Poet and Muse diptych of a wax tablet; the inscription has not survived, so there can be no way to identify the writer for whom it was made. In the literature that has accumulated about this diptych, various prominent figures have been offered as candidates: Ausonius, Boethius, and Claudian, and even earlier figures, like Ennius and Seneca, with whom the donor wished to be associated The muse represented is Erato, muse of lyric poetry, with her usual attribute, the cithara, which she rests upon an ornately fluted column. The poet on the facing panel is seated, roused from his contemplation by the inspiring presence
Yemenite Jewish poetry of Muslim "Ḥumaynī" poetry in Yemenite-Jewish poetry, although he was not the first Jewish poet who wrote in the "Ḥumaynī" style. It may be assumed that he not only took from "Ḥumaynī" poetry the parameters related to the folk register of the Arabic language and to the lenient approach in relation to metre and to its bold use of erotic imagery to describe the love of God, but also took the melodies by which Muslims had performed their singing. There is evidence that Jews occasionally sang erotic poems of Muslims–known as "ash‘ār"–a matter that provoked in its wake harsh criticism