{"id":61445,"date":"2019-08-19T15:53:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T12:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=61445"},"modified":"2023-03-13T15:35:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T13:35:19","slug":"ode-to-abishag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/ode-to-abishag\/","title":{"rendered":"Ode To Abishag"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our chapter opens with a sad depiction of King David in his dotage. In order to stay warm at night, a young virgin is sought after: \u201cThey found Abishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king. The girl was exceedingly beautiful. She became the king\u2019s attendant and waited upon him; but the king was not intimate with her\u201d (1 Kings 1:1-4).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 22a) elaborates on the relations between King David and Abishag. Abishag suggested to David that they should marry. David replied that this would not be permitted because he already had eighteen wives, the maximum number permitted a king of Israel (see Mishnah Sanhedrin 2:4). Abishag countered: \u201cWhen a thief lacks victims, he professes himself to be an upright man \u2013 the true reason you refuse to marry me is that you are too impotent to have marital relations with me!\u201d To show Abishag that she was wrong, David summoned his wife Bathsheba (1 Kings 1:15) and had sex with her thirteen times, while Abishag was serving the king.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abishag\u2019s serving King David is the subject of later literature, particularly among American Jewish Women Poets, such as Shirley Kaufman and Louise Gluck. However, one of the most well-known poems about Abishag is by the Bohemian-Austrian Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, the first section of which is well-worth citing in full:<\/span><\/p>\n

Abishag<\/em> (1907)<\/span><\/p>\n

(Rilke, Rainer Maria, and George C. Schoolfield, \u201cAbishag,\u201d in <\/span>New Poems<\/span><\/i>, translated by Len Krisak, 2015, Boydell & Brewer, pp. 21\u201322).<\/span><\/p>\n

She lay there. And the king’s subservients tied<\/span>
\n<\/span>her childlike arms around the withered powers<\/span>
\n<\/span>of him on whom she lay those sweet long hours.<\/span>
\n<\/span>His full years left her almost terrified.<\/span>
\n<\/span>And sometimes, when she heard the screech owl scream,<\/span>
\n<\/span>she’d turn and bury in his beard her face;<\/span>
\n<\/span>then everything that was the nighttime came<\/span>
\n<\/span>in fear and longing, flocking to that place.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The stars were trembling with her, as a scent<\/span>
\n<\/span>went searching through the bedroom where she lay.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The curtain stirred \u2014 a sign, but what was meant?<\/span>
\n<\/span>Her soft eyes sought the sign, turning that way,<\/span>
\n<\/span>but still she clung to him \u2014 that dark old man \u2014<\/span>
\n<\/span>untouched by what the night of nights can do.<\/span>
\n<\/span>She lay, upon the chilling he began,<\/span>
\n<\/span>As lightly as a soul \u2014 a virgin, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

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