''Dukus Horant'' is a 14th-century

narrative poem Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be ...

in Judeo-German (Proto-

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

Importance

''Dukus Horant'' is the best known of a number of works which survive in the Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This manuscript was discovered in the

Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, ...

in 1896, and contains a collection of narrative poems in a variant of

Middle High German Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...

, written in Hebrew characters. There is some controversy over the extent to which the manuscript's language differs from the commonly spoken German of the time, but it is agreed there is a strong

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

colouring to it. Therefore, these are the oldest known works (apart from a few short inscriptions dated to the 13th century) in the

Ashkenazi Jew Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

ish vernacular which later developed into

. ''Dukus Horant'' is a heroic epic with thematic similarities to the German poem ''

Kudrun ''Kudrun'' (sometimes known as the ''Gudrunlied'' or ''Gudrun''), is an anonymous Middle High German heroic epic. The poem was likely composed in either Austria or Bavaria around 1250. It tells the story of three generations of the ruling house of ...

''. It is thus a good example of the transfer of literary material between the

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

and Jewish communities in the German-speaking lands in the later

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

; by contrast, the other works in the manuscript contain traditional Jewish material.

Plot

The poem tells how Duke Horant is sent by King Etene to Greece, probably to

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, to win the hand of the princess Hilde. However Hilde's father, the fierce Greek king Hagen, is not willing to give his daughter to Etene until Horant has proved his prowess in a series of adventures.

Form

''Dukus Horant'' is composed in four-line rhymed

strophe A strophe () is a poetic term originally referring to the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas of varyi ...

s, the first and second line of each strophe being distichal. Though distichal verse forms are typical of classical Hebrew verse, these are more closely reminiscent of the distichal forms of old Germanic heroic verse. The language and form can be seen from the following transcription of the opening strophe, given first in the original (Hebrew characters and transliterated), then in a normalized Middle High German version by Dunphy. : : : :

References

{{Reflist

Editions

*L. Fuks, ''The Oldest Known Literary Documents of Yiddish Literature'' (c. 1382), Leiden: Brill, 1957. *P.F. Ganz, F. Norman and W. Schwarz (ed.), ''Dukus Horant'' (Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, Ergänzungsreihe 2), Tübingen: Niemeyer 1964.

Literature

* James W. Marchand: Einiges zur sogenannten „Jiddischen Kudrun“. ''Neophilologus'' 45/1961, S. 55–63. *G. Dunphy, "Literary Transitions: From 1300-1500", in: Max Reinhart (ed.), ''Early Modern German Literature'' (= The Camden House History of German Literature, vol. 4), Rochester NY & Woodbridge: Camden, 2007, pp. 43-87, here pp. 74-78.

External links

*An English translation of Dukus Haurant: http://heidigraw.0catch.com/DukusHaurant.html *A transcription of the full text of the poem can be viewed on th
Bibliotheca Augustana
website. Jewish medieval literature Yiddish-language literature 14th-century literature 14th-century Judaism Narrative poems