Quick Facts
Biography
Qasmūna bint Ismāʿil (Arabic: قسمونة بنت إسماعيل, probably twelfth-century CE) is the only female Arabic-language Jewish poet attested from medieval Andalusia. Moreover, she is one of only two or three known medieval female Jewish poets, the others being the anonymous wife of Dunash ben Labrat and possibly the sixth-century Sarah of Yemen.
Biography
Little is known about Qasmūna's life. Both surviving sources say that her father was Jewish and that he taught her the art of verse. Whereas al-Maqqari simply calls him Ismāʿil al-Yahudi, however, al-Suyuti calls him Ismāʿil ibn Bagdāla al-Yahudi, and says Qasmūna lived in the twelfth century CE. It has been speculated that Qasmūna's father was Samuel ibn Naghrillah (d. c. 1056), or that Samuel was otherwise an ancestor, but the foundations for these claims are shaky.
Works
Three poems by Qasmūna are known.
1
One is part of a verse-capping challenge set by Qasmūna's father. As edited and translated by Nichols, he begins:
Lī ṣāḥibun dhū [lacuna] qad qābalat | I have a friend whose [lacuna] has repaid good with evil, |
To which Qasmūna replies:
Ka-shshamsi min-ha-l-badru yaqbisu nūra-hu | Just like the sun, from which the moon derives its light |
The missing word in this verse is assumed to be a word denoting a woman of some kind.
2
The most famous of Qasmūna's poems, widely anthologised, is introduced by the comment that she looked in the mirror one day and saw that she was beautiful and had reached the time of marriage. She then utters this verse:
- أرى روضةََ قد حان منها قطافُعا
- وليس يُرى جانِِ يمدّ لعا يدا
- فوآ أسفي يمضي الشبابُ مضيّعاَ
- ويبقى الذي ما إب اسمّيه مفرَدا
- Ayā rawḍatan qad ḥāna min-ha qaṭāfu-ha
- wa-laisa yurâ ḥānin yamudda la-ha yadā;
- fa-wā asafī yamdī-shshabābu mudayyaʿan
- wa-yabqâ-lladhī mā lanʾusammī-hi mufradā.
- I see an orchard
- Where the time has come
- For harvesting,
- But I do not see
- A gardener reaching out a hand
- Towards its fruits.
- Youth goes, vanishing; I wait alone
- For somebody I do not wish to name.
3
The last of Qasmūna's known poems runs:
Yā ẓabyatan tarʿa bi-rawdin dāʾiman | Always grazing |