Quatrains on Love by Khamis bar Qardaḥe: Syriac Sufi Poetry

The Book of Khamis is a blanket term that covers a variety of manuscript collections containing poetical texts, the majority of which are attributed to the East-Syrian hymnographer Khamis bar Qardaḥe. The first part of the Book contains hymns (ʿoniyāthā) and was frequently copied in liturgical collections, whereas the second part has been preserved by a few witnesses and contains turgāmē (‘sequences’ to introduce the reading of the Gospel), monorhyme poems (mêmrē) with philosophical, allegorical, and satirical contents, five sections (tarʿē) of quatrains (also called tarʿē) dealing with various religious and profane subjects, and songs (soghiyāthā) on religious and profane subjects. The present paper focuses on the genre of the quatrains. A critical edition and a reading of a selection of quatrains on love by Khamis bar Qardaḥe are here proposed, with the purpose of showing the poet’s view on love and fostering further research on his attitude towards the model of Persian poetry and Sufi mysticism.