The Scroll of the fawn by R. ’Eliyahu ha-Cohen

Abstract

We offer the Spanish traslation of the Scroll of the Fawn (or Megillat ha-‘ofer) by R. Eliyahu ha-Cohen (13th century). This work is a Jewish version on the famous Risalat at-Tayr (the Epistle of the Bird ) by the celebrated philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037), and it takes part of an allegorical treatises’ collection of him. The Spanish hebrew poet introduces in its work, distinctly from the original, some narrative techniqhes typical of the maqama 's genre (the means of expression, the introductory fixed formulas, the participation of two players: a narrator and an erudite hero, etc.) Even if take part in it some characteristics of the maqama’s genre, its symbolically nature inserts it in a new category, the allegorical maqama .