"If those that rise from death again must die,
For lot like theirs I ne'er should long and sigh.
If graves their bones shall once again confine,
I hope to stay where first they bury mine."
Naturally, Maimonides' followers were quick to retort:
"His name, forsooth, is Meïr 'Shining.'
How false! since light he holds in small esteem.
Our language always contrast loveth,—
Twilight's the name of ev'ning's doubtful gleam."
Another of Maimonides' opponents was the physician Judah Alfachar, who bore the hereditary title Prince. The following pasquinade is attributed to him:
"Forgive, O Amram's son, nor deem it crime,
That he, deception's master, bears thy name.
Nabi we call the prophet of truths sublime,
Like him of Ba'al, who doth the truth defame."
Maimonides, in his supposed reply to the Prince, played upon the word Chamor, the Hebrew word for ass, the name of a Hivite prince mentioned in the Bible:
"High rank, I wot, we proudly claim
When sprung from noble ancestor;
Henceforth my mule a prince I'll name
Since once a prince was called Chamor."
It seems altogether certain that this polemic rhyming is the fabrication of a later day, for we know that the controversies about Maimonides' opinions in Spain and Provence broke out only after his death, when his chief work had spread far and wide in its Hebrew translation. The following stanza passed from mouth to mouth in northern France:
"Be silent, 'Guide,' from further speech refrain!
Thus truth to us was never brought.
Accursed who says that Holy Writ's a trope,
And idle dreams what prophets taught."
Whereupon the Provençals returned: