Where love reigns for ever and ever supreme.
There are several novelettes in the Machberoth dealing with various piquant incidents, but the two following are perhaps most suitable for quotation. In themselves they are slight enough, but they become a ready vehicle for the author's satire. In one of them (chap. 14) a clever trick is described; how a certain legacy hunter succeeded in obtaining a large gift from some trustees. A wealthy Jew living in Rome had a quarrelsome woman for a wife and a spendthrift and a fool for a son, both of whom embittered his life. One day, the wretched man fled from his native town with all his movables, and settled in Greece, where he lived for a number of years in peace and contentment. Shortly before his death he made his will, leaving all his property to his prodigal son. As executors of his will he nominated some elders of the local community. When in due course the father died, and the intelligence of his death and testament was made known in Rome, the son took no steps to have the will executed. Meanwhile a certain swindler, hearing of this, presented himself before the executors with every sign of grief, and claimed the legacy as the son and heir of the deceased. The executors, without troubling themselves very much about his credentials, handed over the legacy to him. When some time after the rightful heir appeared, he was laughed to shame, in spite of his producing genuine credentials.
In the second novelette (chap. 23) an incident is recorded that occurred to the author in his practice as a physician. He was once called in to a patient, who was suffering from indigestion. Immanuel prescribed some medicine, and advised him to remain in bed till the following morning, when he hoped to see him again, and to find him completely recovered. Now, the patient was by way of being a poet, and on that particular night, feeling himself inspired, he got out of bed and composed a long poem. This he proudly showed Immanuel on the following morning, telling him at the same time that the medicine had done him no good. “Pardon me, my friend,” said Immanuel, “my medicine has had an excellent effect upon you: it has removed from your brain a large quantity of rubbishing poetry.”
Wit of another kind is shown in Immanuel's exegetical dialogue (chap. 11), in which he explains some Biblical passages and phrases that had been misunderstood by various persons, who had come to ask him for his opinion. The following will serve as a specimen of the whole.
A man, who apparently considered himself an expert in Biblical lore, asked the author quite seriously how it was that, having always been told that the “law” had been given on Mount Sinai, in another passage, occurring in the Book of Esther (iii. 15), it is expressly stated that “the law was given in Shushan,” thus mistaking the Mosaic law for that promulgated by King Ahasuerus (for the destruction of all his Jewish subjects). But Immanuel was equal to the occasion, and in an equally serious manner said: “You are quite right, my friend, but you seem to have misunderstood the meaning of the word “Shushan.” The latter does not refer to the place, but to the time in which the law was given. This was in the Shushan-season (שושן=“rose”), when the rose is in its full bloom, which is, as everybody knows, in spring time.”
On another occasion Immanuel treats satirically of the theme which Horace dealt with in his first satire, beginning:—
Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo quam sibi sortem, &c.
The author represents a number of persons, each of whom is dissatisfied with his position. They learn, however, that those very persons who had been the objects of their envy, themselves suffered from various unimagined evils, and accordingly declare on oath that they would never consent to change from what they actually are.
Immanuel does not, however, restrict himself to humorous subjects. He shows himself possessed of tender sensibility, which finds expression in several pathetic passages. The sight of tombstones and graves, the death of a near relative or friend, or any kindred event, at once brings with it serious reflections. He then addresses himself to God in fervent prayer, and pours out his innermost soul in strains that are full of warmth and feeling, and impress the mind by their earnestness and devotion. There are nineteen prayers and hymns to be found in the Machberoth, most of which bear the stamp of the author's religious sentiments; the one that occurs in chapter 26, beginning with the words אלהים נפלו פני בזכרי וכ׳, has been inserted in the so-called Roman Machsor (published in the year 1436), which proves its effectiveness as a liturgical poem, and shows at the same time that even a century after the author's death his name was honourably remembered by the Jews of Italy.
To this class of poetry may be added a lengthy epitaph (chap. 21), composed by Immanuel as a kind of “In Memoriam” of himself. In the same chapter is also to be found a funeral oration in rhymed prose, which the author set down as an exemplar of the one he expected would be delivered at his bier after his death. But, even when discussing so serious a topic as death and burial, Immanuel cannot abstain from making jokes on himself and his supposed mourners. Why, he asks mockingly, should he himself fare better than Noah and Solomon, who had to leave behind them, the one a splendid vineyard, and the other a number of beautiful wives? Those who mourn for him, will, he thinks, no doubt forget how to laugh after he is no more, but he expects that they will regain their spirits when they read his posthumous work.