“Pagans Love Poetry” is one of the final poems in Almog Behar’s probing 2021 collection, To Rub Salt into Love, which explores the languages, cultures, and sacred traditions of the fraught region of Israel/Palestine in which Behar, a Mizrahi Jew of Iraqi-, Turkish-, and German-Jewish descent, lives and writes. Behar’s literary influences extend to the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, and to the medieval Jewish poets and thinkers of Al-Andalus, and his poems are filled with intertextual allusions. This poem includes references to the Song of Songs (“to awaken their love until it pleases” ) and to Genesis (“the fiery ever-turning sword that guards the way”), which add layers of complexity both to the poem itself and to the task of translation. The sardonic tone and absurdist humor of “Pagans Love Poetry” offer some relief from the book’s often difficult subject matter, while staying true to its central preoccupation with exploding binaries and “muddl[ing] up” our world. In this era of book bannings and increased censorship, the poem’s speaker reminds us of the expansiveness of poetry, its capacity to enchant and to inspire.
— Shoshana Olidort, translator
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Pagans Love Poetry
Pagans love poetry,
they use it to enchant their gods and their kings,
to curse other gods and kings.
Lovers love poetry
they use it to enchant their beloveds,
to arouse their love until it pleases.
But we, believers in the one God,
who are married to the one woman,
hate poetry. It lengthens
the lives of the gods who are not
our god, and our longing for the other women,
who are not our wives.
We, the monogamous monotheists
do not like poetry. It opens wide
from above us the muzzle of its liberty, and perhaps
we will meet in it a different god or a different woman
and our lives will get muddled up.
We are the dam that prevents the gods
from rising up again from the abyss. We are the blazing, ever-turning sword
that guards the way to the Garden of Eden, that our lives not be consumed by longing
for Eve or for Lilith, or for them both.
* * * * *
פגאנים אוהבים שירה
פָּגָאנִים אוֹהֲבִים שִׁירָה,
מַשְׂבִּיעִים בָּהּ אֶת אֵלֵיהֶם וּמַלְכֵיהֶם,
מְקַלְּלִים אֵלִים וּמְלָכִים אֲחֵרִים.
מְאַהֲבִים אוֹהֲבִים שִׁירָה,
מַשְׂבִּיעִים בָּהּ אֶת אֲהוּבוֹתֵיהֶם,
מְעִירִים אֶת אַהֲבָתָן עַד שֶׁתֶּחְפַּץ.
אֲבָל אֲנַחְנוּ, הַמַּאֲמִינִים בָּאֵל הָאֶחָד,
הַנְּשׂוּאִים לָאִשָּׁה הָאַחַת,
שׂוֹנְאִים שִׁירָה. הִיא מַאֲרִיכָה
אֶת חַיֵּי הָאֵלִים שֶׁאֵינָם
אֱלֹהֵינוּ, וְאֶת גַּעֲגוּעֵינוּ לַנָּשִׁים הָאֲחֵרוֹת,
שֶׁאֵינָן נְשׁוֹתֵינוּ.
אֲנַחְנוּ הַמּוֹנוֹתֵיאִיסְטִים הַמּוֹנוֹגָמִיִּים
לֹא אוֹהֲבִים שִׁירָה. הִיא
פּוֹעֶרֶת מֵעָלֵינוּ אֶת לֹעַ חֵרוּתָהּ, וְאוּלַי
נִפְגֹּש בָּהּ אֵל אַחֵר אוֹ אִשָּׁה אַחֶרֶת,
וְיִתְבַּלְבְּלוּ חַיֵּינוּ.
אֲנַחְנוּ הַסֶּכֶר הַמּוֹנֵעַ מִן הָאֵלִים
לַעֲלוֹת שׁוּב מִן הַתְּהוֹם. אֲנַחְנוּ לַהַט הַחֶרֶב הַמִּתְהַפֶּכֶת
הַשּׁוֹמֶרֶת אֶת דֶּרֶךְ גַּן הָעֵדֶן, שֶׁלֹּא יִכְלוּ חַיֵּינוּ בְּגַעֲגוּעִים
לְחַוָּה אוֹ לְלִילִית אוֹ לִשְׁתֵּיהֶן.