Upon Leaving Lisbon

João Pinto Delgado

17th Century

Here is the infamous [city] gate,

the one of the olive branch and the sword,

for those who leave, it is so closed

and for those who enter, so open.

If in you peace is exiled

you cannot offer that branch,

because one promises peace

and the other wages war.

Gather, O ship, Sodom.

Only its accomplice take on board,

for since you are not the Ark

you need not await the dove.

Stain your fierce knife

and let it remain suspended here,

the mark of infamy will stay on you

like a true coat of arms.

And you, the most ferocious lion,

who kills those who do not injure you,

shall be repaid

by the hand of the One who understands you.

And although your rejoicing is born

of seeing so many perish,

if you made so many see their day come,

you, too, shall see yours.

If our sin obliges us

to suffer such harshness,

consider that the Lord,

though He conceals his actions, does punish.

If it seems that He has forgotten

to punish His enemy,

it is only because the punishment

shall go beyond life.

If your arrogance gloats

over the suffering of so many, be warned

that your suffering begins at your death,

while the other’s ends then.

The not-small noise

of sad lamentations,

like gentle songs,

delights you in your dreams.

You awaken to their chains,

you laugh if you see them cry,

your pleasure is their sorrow,

your comfort their suffering.

The hatred makes you so blind

that without seeing what is obvious,

you ask them not to give death

to the one for whom you fan the flames.

By doing this, your wickedness

hopes to hide its grievous violence;

but if those who understand nothing know about it,

what shall He who understands everything know?

You anoint the eyes with light

and all is darkness.

For whoever denies the truth

what can he give except dissatisfied longing.

So that Heaven shall be angrier still

you fabricated your palace

where you gave a brief space of time

so that the body should incline.

The damsel amid her torment

being uncertain of her life

half living and half dead

responds to your thought.

And between suffering and deceits

her fear did not forgive

the father who engendered her,

all the more so strangers.

If they deny the charge, you deny them life,

and if, seeing no other choice,

they forget themselves and confess,

then they yield their life to the flames.

It was not enough to see the

poor man in your midst sweating,

since what he earned you receive

and what he sowed you take.

Whoever as an idolater errs

enjoys the glories of the earth.

Whoever seeks refuge in heaven

you desire that he should die on earth.

How old-fashioned it is to worship

the gods you fabricated;

with that law that you invented,

you think to trick the world.

If the forest’s green plants

contain so much wood

and the earth produces so many stones,

it is not so that from them you might fashion gods.

You make twenty and you make ten

and none can say a word.

Whoever says that three are one

will say that twenty are three.

Your calculation is an impossibility

and on this your faith is founded,

saying: “What you do not see

this, it is possible by God.” [ . . . ]

Alas for you, fierce Esau

from whom virtue cannot escape!

How will you seize the cloak

of the one that you took it from?

Seeing that with just reason

from your father you did not inherit,

and for the pottage you exchanged

the heavenly benediction.

Straw you shall be on that day

when your brother’s house

sets fire, with their own hand,

to the one who burned his blood.

The exiles will come

to the new Temple to live,

and the one they made to serve,

Him your kings will serve.

Then your confusion

which now you scarce notice,

shall be your very death

and a death without redemption

You shall see how you always went

to the one whose idolatries

increase with the days,

and in those days you lost the sun.

You have eyes but do not see,

you have ears, without hearing.

You are a dormant idol

that has feet and does not walk.

Afflict the one that you have suffered

and burn the one that knows God.

By another hotter coal

shall your kingdom be injured.

This and that robbery begins

and there follows the greatest severity

because the shepherd does not sleep

although the wolf goes about killing.

He seems to you unconcerned

in tolerating such an offense.

Woe to thee, when His fury

reveals the might of His shepherd’s staff.

You shall plead in vain for help

to your gods. Oh, gentile!

If David slew ten thousand,

what shall the Lord’s mighty hand?

And you, O people, who have known

of God’s merciful rod—

return, return to Him that gives you shelter

since He heeds you and you did not call.

Do not change what your shield

and King feels for you.

Let your objective be His Law,

and your life His reason!

Follow His sacred precepts,

so that amidst the squadrons

and among raging lions

your goals you will attain.

Do not forget the place

where you offered up burnt offerings,

where you marked new moons and holy festivals

and made offerings on the sacred altar.

And although He moved away from us

through our error, do not be afraid

because the distances of man

for God are very close.

His right hand he forgets,

O Jerusalem, he who forgets you!

May his years be cut short,

whoever chooses you—O Babylon!

Taking up an instrument there,

the voice, amid such suffering,

may it stick in his throat

when he sings of you.¹

And may the just Heaven protect him

if, driven by sorrow,

he harshly batters your children

to pieces on rocks.

Sacred Jerusalem:

sweet goodness, sweet memory.

Make alive in us, if not the glory,

then the memory of your goodness!

May my thought contemplate

forever you and your greatness,²

because human wealth

is a leaf that the wind carries away.

Never shall my deceptions go

after the day of pleasure,

because in the end, nightfall

closes the account of the years.

A thousand times happier is the one

who in the midst of his affliction,

makes an offering to the God of Zion,

who does not forsake Israel.

And in this sea of confusion

where so many vessels sink

to the happy port, he arrives

where salvation he shall find.

And the King of Kings

alone he fears and alone adores

who was, will be and is now,

One God, one People, one Law.

Oh happy he who trusts

and who firmly awaits

the True Word

that points to the day.

Who always made room

for the Law of God in his bosom.

For the Law that His finger had formed,

which hand can erase?

Come! O Lord, I beseech Thee,

and relieve this great suffering.

Let the world know, if it does not already

that Thy power is greater than its fire.

Let not Thy hand forsake

the one who invokes Thy Sacred Name.

Like a rock he will stand

against the waves of the tyrant.

And meanwhile, amid the shadows

may he see the sun of Thy Truth.

For wherever all is evil

What else can there be but fog?

Translated by

David

Herman

Notes

[Likely Jerusalem.—Trans.]

[Again referring to Jerusalem.—Trans.]

Credits

João Pinto Delgado, “A La Salida de Lisboa (Upon Leaving Lisbon),” in Antología Sefaradí, 1492–1700, ed. María del Carmen Artigas, Verbum Ensayo (Madrid: Editorial Verbum, 1997), 42–46.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

Upon Leaving Lisbon

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