An ideal personage, richly endowed, a poet, and at the same time a great thinker, was Solomon Ibn-Gebirol (Jebirol), in Arabic, Abu Ayub Sulaiman Ibn-Yachya (born 1021, died 1070). His father, Judah, who lived in Cordova, appears to have emigrated with Ibn-Nagrela, during the disturbances that befell the city, to Malaga. In this place was born and bred the Jewish Plato, by whom many hearts have been warmed, and from whom many minds have gained light. It appears that Ibn-Gebirol lost his parents early, and that they left him without means. His tender, poetical soul grew sad in his loneliness; he withdrew from the outer world, and became absorbed in self-contemplation. Poetry and a faith resting upon a philosophical basis seem, like two angels, to have shadowed him with their wings, and to have saved him from despair. But they could not bring joy to his heart; his thoughts remained serious, and his songs have a mournful strain.
At an age when other men still indulge in the frivolities of youth, Ibn-Gebirol was a finished poet, outshining all his predecessors. His poems show that words and rhymes, thoughts and metaphors, readily and exuberantly came to him. He improved the Hebrew meter and softened its tones. The poetic muse, which had been personified neither in Biblical nor in neo-Hebraic poetry, he depicted as a dove with golden wings and a sweet voice. In his desolation and distress the young poet found a comforter and protector in a man whom his poems have immortalized. Yekutiel Ibn-Hassan or Alhassan appears to have had a high position in Saragossa, under King Yachya Ibn-Mondhir, similar to that held by Samuel Ibn-Nagrela in Granada. This distinguished man kindly protected the desolate poet, supported him and soothed him with his friendship. Ibn-Gebirol poured forth the praises of his patron, under whose protection his heart was taught a more cheerful philosophy of life. At this time his muse sang the praises of his patrons and friends, and his pictures of nature are bright, graphic and spirited.
But fate did not long permit him to enjoy these privileges, and before he had begun to feel the joy of living, his protector was snatched away from him. Abdallah Ibn-Hakam plotted against the king, his cousin, attacked and murdered him in his palace, and took possession of the treasures. The king's favorites were not spared by the conspirators, and Yekutiel Ibn-Alhassan was imprisoned and afterwards killed. Northern Spain was plunged into grief over the tragic end of the well-beloved Yekutiel. Ibn-Gebirol's grief was without bounds, and his elegy on his benefactor is touching, withal a model of lofty poetry. The poem numbers more than two hundred verses, and is a memorial both of the departed and of the poet. Ibn-Gebirol again fell a prey to melancholy after this incident, and his poetry henceforth reflects the gloom in which his mind was shrouded. But what would have borne down another, stimulated him to fresh flights, and he now approached the summit of his poetic and literary greatness. Versifying was so easy to him that in his nineteenth year (1040) he wrote a Hebrew grammar with all its dry rules in four hundred verses, hampering himself, moreover, by acrostic tricks, and the repetition of the same rhyme throughout (Anak). In the introduction to this poem Ibn-Gebirol describes the holy language as one favored by God, "in which the angel choirs daily praise their Creator, in which God revealed the Sinaitic Law, the prophets prophesied and the psalmists sung." He blamed his countrymen, the men of Saragossa, the blind community, for their indifference to pure Hebrew. "Some speak Idumæan (Romance), and some the language of Kedar" (Arabic). His versified Hebrew Grammar was intended to awaken love for the language of the Bible, and at the same time to teach the laws of the language.
In Saragossa, Ibn-Gebirol composed a work on moral philosophy (1045), which, without possessing the depth of his later philosophical works, is remarkable for the peculiar spirit which pervades it, and for the intimate acquaintance with the masters of philosophy evinced by this young man. By the side of the sayings of Holy Writ and ethical sentences from the Talmud, Ibn-Gebirol put the favorite sayings of the "divine Socrates," of his disciple Plato, of Aristotle, of Arabic philosophers, and more especially those of a Jewish philosopher, Alkuti (perhaps Chepez Alkuti). It is surprising how so young a writer could have had so deep an insight into the condition of the human soul and into worldly affairs. Ibn-Gebirol's writings contained scornful criticism of various personages in the community of Saragossa, whom he no doubt desired to offend. They must have felt his castigation the more keenly, as he said, "I need not mention names, for they are sufficiently well known." He describes the haughty, who look down upon their fellow-citizens, and always consider their own counsel the best, and those who, filled with hate, bear words of love on their lips. The pamphlet seems, in fact, to have been a challenge to his opponents in Saragossa. Ibn-Gebirol, in consequence of its publication, was turned out of Saragossa (in 1045) by the influential men whom he had embittered.
In return, he describes the town as a second Gomorrha in a mournful, heart-rending lamentation, the beautifully rhythmical cry of distress uttered by despair. Whither he next went is not known. The unfortunate young poet was so inconsolable that he determined, in his indignation, to leave Spain altogether, and to go to Egypt, Palestine and Babylonia. In a poem he encourages his soul in the resolve to shake off the dust of Spain. He calls to memory the example of the patriarchs and of the greatest prophet, who left their native lands and went to foreign climes. He thus apostrophizes Spain:
"Woe to thee, land of my foes,
In thee I have no portion,
Whether joy or sorrow be thy lot."
He did not, however, carry out his determination to emigrate, but wandered about in Spain, meeting with real or imaginary misfortunes. He complained of the inconstancy of the times and of his friends, and poured forth his plaints in beautiful verses:
"Blame me not for my heavy-flowing tears,
But for them were my heart consumed,
My wanderings have bereft me of all strength,
A fly could now with ease bear me up."
The tutelary genius of the Spanish Jews, Samuel Ibn-Nagrela, appears to have taken an interest in Ibn-Gebirol, and to have found a refuge for him. For this kindness Ibn-Gebirol extolled Nagrela in melodious lines. Under the powerful protection of the Jewish minister he occupied himself with philosophical studies, which held the place next to poetry in his heart. If poetry was his beloved, philosophy was a mother to him. He thus sings:
"How shall I forsake wisdom?
I have made a covenant with her.
She is my mother, I her dearest child;
She hath clasped her jewel about my neck.
Shall I cast aside the glorious ornament?
While life is mine, my spirit shall aspire
Unto her heavenly heights.
I will not rest until I find her source."