yarrr, ye scurvy boy-king, halt ye whinin'

We - I - left Jerusalem until nearly the end, circling around it on our way north, coming tantalisingly close twice and shying away, until finally we walked the long dry hills up to the city in the company of a group of Bedouins and their emaciated goats and stood, burnt black and footsore and absolutely filthy (even the normally catlike Holmes) on the crest of the Mount Olivet at sundown. There before us she rose up, the city of cities, the umbilicus mundi, centre of the Universe, growing from the very foundations of the earth, surprisingly small, like a jewel. My heart sang within me, and the ancient Hebrew came to my lips.

"Simchi eth Yerushalaim w'gilu bah kal-ohabeha," I recited: Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her. We watched the sun set and slept among the tombs overnight, to the consternation of our guides, and in the morning we saw the sun lay tender arms around the city walls and bring her to brilliant, vibrant life. I rejoiced, and I was inexpressibly grateful.

We sat until the sun set the white-gold walls to blazing and dust rose from the road, and we went across and entered the city. For three days we walked her narrow streets, ate food from her bazaars, breathed the incense of her churches. We touched her walls and tasted her dust, and in the end we came away changed, to watch the winter sun relinquish her to the night. We then shouldered our packs and turned our backs on her.

...We stood on the deck and watched the last lights of Palestine fade. Jerusalem was hidden from sight, but to my eyes there was a faint glow in the southeast, as of stored sunlight. I recited under my breath,

"cAl naharoth babel sham yashavnu gam-bakinu...Im eshkakeh Yerushalaim tishakah y'mini..."

"You sang that the other night, did you not?" asked Holmes. "What is it?"

"A psalm, one of the more powerful Hebrew songs, full of sibilants and gutterals." I translated it for him.

"By the waters of Babylon, where we lay down and wept when we remembered Zion...We hung up our lyres, for our captors required songs of us, and our tormentors demanded mirth.
How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand wither,
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you."

from The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King