beginning of the Paraphrase is missing, verse 1 is the paraphrase of Esther i. 6b. Evidently our MS. consisted originally of 18 double sheets, as the last page of the MS. which is not paginated, bears the figure 18, whilst the part preserved only consists of 34 leaves, or 17 double sheets.
Had the MS. been complete we would most probably have read in the introduction or on the title-page, as we do read in similar compositions of the kind, that the poem was intended to be sung to the tune of the "Shemuel-buch," i.e., of the Nibelungenstrophe, the biblical book Samuel being the first to have been paraphrased in Hebrew-German stanzas of the Nibelungen Lied.[1]
The orthography is of the most ancient kind and therefore very confusing to the unexperienced reader. The confusion is quite natural—if one considers that the Hebrew alphabet consists only of consonants, and that the language knows no diphthongs or "umlaute," and yet all these sounds are to be rendered by means of such an alphabet. It is therefore in the rendering of the German vowels by Hebrew characters that we find the great perplexity.
Alef (א) generally renders (1) both German a and o, as דאז = das, לאז = Los, etc.; occasionally the same letter represents (2) e both after consonants and more often after vowels, as אורקונדא = urkunde, ויאל = fiel (but always ויל = vil) אויאר = iuer, מויאט = müet. It is also used as (3) littera ornans (a) always before words beginning with a vowel sound, except before ע = e, the latter having the value of a consonant, thus איך = ich, אוים = um, אופּיש = opez, אובּר = uber, איז =is, and אֵיר = êr(e), but ער = er; (b) medially in הויאט = hiut; (c) at the end of a word mostly after a vowel, as בּייא = bî, זייא = sî, דיא = die, זיא = sie, זוא = sô. In the three latter words the alef is often omitted, and rarely after consonants, as in לייפּא = lîp, ווייפּא = wîp. ורויא = frou(e) might perhaps also belong to this class. Thus alef has a fourfold value.
The second letter requiring explanation is the waw (ו). It is first of all a consonant = f, v, then it denotes the following vowel sounds: (1) o in אופּיש = opez, obez, הוף ,הוב = hof, נוך = noch; (2) ô in גרוש = grôz, און = ôn (ân); (3) u in אובּר = uber,
- ↑ Cf. L. Landau, Arthurian Legends, p. xxvi.
