and the two maintain this state of affairs,
presumably throughout their marriage, until their dying day.
Insights into Mahbarot Seven and Nine
In Mahbarot Seven and Nine of Sefer Meshalim or Sippurei ’Ahava Jacob
ben Elazar has not only given voices to his women but he has also given
them names and identities. Names of lovers are not usually found in bib-
lical poetry, except for the Shulamit in Song of Songs,^70 nor in Hebrew
love poetry. Male lovers are anonymously addressed as ̔ofer, or sevi, or
the plural of these terms, as in Song of Songs. Jacob ben Elazar, however,
has generously endowed his actors with names that characterize their
traits, at times rather fiendishly. The choice of names in “Yoshefe and
His Two Loves” and “Sahar and Kima’s Love Story” cannot be accidental.
Masos’s name, joy, as in the biblical verse, “a bridegroom’s rejoicing over
his bride,”^71 must be satirical, to say the least. There is a bridegroom and
a bride, but no marital bliss! Birdie/Sippor, who sings like the bird that
her name connotes, chirps her unexpected plaint (teluna) in which she
laments Masos’s boorishness and his lack of desire and affection, com-
plaining, “He hasn’t even tried to kiss me!” (l.425). She, who sings of her
frustrated desire despite being well tutored in the art of love, only en-
hances Jacob ben Elazar’s seeming disdain for the serious nature of love
poetry, perhaps even the institution of courtly love, although in the tale
of Kima and Sahar he apparently displays his approval of it. Sippor’s tale is
harsh but comical and seemingly derides the tradition of the cruel female
lover so pervasive in Hebrew love poetry. Masos is the only male lover
in these two mahbarot who appears untainted by the pangs of love. His
façade as the jocular and prosperous procurer of Yoshefe’s opulent love
nest in Cairo and the quasi-defender of Yoshefe’s honor belies his paro-
died manhood and bizarre behavior. On the other hand, Yoshefe, Yefefia,
and Yemima, whose names signify “attractiveness,” “beauty” and “purity,”
respectively, are coveted and loved, and they prove that beauty and hand-
someness succeed in attaining love, despite torment and anguish along
the way. Nowhere in his “Love Songs” has Jacob ben Elazar written about
Sippor’s beauty, only her youth, intellect, generosity, and composition of
poetry under the tutelage of Yefefia and Yemima. If our author is hinting
that Masos’s and Sippor’s unconsummated love is the expression of ideal,