Feasting they love, and high play and flirtation,
And laughter, and pleasure, and wild dissipation.
They look upon evil, of whatever sort,
As a mirth-causing jest, and an innocent sport[[76-1]].
The chief fault of the book is the frequent use of Chaldaic and Aramaic words and phrases, a proper translation of which is almost impossible, but these are more than counterbalanced by its many merits.
Another small treatise, composed by the same author when he was eighteen years old, is one that bears the title צלצול כנפים, and has for its subject “The Defence of Women.” Till about fifteen years ago there was one MS. in existence—that in the Bodleian Library; but Dr. Neubauer published it for the first time in the Jubelschrift (Berlin, 1888), issued by some friends of Zunz on the occasion of his celebrating his ninetieth birthday, under the title of אוהב נשים, “The Women's Friend” This title is more appropriate than the one it originally bore, for the simple reason that the treatise in question was evidently written by Yedaya in opposition to another, composed in 1208, by the physician Judah ben Sabbatai, under the title of שונא נשים, “The Woman-hater.” This treatise, which Yedaya dedicated to two of his friends, viz. to Meïr and Judah, the sons of Don Solomon Del Infanz, is written in rhymed prose, intermixed with a few short verses. Its style is rather heavy, and all that can be gathered from its subject-matter is this, that a certain king, called Cushan Rishataïm, a great woman-hater, once waged war against an army composed of the friends of womankind, and led by a general named Seria. The latter ultimately defeated the king and his hostile troops, and, out of gratitude for his great victory, he was himself proclaimed king by his own followers. Under his reign a new and happy era opened for the women, who are then wooed and married, and loved more dearly than before; and wedded life is everywhere declared to be the most desirable state of existence.
The אוהב נשים closes with the description of the appearance of Judah ben Sabbatai's ghost on earth, and of how it agrees with all Yedaya's statements made there, with the exception of one. Every man, the ghost declares, ought certainly to marry once; but it would be the height of folly on his part if he were to enter again upon the matrimonial state, after his first marriage had turned out a failure.
In passing, it may be mentioned that the same controversy about the merits and demerits of the married state was still carried on in the sixteenth century among some learned Jewish writers in Italy. Among these are most conspicious: Jacob of Fano, who in his poem שלטי הגבורים, “The Shield of the Mighty,” makes a strong attack on women, and Judah Sommo, of Portaleone, who in his treatise מגן נשים, “The Women's Protector,” which exists in a MS. in the Bodleian Library, presents himself as a champion of women. To these writers may be added Messer Leon (flourished at Mantua, at the end of the fifteenth century) who, in a commentary on the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, eulogizes the female sex in general, and a few specially named women in particular. Among them he mentions Laura, the lady-love of the poet Petrarch; and it is interesting to notice the trouble which the author takes to prove that Laura was by no means a myth, as some writers on Petrarch consider her, but that she really existed in person, and was remarkable for her exquisite beauty and grace.
Resuming now our review of Yedaya's literary compositions, especially of those he wrote when he was still very young, we have to refer to a Hebrew hymn of his, well known under the title of בקשת הממין, the formal characteristic of which is this, that each word of it begins with the letter Mem (מ). Bartolocci, in his Bibliotheca Rabbinica, III, p. 7, gives the same hymn the title of תהלה לשם, “Praise of God.” This seems to have been Yedaya's first literary attempt, it being generally assumed that it was composed by him at the age of fourteen. His father, Abraham, himself a writer of Hebrew verses of inferior quality, was so delighted with his son's hymn that he sang its praises in a short Hebrew quatrain. Although, from a literary point of view, the Supplication of the Memmin has little to recommend it, it has passed through fifteen editions, and has frequently been translated into German, and once also into Latin by Hil. Prache, who published his version at Leipzig, in 1662.
Another short composition belonging to an early period of Yedaya's life is his ספר הפרדס, “The Book on Paradise,” which was composed by him at the age of seventeen, and appeared for the first time in print at Constantinople, in 1517. It is divided into four chapters, each of which has a different heading, while the fourth chapter is again subdivided into four sections. The principal subjects discussed in these chapters are (a) The worship of God; (b) Friendship and Enmity; (c) The Lack of Stability in the World; and (d) The Desirability of Studying Science after the usual Devotions. After having reached manhood, he wrote several other treatises of a similar description, each of which will be briefly noticed here.