Da Silva Gives The Cue

There’s recompense to balm your
spirit's ire –
They might have flayed you and they
only burned!
Too swift the gibbet, too tender the
garrot
For Jewish flesh and Jewish hearts that
spurned
To forfeit the faith and quench the bigot’s
fire.
Better the flaming tale should be
forgot,
The curtain lowered on the fearful
plot.

They guffaw now in Lisbon and
Madrid
At gala revivals of your comic muse;
They titillate at thrusts of rapier wit
Where carnal pyres and where
stretching thews
At stakes stood lurid and on racks lay
hid.
Hail, Jew António, methinks you sit
With mien ironic in the prompter’s pit.

Walter Hart Blumenthal, poeta, antropólogo e historiador, judeu norte-americano, nascido nos finais do século XIX. Da Silva Gives The Cue é um poema dedicado à memória do dramaturgo António José da Silva, conhecido como O Judeu, assassinado pela Inquisição num “auto-de-fé” realizado em Lisboa, a 18 Outubro de 1739.
[Ver também O Judeu]