Page:Sefer ha-Yashar or the book of Jasher (1840).djvu/31



humble worm, and no man, Joseph, son to my father, the wise and highly respected in Israel, Samuel the little one, says, my witness is in heaven and my testimony is on high, the God of Gods knows, and Israel knows also, how much fatigue I have undergone, and how much trouble I have taken until I had brought to light the hidden treasures of this book; for ever since I was driven from my land, from the metropolis of Israel, the great city of wise men and scribes, the renowned city of Pasia, ever since the Lord, through my great offences, has driven me with a violent captivity, one stumbling after the other, he weakened my strength in the way, the iron entered my soul until I reached the Italian harbor, the royal city Livorno (Leghorn,) which is under the sway of our Lord the most serene Grand Duke Don Ferdinand de Media (Medici Qu?) for neither by day nor by night could I remain silent, I was continually in thought, my soul was humbled in me, and sleep was removed from mine eyes, when I reflected how energetically my father, the crown of my head, strove with his purse and labor to transcribe this book, as was his constant custom from his love of the study of the Law, to lavish money and wealth, principal and interest, for the purchase and the transcribing, for my own use, of books without end, in order that I might obtain wisdom and instruction, to comprehend the words of understanding, as all of the inhabitants of my city can testify and declare; (O God remember him favorably to rest in glory with the righteous who are in the garden of Eden, Amen! for this loss is felt only by me,) especially in the transcribing of this book it is holy for praises to the Lord, for there was never seen nor found but one, which the intelligent and pious scribe Jacob, the son of Atiyah, transcribed from a very old manuscript, the letters of which were defaced; and had it not been for the consummate ability of the above mentioned Rabbi, no other person could have made out those letters, nor have transcribed them, from their antiquity and from their having been defaced.

Now my father, of blessed memory, found favor in his eyes, to obtain this book on loan, in order that he might also get one transcribed by the hands of a certain scribe, and in the year 5373, through my great sins, I went out of the pale of my birth place, and from my father’s house, owing to the terrors of famine, pestilence and slaughter. The sword