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KAHN / ANO THER BIALIK
81
This in terp re ta tion must be deliberate on Nevo’s part, since
Bialik’s language here is very clear. Snowman made it:
T he eyes o f the youth opened — the struggle was
reflected in them . . . He gazed lovingly to where the girl was
standing; he was in a fever o f te rro r .
Both Aronin and Beinkinstadt seem to me more faithful than
e ither o f the above to the plain sense o f the poet’s words; I shall
quote Beinkinstadt:
And the eyes o f the youth were opened — and
light and
flame wrestled within them. . .
. And the youth lifted up his eyes
with a pining hea r t towards the place o f the maiden, while
shuddering and bu rn ing th roughou t his whole being (my
italics).
W ithout elaborating the point, I should say that, at this climac
tic moment, the struggle within the you th’s soul between
zohar
and
shalheveth
is between good and evil; the heavenly radiance
and splendor, and Satanic fires; the light o f Heaven, and the
flames o f Hell. To eliminate this difference here, and merge the
two in “a blaze o f light,” may be a pretty bit o f romanticism, but it
falsifies Bialik. Paradoxically, for a m odern in terpre tation , this
merging seems to me a bit sentimental — whereas the poet main
tains his dramatic tensions and ironies to the very end: “the cup o f
speechless sorrow” never fills up, and he remains “toge ther with
the whole world in his g rea t grief o f a hum an being, alone.” So
Nevo; and Bialik italicized the words
yagon ha-yahid
— which
A ronin rendered : “T h e sorrow o f the one-alone.” Ratosh pointed
ou t tha t when the cup o f sorrow will be full the Messiah will come
— as the Yiddish poet Frug wrote in “T he Cup ,” where a boy is
speaking:
“And one day, do you know, mother,
When the cup is fu l l of tears,
The Redeemer o f the world will come,
For whom we pray all these years.
”
(Joseph Leftwich)
So long as the struggle between Light and Flame continues within
us, we remain far from the Messianic Age.
I f I have begun to wander into the jung les o f Bialik in te rp re ta
tion, it has been with the promp ting and help o f Professor Nevo’s