Jewish Parody and Allegory in Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Spain r 223And now his own desire he slakes
No opening for love appears
To find a portal he fears
To hug or kiss me he tries not
And now a storm churns the pot
Surely once his heart’s desire
For death his soul incites
Yet today with desire inflamed
He will yet arouse love’s flame...............
His heart lacks desire (hesheq)
Like mine, as far as Shinar
As his rapport with me is close
My soul is not remote
............
Like ice bare of hair
Like a clean-shaven priest
Whom a razor has fleeced^51
Like a man with no face
Stripped nude in disgrace
Like a man with no gear^52
Displaying his fear^53
Like a frothing madman^54
One he scolds, another he chides
Like a fool inclined to folly
Inclined to sit naked and dotty
(ll. 418–40).^55
As painful as Sippor’s plaint is, the reader is somewhat startled by her, and
Jacob ben Elazar’s, candor. And it is to this that Yemima and Yefefia an-
swer, apparently derisively and sarcastically because their delicate senses
may be affronted by their novice’s crude words: “Many daughters have
acted daringly, but you have bested them all!”^56 As a counterbalance to
the immediate desire that inflamed Yoshefe, Yefefia, and Yemima, rushing
headlong into love and lovemaking, Masos not only appears to be biding
his time but his erratic behavior, as described by Sippor, leads the reader
to wonder whether Jacob ben Elazar is mocking the genre of love poetry
itself in his exaggeration of its physical torments.