El ruiseñor canta de nuevo

Nuestro amigo Két Sheng nos ha mostrado en los días pasados el hermoso camino que lleva desde una canción tradicional húngara, El gallo está cantando, hasta la canción sefardí Los bilbilicos cantan, a través de la bendición judía Tzur mi-shelo. Allí recordaba Két Sheng que, aparte del gallo, también el ruiseñor aparece como heraldo del amanecer y símbolo de las expectativas de la llegada del Mesías salvador en la tradición hebraica. «No podemos cerrar con más belleza el círculo de nuestro recorrido que exponiendo esta intrincada red de relaciones entre la canción hasídica húngara, la canción amorosa sefardí y el piadoso poema litúrgico judío», escribía al final de su ensayo.

Pero el círculo no está cerrado del todo. El ruiseñor como símbolo del alma que anhela al Salvador es algo bien conocido en la tradición cristiana medieval. Y su desarrollo tiene una historia tan larga y trabada que hace muy posible que la canción sefardí extrajera de ahí el motivo. Sigue siendo muy útil visitar, al respecto, aquel artículo de Mª Rosa Lida de Malkiel —que, por cierto, era judía— «El ruiseñor de las Geórgicas y su influencia en la lírica española de la Edad de Oro» (en La tradición clásica en España, Barcelona, 1975).

Los bestiarios medievales aún no reflejan este sentido alegórico. Como leemos en la página sobre el «ruiseñor» del magnífico Bestiario Medieval, solo se registran tres rasgos del ave. Plinio les da la información de que los ruiseñores empiezan a cantar en la primavera, cuando reverdecen los árboles (la calandria y el ruiseñor dialogan en el famoso romance castellano del ballestero «cuando los trigos encañan / y están los campos en flor»). Empieza entonces una verdadera competición de canto donde los perdedores pagarán con su vida el esfuerzo. San Isidoro de Sevilla en sus tan geniales como fantasiosas etimologías, hace derivar a la luscinia de lucis (luz), porque es ave que nos trae la luz de la mañana con su canto. Y por fin —aunque el Bestiario Medieval no menciona su fuente— San Ambrosio acuña la difundida parábola que compara al ruiseñor empollando los huevos y manteniéndose despierto con su propio canto, con la pobre viuda que cuida a sus hijos día y noche.

El misticismo franciscano del siglo XIII dio un nuevo giro a la interpretación alegórica del ruiseñor. Aquella nueva religiosidad, que contrastaba con el cristianismo más racionalista anterior, enfatizaba la relación personal con Dios, promoviendo las emociones, la interiorización del sufrimiento de Cristo. Y encontró en el ruiseñor un inesperado aliado. Dulcius in solitis cantat philomela rubetis, en la soledad del bosque canta más dulce el ruiseñor, escribió el rudimentario Maximianus Etruscus, convirtiendo este verso en el lema de la nueva religiosidad introspectiva y al ruiseñor en el símbolo del alma que clama por el Salvador.

El misticismo del ruiseñor, que a lo largo del siglo XIII se iría enriqueciendo con varios motivos y que, a la vez, modularía numerosos versos de la poesía amorosa cortesana (apareciendo, incluso, en los goliardescos Carmina Burana), fue resumido por el arzobispo franciscano de Canterbury John Peckham en su elegante poema latino Philomena. Este poema se atribuyó a San Buenaventura y así se divulgó e influyó en toda Europa (fray Luis de Granada, por ejemplo, hizo una delicada traducción en prosa). En sus versos, el ruiseñor —presentado con las fórmulas típicas de la lírica trovadoresca provenzal— es símbolo del monje que canta sin cesar, igual que el ruiseñor de Ambrosio, y que practica la «meditación por la imagen» que desarrollaron los franciscanos y luego impulsarán los jesuitas: desde el crepúsculo hasta la salida del sol canta sobre Adán y los sufrimientos de la raza humana irredenta; desde el alba, sobre los acontecimientos de la vida de Cristo; desde las tres, sobre las escenas de la pasión y muerte, hasta que él mismo muere de pena y agotamiento a la caída del sol. Justo como el ruiseñor de Plinio.

Manuscrito de hacia 1330 de la Philomena de John Peckham conservado en la Glasgow
Library. En la inicial inferior “P(hilomena)” el ruiseñor y el monje meditan sobre las
escenas de la vida de Cristo representadas en la inicial superior “C(hristus)”:
su nacimiento e infancia, sus enseñanzas, María Magdalena lavando
su pies, sus sufrimientos y muerte en la cruz.

Este poema de Peckham / Buenaventura fue conocido por San Juan de la Cruz —puede que en la traducción en verso de Juan López de Úbeda—. Y San Juan elige todo el material simbólico del canto del ruiseñor para descargarlo justamente en el clímax final de su Cántico espiritual (luego solo queda la última estrofa donde se cierra el poema en un cierto anticlímax). El canto en que se agotaba el ruiseñor es ahora, por el contrario, en la sintética lira de San Juan, equivalente a una «llama que consume y no da pena». Todo está ahí: el cese de los anhelos, la «soledad sonora» de los primeros versos del poema que se hace aún más dulce en «el soto y su donaire» —un soto que ya no se transita «con presura»—, el musical anuncio de la salvación inminente y definitiva, la llegada a una realidad superior y luminosa, la entrega y el descanso final en una noche que es, a la vez, un nuevo y encendido día.

El aspirar del ayre,
el canto de la dulce filomena,
el soto y su donayre
en la noche serena,
con llama que consume y no da pena.

Pero ¿dónde ha quedado en nuestro recorrido anterior la tercera característica, la del ruiseñor como portador de la luz? La alegoría medieval no se había olvidado tampoco de ella. Plinio hablaba de la canción del ruiseñor entre los árboles que reverdecen. Y en la Edad Media despunta la idea de que el ruiseñor empieza a cantar en la noche de Pascua como un anuncio de la inminente resurrección de Cristo. Así se escribe en el Carmen Paschale, el Poema Pascual, de Sedulius Schottus. Y, de hecho, la canción del ruiseñor aún resuena en la liturgia nocturna del Sábado Santo, en la secuencia del Salve festa dies de Venantius Fortunatus, donde el Resucitado trae la luz al mundo que revive y retoña.

Y aquí llegamos a la fiesta de hoy. Deseamos un muy feliz día de Pascua a todos nuestros lectores.


Canto del ruiseñor (3'15"), extraído de aquí. Otra versión se encuentra aquí (buscar „fülemüle”).

The nightingale is singing again

Két Sheng, starting from the Hungarian folk song The rooster is crowing, and arriving through the Hebrew blessing Tzur mi-shelo to the Sephardic love song Los bilbilicos cantan, has pointed out that in the Hebrew tradition not only the rooster, but also the nightingale is considered as the herald of the dawn and a symbol of the longing for the Messiah, the Savior. “We could not have rounded off more beautifully our round trip revealing the intricate network of relations between the Hungarian Hasidic song, the Sephardic love song and the pious Hebrew liturgical poem.” – he ended his essay.

But the round trip is not over yet. Because the nightingale as a symbol for the soul yearning for the Savior was also known in medieval Christian tradition. And the development of this symbol looks back to such a long and organic prehistory that it is also possible: even the Sephardic song borrowed the motif from there.

Early medieval bestiaries did not know about this allegorical meaning of nightingale yet. As we read on the “Nightingale” page of the outstanding Medieval Bestiary database, they only recorded three features for this bird. Pliny provided them with the information that nightingales start to sing in the springtime, at the leafing of the trees (as in the famous Spanish “ballad of the archer” the lark and the nightingale converse with each other “when the wheat ripens / and the fields are in flower”), organizing veritable singing competitions whose loosers often die from the efforts. Saint Isidor of Seville, with one of his usual false but genial etymologies derived the Latin name of the bird luscinia from light, lucis, as it brings the light by its early morning singing. And finally – although the Nightingale page does not mention its source – Saint Ambrose coined the widespread parable comparing the nightingale sitting on its eggs and keeping itself awake by its song, to the poor widow woman taking care of her children day and night.

13th-century Franciscan mysticism brought a new turn in the allegorical interpretation of nightingale. This new kind of religiousness, in contrast to earlier, rationalistic Christianity, laid emphasis on the personal relationship to God, on emotions, on the inner experience of the sufferings of Christ. In this it found an unexpected ally in the nightingale. Dulcius in solitis cantat philomela rubetis, sweeter sings the nightingale in the solitude of the forest, wrote the popular school author Maximianus Etruscus, and this verse became the motto of the new, introspective religiosity, and the nightingale the symbol of the soul yearning for the Savior.

The nightingale mysticism, which in the course of the 13th century was enriched with several new motifs and which on its turn also enriched the love poetry of the courts and the goliards of the Carmina Burana, was summarized by the Franciscan archbishop of Canterbury John Peckham in his elegant Latin poem Philomena. This poem was attributed to Saint Bonaventure, and thus it became widely known and influential (fray Luis de Granada for example made a beautiful Spanish prose translation of it). In this poem the nightingale – presented with the typical formulas of Provençal troubadour lyrics – is the symbol of the monk who, incessantly singing like the nightingale of Ambrose, practices the “image meditation” developed by the Franciscans and later by the Jesuits. From night to sunrise he sings about Adam and the sufferings of the unredeemed human race, then from sunrise on the events of Christ’s life, while from three o’clock on the scenes of His sufferings and death, until at sunset he dies from sorrow and exhaustion – just like the nightingale of Pliny.

A MS from ca. 1330 of John Peckham’s Philomena in the Glasgow Library. In the lower
initial “P(hilomena)” the nightingale and the monk symbolized with it meditate
on the scenes of Christ’s life represented in the upper initial “C(hristus)”:
His birth and childhood, His teachings, the washing of His feet by
Mary Magdalene, His sufferings and death on the cross.

This poem by Peckham/Bonaventure was also known by Saint John of the Cross, perhaps via the verse translation of Juan López de Úbeda, and he used all the symbolic elements of the song of the nightingale on the final climax of his Canticle Spiritual. The song exhausting the nightingale is in his enumeration “the flame that is consuming and painless.” Everything is here: the sweetest solitude in “the grove and its beauty,” the announcement of the imminent and definitive salvation, the entry into a higher and luminous reality, the self-giving and final repose which is also the beginning of a new day.

El aspirar del ayre, el canto de la dulce filomena, el soto y su donayre en la noche serena, con llama que consume y no da pena.

the breathing of the air, the song of the sweet nightingale, the grove and its beauty in the serene night, with a flame that is consuming and painless.

But where is the third, light-bringing feature of the nightingale left? The allegory did not forget about it either. Pliny related the song of the nightingale to the leafing of the trees. And in the Middle Ages they considered that the nightingale starts to sing on Easter night as a herald of Christ’s imminent resurrection, as it was taught by the Carmen Paschale, the Easter Song of Sedulius Schottus. And, as a matter of fact, the song of the nightingale still resounds in the Holy Saturday nocturnal liturgy in the sequence Salve festa dies by Venantius Fortunatus, in which the resurrecting Savior brings to the world light, revival and leafing.

And with this here we are at the object of the feast of today. We wish a blessed Easter to all our readers.


Nightingale song (3'15"), from here. Another version can be found here (browse for „fülemüle”).

Semana Santa

Vaya, esta vez nos olvidamos de dirigir a tiempo la atención hacia la Semana Santa de Úbeda, tal como hicimos el año pasado. Estas fiestas son verdaderamente de las más arraigadas e imponentes de Europa, y en ellas se involucra toda la ciudad. Empiezan oficialmente el Domingo de Ramos, pero las dieciocho cofradías de origen medieval se preparan durante meses, casi durante todo el año anterior. En su blog documentan día a día los acontecimientos con imágenes, texto y vídeo. El año pasado ya presentamos en detalle el orden de las procesiones y su desarrollo a lo largo de la semana, pero cada año hay también novedades. Con las líneas evocadoras del hijo ilustre de Úbeda Antonio Muñoz Molina en su novela Sefarad entendemos cuánto significan estas celebraciones para la ciudad y para toda España:

We have forgot to tell you in due time to follow with attention the events of the Holy Week in Úbeda just like we did in the last year. This series of celebrations which belongs to the most traditional and largest ones in all Europe and which sets all the town in motion, officially began on Palm Sunday. However, the eighteen confraternities of medieval origin have been preparing to it for months, or rather throughout all the previous year. On their common blog they document the events day by day in photo, text and video. In the last year we have already presented in detail the processions following each other in this week, but they bring some novelty as well in each year. From the evocative lines of Úbeda’s great son Antonio Muñoz Molina in his novel Sefarad we can understand how much these celebrations mean to the town and to the whole Spain:

Nos gustaba volver con nuestros hijos pequeños y nos enorgullecía descubrir que se emocionaban con las mismas cosas que nos habían ilusionado en la infancia a nosotros. Querían que llegara la Semana Santa para ponerse sus trajes diminutos de penitentes, sus capuchones infantiles que les dejaban destapada la cara. Apenas nacían los inscribíamos como hermanos en la misma cofradía a la que nuestros padres nos habían apuntado a nosotros. Viajaban ansiosos en el coche, ya un poco más crecidos, preguntando nada más salir cuántas horas faltaban para la llegada. Habían nacido en Madrid y hablaban ya con un acento que no era el nuestro, pero nos daba orgullo pensar y decir que pertenecían a nuestra tierra tanto como nosotros mismos, y al llevarlos de la mano un domingo por la mañana por la calle Nueva igual que nos habían llevado a nosotros nuestros padres, al subirlos en brazos ante el paso de un trono para que vieran mejor al borriquillo que cabalga Jesús entrando a Jerusalén, o la cara verde y siniestra que tiene Judas en el paso de la Santa Cena, sentíamos consoladoramente que la vida estaba repitiéndose, que en nuestra ciudad el tiempo no pasaba o era menos cruel que el tiempo tan angustioso y trastornado de la vida en Madrid.

We were happy to return together with our small kids and we have discovered with pride that they were enchanted by the same things which had also enchanted us in our childhood. They could hardly wait the Holy Week to come, when they can put on their small penitent’s clothes and children’s hood which leave the face free. As soon as they were born we inscribed them into the same confraternity to which our fathers had inscribed us, too. They were not much older now, as they sat excited on the back seat of the car and kept asking us how many hours we need yet to get there. They were already born in Madrid and spoke in a dialect which is not ours, but we were proud to think and say that they also belonged to our land, just as much as ourselves. And when on Sunday morning we take them by the hand, as our parents had taken us, to walk out on the calle Nuova and to lift them up when a throne passes by so that they could better see the ass’s colt on which Jesus had entered Jerusalem or the green and sinister face of Judas at the Last Supper, we are consoled by the feeling that life repeats itself, that in this town of ours time does not pass by, or at least it is less cruel than the anxious and chaotic time of life in Madrid.

Pero también las otras ciudades españolas celebran la Semana Santa con procesiones diarias. Wang Wei nos ha enviado bonitas fotos de la procesión de lunes en Palma de Mallorca. «Es una procesión pequeña», escribe, «prácticamente de Santa Clara a San Francisco. Dan la vuelta justo a nuestra casa por la calle de Montesión y luego por la calle del Sol. Siguen casi el perímetro del antiguo ghetto (el call –judería– es precisamente el nombre de la calle que se ve en las primeras fotos). Al ser una procesión pequeña, sin ningún turista, es más impresionante. Se ve bien el fondo, las raíces católicas de un pequeño pueblo, replegado sobre sí mismo, como era Palma hace siglos, y no solo el espectáculo turístico en que se va convirtiendo poco a poco.»

But the other Spanish towns also celebrate the Holy Week with daily processions. Wang Wei has sent us nice photos on the Monday procession in Palma de Mallorca. “It is a small procession,” he writes, “actually only from the Santa Clara to the San Francisco. They pass exactly in front of our house, on calle de Montesión, on the border of the ancient ghetto (the name call – ghetto – indicates precisely the street that can be seen in the first photos). It is impressive exactly because it is so small, without any tourists. They display the origins and the Catholic roots of a small settlement closed in itself like Palma was centuries ago, and not just a touristic spectacle into which the city has been converted step by step.”

Desde el call la procesión entra en la calle de Montesión. Asomados a una ventana de la casa de Wang Wei seguimos el desfile hacia la iglesia de los jesuitas, construida prácticamente sobre la antigua sinagoga.

From the call the procession enters the calle de Montesión. From a window of Wang Wei’s house we watch it proceeding towards the Jesuit church which was practically developed from the old synagogue five hundred years ago.

Las grandes procesiones de Palma, claro está, son las del Jueves y Viernes Santo. La multitudinaria es la del Viernes; sin embargo, la mayor devoción es para la del Jueves, la del Crist de La Sang (Cristo de la Sangre). Este año, después de muchos en que no fue así, la imagen salió de la Iglesia del antiguo Hospital General, donde está siempre, y llegó hasta la Catedral.

However, the main processions of Palma obviously take place on Holy Thursday and Friday. The largest one is that of Friday, but the most devotional one is the Crist de La Sang (Christ of the Blood) on Thursday. In this year, after several years when it was organized differently, the image started from the Church of the old Hospital General where it is conserved, and arrived to the Cathedral.

En nuestro pueblo la fiesta no es tan suntuosa, pero en majestuosidad seguramente no queda detrás de las españolas.

In our village the feast is not so sumptuous, but in majesty it surely does not leg behind the Spanish ones.

The rooster is crowing for the second time

Imre Ámos: Dreaming rabbi, 1938

Thanks to the inspiring comment of Julia to the post on The rooster is crowing, some fantastic new connections have been revealed between the Hungarian-Jewish folk song and the Sephardic love song.

As I wrote, the thin bond between the two songs is ensured by the piyut Tzur mi-shelo which has lent two Hebrew lines to the first song and the melody to the other one. Their similarities, however, go way beyond this. Both songs have the same scene-setting: a green forest and blooming trees. The time of the day is also identical, the dawn announced by the crowing of the rooster in the first song and by the song of the nightingales on the trees in the second one. This latter motif easily escapes the uninitiated eye, but a reader well versed in old Spanish poetry will recognize a characteristic topos of the genre borrowed from the literature of the Arabic golden age: the nocturnal intimacy of the lovers is ended by the early morning song of the birds that announces the coming of a new day and the lovers' bitter separation.

Another significant feature shared by both poems is that the beloved one appears in the allegoric form of a bird, and that the singer keeps calling this bird with a painful and yearning heart.

But why does she call him? Both poems give the very same quite striking and unexcepted answer to this question: to save her! The word “salvame” explicitly figures in the last verse of the Sephardic song, while the last strophe of The rooster is crowing explicitly links the definite union of the lover and her beloved to the coming of the Messiah, the Savior.

We could not have rounded off more beautifully our round trip revealing the intricate network of relations between the Hungarian Hasidic song, the Sephardic love song and the pious Hebrew liturgical poem.

The first cigarette

Άλκης Αλκαίος: Πρωινό τσιγάρο Χαράζει η μέρα και η πόλη έχει ρεπό στη γειτονιά μας καπνίζει ένα φουγάρο κι εγώ σε ζητάω σαν πρωινό τσιγάρο και σαν καφέ πικρό και σαν καφέ πικρό Άδειοι οι δρόμοι δε φάνηκε ψυχή και το φεγγάρι μόλις χάθηκε στη Δύση και γω σε γυρεύω σαν μοιραία λύση και σαν Ανατολή και σαν Ανατολή Βγήκε ο ήλιος το ράδιο διαπασών μ' ένα χασάπικο που κλαίει για κάποιον Τάσο κι εγώ σε ποντάρω κι ύστερα πάω πάσο σ' ένα καρέ τυφλό σ' ένα καρέ τυφλό (1984)

Alkis Alkeos: The first cigarette The day is breaking and the city reposes in our neighborhood a chimney is smoking and I want you like the first cigarette like bitter coffee like bitter coffee The streets are empty, no soul can be seen the moon has just set down in the West and I seek you like a final solution like the sunrise like the sunrise The sun has risen and on the radio a hasapiko is crying for some Tassos and I bet on you and then I pass you by the card four of a kind four of a kind

This beautiful poem by Alkis Alkeos has become widely known in the Greek world with the music of Notis Mavroudis. I do not know whether it is Mavroudis himself who accompanies it on guitar on the video below, but from the Ibanez kept in his hands in the first frame we expect exactly the sound resounding a second later. The master of classical guitar is revealed not only by the motifs echoing the great 19th-century guitar composers but also by the typical creaking at the changes of stoppings, so intimately familiar to the ears of every classical guitarist. Mavroudis has taught in the conservatories of Milano, Compostela and Athens, and when in my school days I learned classical guitar, he was a celebrated master of the summer guitar festivals in Esztergom, Hungary.


The male choir might be surprising, but Mavroudis probably imagined it exactly like this when he set the poem to music. In fact, he intended it for a great concert, the greatest concert of Greece after the military junta, organized in 1985 in memory of the great composer Manos Loizos who had kept the hope alive in face of the regime. On that occasion the song was sung by the two singer-icons Haris Alexiou and Giorgios Dalaras. Since then a number of other recordings have been made as well, with Arleta or Nina Venetsanou (this latter accompanied by Mavroudis himself), although the popularity of the song is principally attested by the large number of amateur videos scattered all over the net.

I, however, love it the most in the performance of Angélique Ionatos. Not only because some twenty years ago we became enamoured of Greek music and modern Greek poetry due to the songs of hers and of her brother Photis Ionatos. But also because their style – perhaps because they have lived in Belgium since their teens – is refreshingly free from that artificial and overstimulated emotional tone which reminds you of the hits of the fifties and which is still felt as obligatory by some Greek singers.

Angélique sings the poems of contemporary Greek and French poets on this CD. It is worth to observe how differently – with a touch of tango and of French chansons – the Algerian French guitarist Henri Angel plays the classical solos of Mavroudis. And it is also worth to note how similar is the melody of this song to that of the Al alba, the “unofficial hymn of the Spanish Transición” written some years earlier by Luis Eduardo Aute, and to the refrain of another “unofficial hym,” the Ithaca by Konstantinos Kavafis, set to music by Photis Ionatos: Tous lestrygonas ke tous kyklopas…


Angelique Ionatos & Henri Agnel: Πρωινό τσιγάρο (3'28"). From the album Chansons nomades (Gypsy songs, 2001).

The poems of Alkis Alkeos have been set to music in a great number since the end of the seventies, and it seems like several of them have become “unofficial hymns,” too. In Greek forums and blogs they are often quoted, their videos included, and commented in an enchantment like this casual example might attest it:

I have never seen him. Not even in picture. I have not heard him speaking either. I don’t know anything about him.
But I know him. In the evenings he is sitting at home and working. He is an everyday, simple man. With good humor. He loves to work in the garden. Has a few friends.
He philosophizes. Smokes a lot. Loves to sit in front of the fireplace and to go on long walks. To walk among the fallen leaves.
I have never seen him. But I know him. For me he is the most important Greek poet.

Sometimes it crosses my mind how little we know about that popular – sung – poetry that so deeply determines the everyday culture of other countries, lending them ideas, images and words to formulate their own lives. And even if the songs themselves reach us and even if we might understand their texts, we do not know the most important thing: what they mean there and to them. Like nobody outside of our country knows what the songs of the band Lokomotív Gt. meant to us in the eighties. Natives only rarely commit these meanings to writing. This enhances the importance of such exceptional sites like the database of Riccardo Venturi which makes efforts to list not only the various anti-war songs themselves but also these “local meanings” of theirs. And this is why we also try to collect in our topic of “ballads” the meanings of the songs meaningful to us.

And we hope that our Greek readers would write us about the meaning of this song of Alkeos, too.

When will that be?

“Yibone ha-mikdosh ir tziyoyn temale, then will that be” – sings Márta Sebestyén in the title-giving song of the album The rooster is crowing by the Muzsikás Ensemble.


Márta Sebestyén and the Muzsikás Ensemble: The rooster is crowing (3'06"). From the CD The rooster is crowing. Hungarian Jewish folk music (1992). – The CD was released outside of Hungary under the title Máramaros: The Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania.
(We have already written about this album, with reference to the alleged Jewish roots of the song “Bella ciao”. The Muzsikás Ensemble visited those old Gypsy musicians who used to play on the feasts of the Hasidic Jewish communities of Maramureş, destroyed in 1944, and collected from them the former songs of these communities.)

Szól a kakas már Majd megvirrad már Zöld erdőben, sík mezőben sétál egy madár. Micsoda madár, Micsoda madár Sárga lába, kék a szárnya Engem odavár. Várj, madár, várj Te csak mindig várj Ha az Isten néked rendelt Tiéd leszek már. Mikor lesz az már, Mikor lesz az már? Jibbone ha-mikdos ir Cijon tömale Akkor lesz az már.

The rooster is crowing Soon it will be daylight In a green forest, in a smooth meadow A bird is strolling. What kind of bird is it? What kind of bird is it? Its feet are yellow, its wings are blue It is waiting for me. Wait, bird, wait Always wait for me. If God ordered me to you I will be yours. When will that be? When will that be? Yibone ha-mikdosh, ir Tziyoyn temale Then will that be.

That is, when…?

In vain we turn to the leaflet of the CD for explanation. There we can only read the legendary story about the genesis of the song in the words of the musicologist Bence Szabolcsi:

The Hasidic rabbi Eizik Taub came around 1780 to Nagykálló as a melamed (teacher) of the children of the local rashekol (president of the Jewish congregation), and later he became the rabbi of the same town. A great lover of the nature and of poetical spirit, once while walking in the fields, he heard the song of a little shepherd, and he felt an irresistible urge to learn it. So he purchased the song for two forints. As soon as they made the bargain, the rabbi learned the song and the shepherd boy forgot it. Since then the Jews of Northern Hungary feel this song their own, and they sing it in all their religious feasts, because they interpret its text as allegorically speaking about the coming of the Messiah.


Of a Hungarian shepherd boy even a Tzadik can only buy an authentic Hungarian folk song. This is also attested by Bence Szabolcsi: The rooster is crowing “is, both in the text and in the melody, a not too noteworthy variant of a well-known Hungarian folk song, with forcibly inserted Hebrew lines.” (“Népdalok” [“Folk songs”], in Az Egyenlőség Képes Folyóirata, 1921.) Later we will have more about these “forcible insertions.” But first let us try to find out how a more or less typical Hungarian folk song could become such a popular Hasidic Jewish song?

Imre Ámos (1907-1944) from the Hasidic community of Nagykálló: Waiting for the dawn, 1939

An answer to this question can be found in the modality of this song. Jewish music – both Klezmer and liturgical cantorial songs – is based similarly to Gregorian music upon different modes or scales, in Yiddish shteygers. One of these modes, the Ahavoh rabboh, named after the opening words of the morning prayer of the same name which is recited in this mode, is especially popular among Hasidic Jews. A great number of Klezmer pieces of Hasidic origin and tish nigunim – songs sung on Shabbats and high holidays at the Rabbi’s table, often in ecstatic mode – are built upon this scale.

The Ahavoh rabboh corresponds to a modified Phrygian scale – from here its Yiddish name freygish, used in Klezmer music – where the third tone is raised by a half note: mi-fa-si-la-ti-do'-re'-mi'. Just like most Eastern European folk songs, so this scale does not have a definite “owner”: Spanish Flamenco uses it and calls it “Gypsy scale,” while in Arabic and Turkish music it is known as hijaz maqam. And a closer look at our folk song, The rooster is crowing reveals that it is built upon the very same Phrygian scale with the raised third tone. Thus the Jewish community could absorb it without any changes into the framework of their own traditional musical world and identify with it.

Let us hear an example of such a freygish piece from the traditional Eastern European Klezmer repertoire: the Yiddish folk song Az du furst avek – “When you leave” in the interpretation of Joel Rubin (clarinet in C) and Joshua Horowitz (tsimbl). Apart from the freygish scale, the rubato introduction and the slow, protracted, but strict rhythm also confirm the kinship of the two songs:


Rubin & Horowitz: Az Du Furst Avek (3'23"). From the album Bessarabian Symphony. Early Jewish Instrumental Music (1994).
(Joel Rubin and Joshua Horowitz in this album attempt to reconstruct the late 19th-century Jewish instrumental music. Similarly to the “historical trend” known from the performances of Baroque music, they also play on period instruments, and try to revive the authentic practice of musical performance, characterized by fluctuating rhythms, rich ornamentation, frequent use of glissandos, and generally a rendering which stood much closer to vocal technics. Their album, however, is much more than a simple excursion of cultural archaeology: it is enjoyable and living music played in a sensitive and emotionally rich manner.)

Rooster on the margin of the Kaufmann Haggadah, published by us in the internet

But let us now return to the text of the song. Apart from the last strophe, it is a typical Hungarian love song. The bird allegory of the lovers is well known from several Hungarian folk songs. The last strophe, however, is a late interpolation added by the Hasidic Jewish community – perhaps by Eizik Taub himself – which radically reinterprets the whole song.

The Hebrew line of this strophe is a verbatim quotation from a late Medieval piyut, a Jewish liturgical poem. The piyut called Tzur mishelo was composed by an unknown poet in Northern France, not later than the second half of the 14th century. This poem quickly spread among the Jewish communities of Europe, and it is still sung on every Shabbat at the festive board, as the introduction of the after-meals blessing Birkat ha-mazon. – It is interesting to note that the today widespread melody of Tzur mishelo is built around the same Ahavoh rabboh mode like The rooster is crowing.

The strophes of Tzur mishelo follow the individual blessings of Birkat ha-mazon which say thanks to God for the meal, for the land given to the Patriarchs, and then they supplicate the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple.

The rooster is crowing took over from these supplications the first verse of the last strophe of the piyut: יבנה המקדש עיר ציון תמלא, in Ashkenazi prononciation: Yibone ha-Mikdosh, Ir Tziyayn temale. That is: “The Temple will be rebuilt and the City of Sion repopulated.” Then will that be!

This strophe elevates this song to the heights of the Song of Songs. As in the traditional Rabbinic interpretation the lovers of the Song of Songs allegorically represent the longing of the Everlasting One and His people for each other, so the singer of The rooster is crowing as a representative of the Jewish people in exile is longing for her lover, the Everlasting One, with whom she can unite only in the Messianic times to come, after the return to the Promised Land and the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem.

This is how the most popular Hungarian Hasidic song was born from the marriage of a Hungarian folk song with a potentially Jewish melody and of a love poem elevated to transcendental heights.

The “bridegroom”-piece of a Persian Jewish double portrait, c. 1846. Its Persian-language inscription written in Hebrew letters is: Târ-zan ʿArus ben Shelomo – “ʿArus ben Shelomo playing on tar.”

But the story is still far from its end. It is just like the piyut Tzur mishelo has a mysterious ability to inspire love poems. A thousand kilometers to the south from Nagykálló, in Sephardic Jewish communities the Tzur mishelo is intertwined with a very popular love song, although here the base of kinship is the melody rather than the text. Sephardic Jews sing to the melody of this piyut the song known both as Los bilbilicos cantan – “The nightingales are singing” – and La rosa enflorece – “The rose is blossoming.”


Savina Yannatou and the Primavera en Salonico: Los bilbilicos cantan – “The nightingales are singing” (4'11"). From the album Άνοιξη στη Σαλονίκη (Spring in Saloniki, 1995).
(From this CD of Savina Yannatou, collecting the songs of the former Sephardic community of Thessaloniki, we have already quoted two songs in two posts, here and here. This song, originating in Anatolian Sephardic communities, is our third favorite. The word bilbilico, ‘nightingale’ comes from Turkish bülbül, provided with a Sephardic diminutive suffix, while the expression “the moon is wounded” is a formula borrowed from high literature for the slowly vanishing moon.)

La rosa enflorese hoy en el mes de may mi alma s’escurese firiendose el lunar Los bilbilicos cantan con sospiros de aver, mi alma i mi ventura estan en tu poder. Los bilbilicos cantan en los arvos de la flor, debacho se asentan los ke sufren de amor. Mas presto ven, colomba mas presto ven con mí, mas presto ven, keridha, corre i salvame.

The rose is blossoming now, in the month of May, my soul is getting dark as the moon is wounded. The nightingales are singing sighing with desire my soul and my fate is in your hands. The nightingales are singing on the blossoming trees under them are sitting those suffering of love. Hurry quickly, dove, hurry quickly to me, hurry quickly, my dear, hurry, save me.

The “bride”-piece of a Persian Jewish double portrait, c. 1846. Its Persian language inscription, written in Hebrew letters is: Rahel dar hâl vasmeh keshidan – “Rachel painting her eyebrow.”

And finally let us hear The rooster is crowing as performed by its most authentic interpreter, Rabbi Eizik Taub’s sixth descendant in a direct paternal line, Rebbe Menachem Mendel Taub, the Rabbi of the Kaliver – “of Nagykálló” – Hasidic dynasty. I do not know how fluent the Kaliver Rebbe is in Hungarian, but in any case The rooster is crowing is sung by him with an unmistakable accent of Szabolcs county, the traditional region around Nagykálló. In Jerusalem, on every Shabbat, in Hungarian.

Aristophanes’ speech

Why does Plato in the Symposium put such an attractive speech in the mouth of the poet Aristophanes, a man he probably held in contempt?

To explain what Eros is, Aristophanes uses an image. Originally all human beings were spherical, self-sufficient and powerful. The perfect unity of the circle was broken in two by Zeus to punish their arrogance. Eros is therefore the desire felt by these half-beings who want to rejoin and regain their happiness lost.

As a token of gratitude for receiving me in this space, I would like to share this short French film on the words of Aristophanes. The director, Pascal Szidon exploits very well the visual charm of this speech.

I think with this we do not move far from a theme so important in Río Wang: the power of images. I am sure that the speech of Aristophanes is the motif which is most remembered by the reader of the Symposium, precisely because it is founded on symbolic images.



Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind; he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three;-and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round: like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained.

At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them, being the sections of entire men or women, and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.

Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature.

Carol Wiebe: Other half

Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saving. When they reach manhood they are loves of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,-if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side, by side and to say to them, "What do you people want of one another?" they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: "Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two-I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?"-there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need. And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians. And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like tallies.

Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him-he is the enemy of the gods who oppose him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present.

Plato, Symposium (189 c- 193 b), translated by Benjamin Jowett

El discurso de Aristófanes

¿Por qué Platón en el Banquete pone en boca del poeta Aristófanes, a quien posiblemente detestaba, un discurso tan atractivo?

Para explicar qué es Eros, Aristófanes se sirve de una imagen: originalmente los seres humanos eran esféricos, autosuficientes y poderosos. La unidad perfecta del círculo fue cercenada por Zeus para castigar su soberbia. Eros es, entonces, el deseo experimentado por las mitades de hombres que quieren volver a unirse y recuperar la felicidad perdida.

Como token of gratitude por recibirme en este espacio, quisiera compartir este cortometraje francés sobre las palabras de Aristófanes. Su director, Pascal Szidon, muestra muy bien el encanto visual de este discurso.

Creo que no nos alejamos con esto de un tema muy transitado en Rio Wang: el poder de las imágenes. Estoy segura de que el discurso de Aristófanes es el que más se graba en la memoria del lector del Banquete justamente porque se funda en imágenes simbólicas.



–Efectivamente, Erixímaco –dijo Aristófanes–, tengo la intención de hablar de manera muy distinta a como tú y Pausanias habéis hablado. Pues, a mi parecer, los hombres no se han percatado en absoluto del poder de Eros, puesto que si se hubiesen percatado le habrían levantado los mayores templos y altares y le harían los más grandes sacrificios, no como ahora, que no existe nada de esto relacionado con él, siendo así que debería existir por encima de todo. Pues es el más filántropo de los dioses, al ser auxiliar de los hombres y médico de enfermedades tales que, una vez curadas, habría la mayor felicidad para el género humano. Intentaré, pues, explicaros su poder y vosotros seréis los maestros de los demás. Pero, primero, es preciso que conozcáis la naturaleza humana y las modificaciones que ha sufrido, ya que nuestra antigua naturaleza no era la misma de ahora, sino diferente.

En primer lugar, tres eran los sexos de las personas, no dos, como ahora, masculino y femenino, sino que había, además, un tercero que participaba de estos dos, cuyo nombre sobrevive todavía, aunque él mismo ha desaparecido. El andrógino, en efecto, era entonces una cosa sola en cuanto a forma y nombre, que participaba de uno y de otro, de lo masculino y de lo femenino, pero que ahora no es sino un nombre que yace en la ignominia.

En segundo lugar, la forma de cada persona era redonda en su totalidad, con la espalda y los costados en forma de círculo. Tenía cuatro manos, mismo numero de pies que de manos y dos rostros perfectamente iguales sobre un cuello circular. Y sobre estos dos rostros, situados en direcciones opuestas, una sola cabeza, y además cuatro orejas, dos órganos sexuales, y todo lo demás como uno puede imaginarse a tenor de lo dicho. Caminaba también recto como ahora, en cualquiera de las dos direcciones que quisiera; pero cada vez que se lanzaba a correr velozmente, al igual que ahora los acróbatas dan volteretas circulares haciendo girar las piernas hasta la posición vertical, se movía en círculo rápidamente apoyándose en sus miembros que entonces eran ocho.

Eran tres los sexos y de estas características, porque lo masculino era originariamente descendiente del sol, lo femenino, de la tierra y lo que participaba de ambos, de la luna, pues también la luna participa de uno y de otro. Precisamente eran circulares ellos mismos y su marcha, por ser similares a sus progenitores. Eran también extraordinarios en fuerza y vigor y tenían un inmenso orgullo, hasta el punto de que conspiraron contra los dioses. Y lo que dice Homero de Esfialtes y de Oto se dice también de ellos: que intentaron subir hasta el cielo para atacar a los dioses. Entonces, Zeus y los demás dioses deliberaban sobre qué debían hacer con ellos y no encontraban solución. Porque, ni podían matarlos y exterminar su linaje, fulminándolos con el rayo como a los gigantes, pues entonces se les habrían esfumado también los honores y sacrificios que recibían de parte de los hombres, ni podían permitirles tampoco seguir siendo insolentes. Tras pensarlo detenidamente dijo, al fin, Zeus: «Me parece que tengo el medio de cómo podrían seguir existiendo los hombres y, a la vez, cesar de su desenfreno haciéndolos más débiles. Ahora mismo, dijo, los cortaré en dos mitades a cada uno y de esta forma serán a la vez más débiles y más útiles para nosotros por ser más numerosos. Andarán rectos sobre dos piernas y si nos parece que todavía perduran en su insolencia y no quieren permanecer tranquilos, de nuevo, dijo, los cortaré en dos mitades, de modo que caminarán dando saltos sobre una sola pierna». Dicho esto, cortaba a cada individuo en dos mitades, como los que cortan las serbas y las ponen en conserva o como los que cortan los huevos con crines. Y al que iba cortando ordenaba a Apolo que volviera su rostro y la mitad de su cuello en dirección del corte, para que el hombre, al ver su propia división, se hiciera más moderado, ordenándole también curar lo demás. Entonces, Apolo volvía el rostro y, juntando la piel de todas partes en lo que ahora se llama vientre, como bolsas cerradas con cordel, la ataba haciendo un agujero en medio del vientre, lo que llaman precisamente ombligo. Alisó las otras arrugas en su mayoría y modeló también el pecho con un instrumento parecido al de los zapateros cuando alisan sobre la horma los pliegues de los cueros. Pero dejó unas pocas en torno al vientre mismo y al ombligo, para que fueran un recuerdo del antiguo estado.

Así, pues, una vez que fue seccionada en dos la forma original, añorando cada uno su propia mitad se juntaba con ella y rodeándose con las manos y entrelazándose unos con otros, deseosos de unirse en una sola naturaleza, morían de hambre y de absoluta inacción, por no querer hacer nada separados unos de otros. Y cada vez que moría una de las mitades y quedaba la otra, la que quedaba buscaba otra y se enlazaba con ella, ya se tropezara con la mitad de una mujer entera, lo que ahora precisamente llamamos mujer, ya con la de un hombre, y así seguían muriendo. Compadeciéndose entonces Zeus, inventa otro recurso y traslada sus órganos genitales hacia la parte delantera, pues hasta entonces también éstos los tenían por fuera y engendraban y parían no los unos en los otros, sino en la tierra, como las cigarras. De esta forma, pues, cambió hacia la parte frontal sus órganos genitales y consiguió que mediante éstos tuviera lugar la generación en ellos mismos, a través de lo masculino en lo femenino, para que si en el abrazo se encontraba hombre con mujer, engendraran y siguiera existiendo la especie humana, pero, si se encontraba varón con varón, hubiera, al menos, satisfacción de su contacto, descansaran, volvieran a sus trabajos y se preocuparan de las demás cosas de la vida.

Carol Wiebe: Other half

Desde hace tanto tiempo, pues, es el amor de los unos a los otros innato en los hombres y restaurador de la antigua naturaleza, que intenta hacer uno solo de dos y sanar la naturaleza humana. Por tanto, cada uno de nosotros es un símbolo de hombre, al haber quedado seccionado en dos de uno solo, como los lenguados. Por esta razón, precisamente, cada uno está buscando siempre su propio símbolo. En consecuencia, cuantos hombres son sección de aquel ser de sexo común que entonces se llamaba andrógino son aficionados a las mujeres, y pertenece también a este género la mayoría de los adúlteros; y proceden también de él cuantas mujeres, a su vez, son aficionadas a los hombres y adúlteras. Pero cuantas mujeres son sección de mujer, no prestan mucha atención a los hombres, sino que están más inclinadas a las mujeres, y de este género proceden también las lesbianas. Cuantos, por el contrario, son sección de varón, persiguen a los varones y mientras son jóvenes, al ser rodajas de varón, aman a los hombres y se alegran de acostarse y abrazarse; éstos son los mejores de entre los jóvenes y adolescentes, ya que son los más viriles por naturaleza. Algunos dicen que son unos desvergonzados, pero se equivocan. Pues no hacen esto por desvergüenza, sino por audacia, hombría y masculinidad, abrazando lo que es similar a ellos. Y una gran prueba de esto es que, llegados al término de su formación, los de tal naturaleza son los únicos que resultan valientes en los asuntos políticos. Y cuando son ya unos hombres, aman a los mancebos y no prestan atención por inclinación natural a los casamientos ni a la procreación de hijos, sino que son obligados por la ley, pues les basta vivir solteros todo el tiempo en mutua compañía. Por consiguiente, el que es de tal clase resulta, ciertamente, un amante de mancebos y un amigo del amante, ya que siempre se apega a lo que le está emparentado. Pero cuando se encuentran con aquella auténtica mitad de sí mismos tanto el pederasta como cualquier otro, quedan entonces maravillosamente impresionados por afecto, afinidad y amor, sin querer, por así decirlo, separarse unos de otros ni siquiera por un momento. Éstos son los que permanecen unidos en mutua compañía a lo largo de toda su vida, y ni siquiera podrían decir qué desean conseguir realmente unos de otros. Pues a ninguno se le ocurriría pensar que ello fuera el contacto de las relaciones sexuales y que, precisamente por esto, el uno se alegra de estar en compañía del otro con tan gran empeño. Antes bien, es evidente que el alma de cada uno desea otra cosa que no puede expresar, si bien adivina lo que quiere y lo insinúa enigmáticamente. Y si mientras están acostados juntos se presentara Hefesto con sus instrumentos y les preguntara: «¿Qué es, realmente, lo que queréis, hombres, conseguir uno del otro?», y si al verlos perplejos volviera a preguntarles: «¿Acaso lo que deseáis es estar juntos lo más posible el uno del otro, de modo que ni de noche ni de día os separéis el uno del otro? Si realmente deseáis esto, quiero fundiros y soldaros en uno solo, de suerte que siendo dos lleguéis a ser uno, y mientras viváis, como si fuerais uno solo, viváis los dos en común y, cuando muráis, también allí en el Hades seáis uno en lugar de dos, muertos ambos a la vez. Mirad, pues, si deseáis esto y estaréis contentos si lo conseguís.» Al oír estas palabras, sabemos que ninguno se negaría ni daría a entender que desea otra cosa, sino que simplemente creería haber escuchado lo que, en realidad, anhelaba desde hacía tiempo: llegar a ser uno solo de dos, juntándose y fundiéndose con el amado. Pues la razón de esto es que nuestra antigua naturaleza era como se ha descrito y nosotros estábamos íntegros. Amor es, en consecuencia, el nombre para el deseo y persecución de esta integridad.

Antes, como digo, éramos uno, pero ahora, por nuestra iniquidad, hemos sido separados por la divinidad, como los arcadios por los lacedemonios. Existe, pues, el temor de que, si no somos mesurados respecto a los dioses, podamos ser partidos de nuevo en dos y andemos por ahí como los que están esculpidos en relieve en las estelas, serrados en dos por la nariz, convertidos en téseras. Ésta es la razón, precisamente, por la que todo hombre debe exhortar a otros a ser piadoso con los dioses en todo, para evitar lo uno y conseguir lo otro, siendo Eros nuestro guía y caudillo. Que nadie obre en su contra –y obra en su contra el que se enemista con los dioses–, pues si somos sus amigos y estamos reconciliados con el dios, descubriremos y nos encontraremos con nuestros propios amados, lo que ahora consiguen sólo unos pocos.

Platón, Banquete (189 c- 193 b), traducción de Marcos Martínez Hernández, Barcelona, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos)