Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid

Rating:
Summary: a singing, full-bodied and essential translation
Review: Cole's translations of the poet Shmuel Hanagid, long ranked as one of the great untranslatables of medieval Hebrew poetry for his packed, punning and allusive lines, is a kind of miracle of transhistorical perfect pitch. The poems can be savored for the richness and variety of their diction on a piecemeal basis, but when the book is read whole, a man emerges with remarkable amplitude and roundness. This is a translation that ranks up there with those of Robert Fitzgerald. For all lovers of poetry, medieval studies, or the difficult art of translation, I say grab this book and savor it