Amos Oz - The Same Sea

shirt and his skin and for a moment he felt that all this, breeze, branches,

stars, even the darkness itself, was staring at him as though patiently waiting

for some delayed coin to drop. The dead farmers house where he had spent

most of the day, with its two palm trees in front, suddenly

struck him as perfect for Nirit's Love : the cypresses all round the yard,

the tumbledown henhouses, the stacks of utility furniture,

the flower-patterned plaster all stained, the plywood and formica surfaces

blistered and peeling at the edges, this was the perfect location.

And now he opened himself up to hear the prickly carpet of crickets

and a cow lowing in the dark as though it was his own soul keening and

village women in the distance answered with a heart-rending Russian tune

the like of which you would never hear again in Tel Aviv. Arise now

and go, light and calm get up and go in search of what you have lost.

The Same Sea is replete with allusions to the Bible, the rabbinic writings and modern Hebrew literature. It is not essential to its reading to be able to identify and locate all these allusions, and I felt that to indicate them all by means of footnotes would interfere with the readers enjoyment, but I offer here the references of some of the recurrent biblical allusions, particularly those which might otherwise seem puzzling. The commonest allusions, too frequent and generally familiar to be given here, are to the story of David, told in i and 2 Samuel and the beginning of i Kings. The two short texts, the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) and Ecclesiastes, are also alluded to, as are the Psalms and the Book of Job, in particular the following verses (all quoted from the Authorized King James version):

Song of Songs

1:15 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes.

2:7… by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

2:9 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

2:16 My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

5:1 I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk…

5:2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

5:4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.

5:5 I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.

8:7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

Ecclesiastes

1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

1:3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

1:4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

1:5 The sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

1:6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

1:8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

1:9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

11:7 Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun:

11:8 But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all;, yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.

Psalms

42:1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Job

1:21 Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

The New Testament allusions are mainly to the Gospels. Of the many references to post-biblical Hebrew literature I shall single out one which seems particularly relevant. It is a poem by Rahel (1890–1931):

Only of myself I know how to tell,

my world is as narrow as an ant's,

like an ant too my burden I carry,

too great and heavy for my frail shoulder.

My way too — like the ant's to the treetop—

is a way of pain and toil;

a gigantic hand, assured and malicious,

a mocking hand lies over all.

All my paths are made bleak and tearful

by the constant dread of this giant hand.

Why do you call to me, wondrous shores?

Why do you lie to me, distant lights?

Nicholas de Lange

Cambridge, May 2000

*English in the original.

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