The World According to Itzik: Selected Poetry and Prose

310 Pages·2013·1.25 MB·English

by  Itzik Manger

The World According to Itzik:
Selected Poetry and Prose
Itzik Manger
Translated and Edited by Leonard Wolf
With an Introductionby David G. Roskies and Leonard Wolf
Yale University Press
New Haven & London
This book is dedicated to the memory of Uriel Weinreich, scholar, Yiddishist, and
friend, who introduced me to the work of Itzik Manger
—L. W.
Contents
Let Us Sing Simply
Introduction
POETRY
Itzik’s Midrash
Introduction
The Sacrifice of Itzik
I Praise Thee Lord
Eve and the Apple Tree
Eve Brings Adam the Apple
Abraham Scolds Lot
Lot’s Daughters
Abraham and Sarah
Hagar’s Last Night in Abraham’s House
Hagar Leaves Abraham’s House
Hagar on Her Journey
Abraham Takes Itzik to the Sacrifice
The Patriarch Abraham Gets a Letter
Rachel Goes to the Well for Water
The Patriarch Jacob Meets Rachel
Leah Brings Mandrakes from the Field
Jacob Teaches the Story of Joseph to His Sons
Bathsheba
King David and Abishag
Abishag Writes a Letter Home
Cain and Abel
King David
Songs of the Megillah
Prologue
Invocation
The Song of the Runner
How the Blessed Mordecai Found Favor in the Eyes of the King
Queen Vashti
The King’s Banquet
Vashti’s Song of Grief
Queen Vashti Being Led to Execution
Esther Getting Ready for the King
Mordecai Leaving Esther’s Wedding
Fastrigosso’s Elegy
Queen Esther Can’t Sleep
Fastrigosso Dreaming
The Blessed Mordecai, the Mediator
The Queen Comes to the King
Fastrigosso Has the Birds Carry a Greeting to Esther
Haman Telephones Vayzosse, the Editor, at His Office
Fonfosso, the Master Tailor, Delivers a Eulogy on Fastrigosso
The King Ahasuerus After the Assassination Attempt
Mordecai Comes to Queen Esther
Wicked Haman Can’t Sleep
Wicked Haman in the King’s Courtyard
Fonfosso and His Apprentices Sew a Uniform for Haman
Pious Mordecai Waits for Satan
The Master Tailor, Fonfosso, Prepares to Fast
Queen Esther, Fasting
Haman Gets Ready for the Masked Ball
The King Is Angry
Haman Being Taken to the Gallows
The Master Tailor, Fonfosso, Presides over a Banquet
Fastrigosso’s Mother Lights a Memorial Candle
Ballads
The Ballad of the White Glow
The Ballad of the Crucified and the Verminous Man
Old-Fashioned Ballad
Hospital Ballad
The Ballad of the Man Riding to the Fair
Ballad
The Ballad of the Blue Pitchers
The Ballad of the Necklace of Stars
Erotic Ballad
The Ballad of the Man Who Went from Gray to Blue
Occasional Poems
In the Train
Baal Shem
Satan’s Prayer
Evening
Saint Besht
Like a Murderer
With Silent Steps
November
At the Kolomey Station
Twilight
The Words of the Journeyman Tailor Notte Manger to the Poet
There Is a Tree That Stands
Rabenu Tam
Reb Levi Yitskhok
Since Yesterday
For Years I Wallowed
Epilogue
PROSE
Autobiographical Episodes
Childhood Years in Kolomey
At Grandmother Taube’s in Stopchet
A Portrait of a Tailor’s Workshop
Fiction
Excerpts from The Book of Paradise
The Tales of Hershel Summerwind
The Story of the Nobleman’s Mustaches
The Rabbi of Chelm: May His Memory Be Blessed
Essays
First Letter to X. Y.
The Ballad: The Vision of Blood
Sholem Aleichem, the One and Only
Folklore and Literature
Notes
Let Us Sing Simply
Let us sing simply, directly, and plain Of all that’s familiar and dear.
Of agéd beggars who curse at the frost And of mothers blessing the fire.
Of indigent brides with their candles who stand At sightless mirrors,
forlorn,
Each of them seeking the intimate face They loved and that laughed them
to scorn.
Of those who cast lots and who steal the last coin Of their victims with
speech that’s obscure; And of wives who, deserted, curse at the
world, Slinking away through back doors.
Of housemaids whose fingers are worked to the bone And who hide from
their mistress’s sight The morsels they save for the soldiers who
come On their visits to them every night.
Let us sing simply, directly, and plain Of all that’s familiar and dear.
Of indigent mothers who curse at the frost And of beggars blessing the
fire.
Of young women in summer forced to abandon Their bastards on
doorsteps, and quail At the sight of a man in a uniform Who is able to
send them to jail.
Of hurdy-gurdies that grind and grind In poor courtyards on Fridays all
day, And of thieves surprised at their work who must Flee over the
rooftops away.
Of ragpickers picking their way through debris, Who dream of the
treasure they’ll find, Of poets who foolishly trusted the stars Then
promptly went out of their minds.
Let us sing simply, directly, and plain Of all that’s familiar and dear.
Of agéd folk who curse at the frost And of children blessing the fire.
Introduction
David G. Roskies and Leonard Wolf
In modern Yiddish literature, what often seems naive proves to be extremely
sophisticated. Poets of folklike verse are revealed to be consummate craftsmen
and the comic writers are invariably the most deadly serious. Proofs of this
paradox are the fables-in-verse of Eliezer Steinbarg (1880–1932) and the whole
comic oeuvre of Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916). Among a somewhat younger
generation of writers, however, only one created a corpus of ballads and Bible
poems so seamless that they might have been written by the anonymous “folk”;
a body of autobiographical fiction so innocent and playful as to make the Jewish
child into a harbinger of hope; and satires that carried such a punch, they could
stave off the fear of destruction. His name was Itzik Manger (né Isidore Helfer).
The present selection of poetry, prose, and literary essays is the first attempt in
English to give Manger his due as a modernist folk bard, divinely inspired
prankster, and consummate poet of exile and homecoming.
Czernowitz, the multiethnic city of his birth in 1901, was also the birthplace
of Paul Celan, Dan Pagis, and Aharon Appelfeld. Like other aspiring young
Jews of his time, Manger looked to German literature as the pinnacle of
European civilization. At the Kaiser-Königlicher Dritter Staats-Gymnasium,
Manger’s fellow pupils crowned him “Poet” for having given Goethe’s ballad
“The Loyal Eckardt” a theatrical form. Then Manger was expelled for bad
behavior.1 Other pranks soon followed, one of his favorites being the invention
of a mock biography. Here is what, decades later, he submitted to the noted
lexicographer Zalmen Reisen, who dutifully published it in the augmented
edition of his Lexicon of Yiddish Literature, Press, and Philology (1927).