An instance of his plays on words may be given. He noticed that some of his neighbours did not abstain from drinking great quantities of wine during the so-called ten penitential days. He therefore gives them two Hebrew names by which some of Haman's sons are known, viz. פרשנדתא and המדתא. These names are composed of the words פרש־דתא and המם־דתא, which mean respectively “to be separated from, and, to distort, the law,” and they thus depict epigrammatically and wittily the religious character of the objects of Kalonymos's satire.
In addition to the אגרת בעלי חיים Kalonymos also translated several other works and treatises composed by other authors in the Arabic, Greek, and Latin languages, which deal chiefly with medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. A detailed description of them will be found in the interesting book entitled Les Écrivains Juifs français du XIVe siècle, p. 424, by Neubauer. One of these translations, entitled אגרת בסדור קריאת החכמות, contains the significant remark that it was made by Kalonymos by command of King Robert of Naples. The king is there designated by the curious name of “The New Solomon.”
There are likewise some few books and treatises in existence, treating of various subjects, the authorship of which is attributed to Kalonymos. Among these may specially be mentioned a Hebrew translation of a circular letter sent by the above-named king to the Jewish community of Aix, containing the intelligence of his son's death.
Footnotes:
[103-1] Cp. Anibert, Mémoires historiques, II, 201, 397.
[103-2] Cp. Kalonymos's letter, entitled אגרת התשובה, which he addressed to Ibn Caspi, and to which reference will be made later on.
[107-1] Cp. The Daily Morning Prayer for the Israelite, in which the well-known blessing occurs: