58. La despedida (Isaac Algazi)

he author of this song, Dr. Maimon Levy, was an ophthalmologist, native of Corfu, who is known to have worked in Izmir around 1865. The first known version was published in 1885 in a scientific journal in Spain and included 14 stanzas. According to Rabbi Haim Bidjarano, the poem was written after a famous Italian song composed in the eighteenth century (Bidjarano 1885). Isaac Algazi himself published Dr. Levy’s song in his Mélodies hebraiques (1924-1925), a compilation of Algazi’s own compositions. Algazi describes it as a “Judeo-Spanish romance in makam Séba” and attributes its music to Haim Alazraki, a famous Sephardic composer of the time (died 1913 in Izmir), who was also the composer of La reina de la gracia (see below no. 59). Algazi’s published version contains only stanzas nos. 1-4 and 7 of the song. A very popular song at the time, it was recorded twice by Algazi, both with a much shorter text: stanzas 1-2 in this recording of 1911 and stanzas 1-2 and part of 7 in the later one (1912). For a comprehensive discussion of the song and its versions in oral tradition see Havassy 2011b.

Alma mía, vino l’hora,

a partir te vas agora.

¿Cómo, cómo viviré

sin aquella que amí?

Ya scapó mi alegría,

llorí yo noche día.

Y tu coro, ¿quén lo sabe,

acodrar se va de mí?

Si tú más no sos amiga,

non me seas inimiga

ni t’olvides onde vas

que por ti yo me quemí.

En tu viaje, en tu camino,

yo te rogo, tenme’n tino.

Y tu coro, ¿quén lo sabe,

acodrar te vas de mí?