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THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor"_
THE SONG OF SOLOMON
AND
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
BY
WALTER F. ADENEY, M.A.
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
THE SONG OF SOLOMON
AND THE
LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH
BY
WALTER F. ADENEY, M.A.
PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, AND CHURCH HISTORY,
NEW COLLEGE LONDON
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCV
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
CONTENTS
_THE SONG OF SOLOMON_
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK 3
CHAPTER II
TRUE LOVE TESTED 15
i.-v. i.
CHAPTER III
LOVE UNQUENCHABLE 28
v. i-viii.
CHAPTER IV
MYSTICAL INTERPRETATIONS 41
CHAPTER V
CANONICITY 53
_THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH_
CHAPTER I
HEBREW ELEGIES 63
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE POEMS 75
CHAPTER III
THE THEME 87
CHAPTER IV
DESOLATION 97
i. 1-7.
CHAPTER V
SIN AND SUFFERING 108
i. 8-11.
CHAPTER VI
ZION'S APPEAL 120
i. 12-22.
CHAPTER VII
GOD AS AN ENEMY 132
ii. 1-9.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 144
ii. 10-17.
CHAPTER IX
PROPHETS WITHOUT A VISION 156
ii. 9, 14.
CHAPTER X
THE CALL TO PRAYER 168
ii. 18-22.
CHAPTER XI
THE MAN THAT HATH SEEN AFFLICTION 180
iii. 1-21.
CHAPTER XII
THE UNFAILING GOODNESS OF GOD 194
iii. 22-24.
CHAPTER XIII
QUIET WAITING 206
iii. 25-36.
CHAPTER XIV
GOD AND EVIL 218
iii. 37-39.
CHAPTER XV
THE RETURN 230
iii. 40-42.
CHAPTER XVI
GRIEVING BEFORE GOD 242
iii. 43-54.
CHAPTER XVII
_DE PROFUNDIS_ 253
iii. 55-66.
CHAPTER XVIII
CONTRASTS 265
iv. 1-12.
CHAPTER XIX
LEPERS 277
iv. 13-16.
CHAPTER XX
VAIN HOPES 288
iv. 17-20.
CHAPTER XXI
THE DEBT OF GUILT EXTINGUISHED 300
iv. 21, 22.
CHAPTER XXII
AN APPEAL FOR GOD'S COMPASSION 311
v. 1-10.
CHAPTER XXIII
SIN AND SHAME 324
v. 11-18.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE EVERLASTING THRONE 335
v. 19-22.
_THE SONG OF SOLOMON_
CHAPTER I
_THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK_
The Song of Solomon is a puzzle to the commentator. Quite apart from
the wilderness of mystical interpretations with which it has been
overgrown in the course of the ages,[1] its literary form and motive
are subjects of endless controversy. There are indications that it is
a continuous poem; and yet it is characterised by startling
kaleidoscopic changes that seem to break it up into incongruous
fragments. If it is a single work the various sections of it succeed
one another in the most abrupt manner, without any connecting links or
explanatory clauses.
[1] To be considered later. See chap. iv.
The simplest way out of the difficulty presented by the many curious
turns and changes of the poem is to deny it any structural unity, and
treat it as a string of independent lyrics. That is to cut the knot in
a rather disappointing fashion. Nevertheless the suggestion to do so
met with some favour when it was put forth at the close of the last
century by Herder, a writer who seemed better able to enter into the
spirit of Hebrew poetry than any of his contemporaries. While
accepting the traditional view of the authorship of the book, this
critic described its contents as "Solomon's songs of love, the oldest
and sweetest of the East;" and Goethe in the world of letters, as
well as biblical students, endorsed his judgment. Subsequently it fell
into disfavour, and scholars who differed among themselves with
respect to their own theories, agreed in rejecting this particular
hypothesis. But quite recently it has reappeared in an altered form.
The book, it is now suggested, is just a chance collection of folk
songs from northern Palestine, an anthology of rustic love-poems.
These songs are denied any connection with Solomon or the court. The
references to royalty are accounted for by a custom said to be kept up
among the Syrian peasants in the present day, according to which the
week of wedding festivities is called "The king's week," because the
newly-married pair then play the part of king and queen, and are
playfully treated by their friends with the honours of a court. The
bridegroom is supposed to be named Solomon in acknowledgment of his
regal splendour--as an English villager might be so named for his
conspicuous wisdom; while perhaps the bride is called the Shulammite,
with an allusion to the famous beauty Abishag, the Shunammite of
David's time.[2]
[2] 1 Kings i. 3.
Such a theory as this is only admissible on condition that the unity
of the poem has been disproved. But whether we can unravel it or not,
there is much that goes to show that one thread runs through the whole
book. The style is the same throughout, and it has no parallel in the
whole of Hebrew literature. Everywhere we meet with the same rich,
luxurious language, the same abundance of imagery, the same
picturesque habit of alluding to a number of plants and animals by
name, the same vivacity of movement, the same pleading tone, the same
suffused glow as of the light of morning. Then there are more peculiar
features that continually recur, such as the form of the dialogue,
certain recognisable characters, the part of chorus taken by the
daughters of Jerusalem, in particular the gentle, graceful portrait of
the Shulammite, the consistency of which is well preserved. But the
principal reason for believing in the unity of the work is to be found
in an examination of its plot. The difficulty of making this out has
encouraged the temptation to discredit its existence. But while there
are various ideas about the details, there is enough in common to all
the proposed schemes of the story to indicate the fact that the book
is one composition.
The question whether the work is a drama or an idyl has been discussed
with much critical acumen. But is it not rather pedantic? The sharply
divided orders of European poetry were not observed or even known in
Israel. It was natural, therefore, that Hebrew imaginative work should
partake of the characteristics of several orders, while too naïve to
trouble itself with the rules of any one. The drama designed for
acting was not cultivated by the ancient Jews. It was introduced as an
exotic only as late as the Roman period, when Herod built the first
theatre known to have existed in the Holy Land. Previous to his time
we have no mention of the art of play-acting among the Jews.
Nevertheless the dialogues in the Song of Solomon are certainly
dramatic in character; and we cannot call the poem an idyl when it is
rendered entirely in the form of speeches by different persons without
any connecting narrative. The Book of Job is also dramatic in form,
though, like Browning's dramatic poetry, not designed for acting; but
in that work each of the several speakers is introduced by a sentence
that indicates who he is, while in our poem no such indication is
given. Here we only get evidence of a change of speakers in the form
and contents of the utterances, and the transition from the masculine
to the feminine gender and from the singular number to the plural.
Even the chorus takes an active part in the movement of the dialogue,
instead of simply commenting on the proceedings of the principal
characters as in a Greek play. We seem to want a key to the story, and
the absence of anything of the kind is the occasion of the bewildering
variety of conjectures that confronts the reader. But the difficulty
thus occasioned is no reason for denying that there is any continuity
in the book, especially in view of numerous signs of unity that cannot
be evaded.
Among those who accept the dramatic integrity of the poem there are
two distinct lines of interpretation, each of them admitting some
differences in the treatment of detail. According to one scheme
Solomon is the only lover; according to the other, while the king is
seeking to win the affections of the country maiden, he has been
forestalled by a shepherd, fidelity to whom is shewn by the Shulammite
in spite of the fascinations of the court.
There is no denying the rural simplicity of much of the scenery;
evidently this is designed to be in contrast to the sensuous luxury
and splendour of the court. Those who take Solomon to be the one lover
throughout, not only admit this fact; they bring it into their version
of the story so as to heighten the effect. The king is out
holiday-making, perhaps on a hunting expedition, when he first meets
the country maiden. In her childlike simplicity she takes him for a
rustic swain; or perhaps, though she knows who he is, she sportively
addresses him as she would address one of her village companions.
Subsequently she shews no liking for the pomp of royalty. She cannot
make herself at home with the women of the harem. She longs to be back
in her mother's cottage among the woods and fields where she spent her
child days. But she loves the king and he dotes on her. So she would
take him with her away from the follies and temptations of the court
down to her quiet country retreat. Under the influence of the
Shulammite Solomon is induced to give up his unworthy habits and live
a healthier, purer life. Her love is strong enough to retain the king
wholly to herself. Thus the poem is said to describe a reformation in
the character of Solomon. In particular it is thought to celebrate the
triumph of true love over the degradation of polygamy.
It is impossible to find any time in the life of David's successor
when this great conversion might have taken place; and the occurrence
itself is highly improbable. Those however are not fatal objections to
the proposed scheme, because the poem may be entirely ideal; it may
even be written _at_ the king. Historical considerations need not
trouble us in dealing with an imaginative work such as this. It must
be judged entirely on internal grounds. But when it is so judged it
refuses to come into line with the interpretation suggested. Regarding
the matter only from a literary point of view, we must confess that it
is most improbable that Solomon would be introduced as a simple
peasant without any hint of the reason of his appearing in this novel
guise. Then we may detect a difference between the manner in which the
king addresses the Shulammite and that in which, on the second
hypothesis, the shepherd speaks to her. Solomon's compliments are
frigid and stilted; they describe the object of his admiration in the
most extravagant terms, but they exhibit no trace of feeling. The
heart of the voluptuary is withered, the fires of passion have burnt
themselves out and only the cold ashes remain, the sacred word "love"
has been so long desecrated that it has ceased to convey any meaning.
On the other hand, frequent practice has outstripped the clumsy wooing
of inexperienced lovers and developed the art of courtship to a high
degree. The royal bird-catcher knows how to lay his lines, though
fortunately for once even his consummate skill fails. How different is
the bearing of the true lover, a village lad who has won the maiden's
heart! He has no need to resort to the vocabulary of flattery, because
his own heart speaks. The English translations give an unwarrantable
appearance of warmth to the king's language where he is represented as
calling the Shulammite "My love."[3] The word in the Hebrew means no
more than _my friend_. When Solomon first appears he addresses the
Shulammite with this title, and then immediately tries to tempt her by
promising her presents of jewelry. Take another instance. In the
beginning of the fourth chapter Solomon enters on an elaborate series
of compliments describing the beauty of the Shulammite, without a
single word of affection. As she persists in withstanding his advances
her persecutor becomes abashed. He shrinks from her pure, cold gaze,
calls her terrible as an army with banners, prays her to turn away her
eyes from him. On the theory that Solomon is the accepted lover, the
beloved bridegroom, this position is quite unintelligible. Now turn
to the language of the true lover: "Thou hast ravished my heart, my
sister, my bride; thou hast ravished my heart with one look of thine
eyes."[4]
[3] i. 9.
[4] iv. 9.
A corresponding difference is to be detected in the bearing of the
maiden towards the rivals. Towards the king she is cool and repellent;
but no dream of poetry can equal the tenderness and sweetness of her
musing on her absent lover or the warmth of love with which she speaks
to him. These distinctions will be more apparent in detail as we
proceed with the story of the poem. It may be noticed here, that this
story is not at all consistent with the theory that Solomon is the
only lover. According to that hypothesis we have the highly improbable
situation of a separation of the newly married couple on their wedding
day. Besides, as the climax is supposed to be reached at the middle of
the book, there is no apparent motive for the second half. The modern
novel, which has its wedding at the middle of its plot, or even at the
very beginning, and then sets itself to develop the comedy or perhaps
the tragedy of married life, is not at all parallel to this old love
story. Time must be allowed for the development of matrimonial
complications; but here the scenes are all in close connection.
If we are thus led to accept what has been called "the shepherd
hypothesis" the value of the book will be considerably enhanced. This
is more than a mere love poem; it is not to be classed with erotics,
although a careless reading of some of its passages might incline us
to place it in the same category with a purely sensuous style of
poetry. We have here something more than Sappho's fire. If we are
tempted to compare it with Herrick's _Hesperides_ or Shakespeare's
_Sonnets_, we must recognise an element that lifts it above the sighs
of love-sick youths and maidens. Even on the "Solomon theory" pure
love and simple living are exalted in opposition to the luxury and
vices of the royal seraglio. A poem that sets forth the beauty of a
simple country life as the scene of the true love of husband and wife
in contrast to the degradation of a corrupt court is distinctly
elevating in tone and influence, and the more so for the fact that it
is not didactic in form. It is not only in kings' palaces and amid
scenes of oriental voluptuousness that the influence of such ideas as
are here presented is needed. Christian civilisation has not
progressed beyond the condition in which the consideration of them may
be resorted to as a wholesome corrective. But if we are to agree to
the "shepherd hypothesis" as on the whole the more probable, another
idea of highest importance emerges. It is not love, now, but fidelity,
that claims our attention. The simple girl, protected only by her
virtue, who is proof against all the fascinations of the most splendid
court, and who prefers to be the wife of the poor man whom she loves,
and to whom she has plighted troth, to accepting a queen's crown at
the cost of deserting her humble lover, is the type and example of a
loyalty which is the more admirable because it appears where we should
little expect to find it. It has been said that such a story as is
here depicted would be impossible in real life; that a girl once
enticed into the harem of an oriental despot would never have a chance
of escape. The eunuchs who guarded the doors would lose their heads if
they allowed her to run away; the king would never give up the prey
that had fallen into his trap; the shepherd lover who was mad enough
to pursue his lost sweetheart into her captor's palace would never
come out alive. Are we so sure of all these points? Most improbable
things do happen. It is at least conceivable that even a cruel tyrant
might be seized with a fit of generosity, and why should we regard
Solomon as a cruel tyrant? His fame implies that there were noble
traits in his character. But these questions are beside the mark. The
situation is wholly ideal. Then the more improbable the events
described would be in real life, the more impressive do the lessons
they suggest become.
Who wrote the book? The only answer that can be given to this question
is negative. Assuredly, Solomon could not have been the author of this
lovely poem in praise of the love and fidelity of a country lass and
her swain, and the simplicity of their rustic life. It would be
difficult to find a man in all history who more conspicuously
illustrated the exact opposites of these ideas. The exquisite eulogy
of love--perhaps the finest in any literature--which occurs towards
the end of the book, the passage beginning, "Set me as a seal upon
thine heart," etc.,[5] is not the work of this master of a huge
seraglio, with his "seven hundred wives" and his "three hundred
concubines."[6] It is impossible to find the source of this poetry in
the palace of the Israelite "Grand Monarch"; we might as soon light on
a bank of wild flowers in a Paris dancing saloon. There is quite a
library of Solomon literature, a very small part of which can be
traced to the king whose name it bears, the greatness of this name
having attracted attention and led to the ascription of various works
to the royal author, whose wisdom was as proverbial as his splendour.
It is difficult to resist the impression that in the present case
there is some irony in the singular inappropriateness of the title.
[5] viii. 6, 7.
[6] 1 Kings xi. 3.
The date of the poem can be conjectured with some degree of assurance,
although the language does not help us much in the determination of
this point. There are archaisms, and there are also terms that seem to
indicate a late date--Aramaic words and possibly even words of Greek
extraction. The few foreign terms may have crept in under the
influence of revisers. On the other hand the style and contents of the
book speak for the days of the Augustan age of Hebrew history. The
notoriety of Solomon's court and memories of its magnificence and
luxury seem to be fresh in the minds of people. These things are
treated in detail and with an amount of freedom that supposes
knowledge on the part of the readers as well as the writer. There is
one expression that helps to fix the date with more definiteness.
Tirzah is associated with Jerusalem as though the two cities were of
equal importance. The king says:--
"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah,
Comely as Jerusalem."[7]
[7] vi. 4.
Now this city was the northern capital for about fifty years after the
death of Solomon--from the time of Jeroboam, who made it his royal
residence,[8] till the reign of Omri, who abandoned the ill-omened
place six years after his vanquished predecessor Zimri had burnt the
palace over his own head.[9] The way in which the old capital is
mentioned here implies that it is still to the north what Jerusalem is
to the south. Thus we are brought to the half century after the death
of the king whose name the book bears.
[8] 1 Kings xiv. 17.
[9] 1 Kings xvi. 18, 23, 24.
The mention of Tirzah as the equal of Jerusalem is also an evidence of
the northern origin of the poem; for it is not at all probable that a
subject of the mutilated nation of the south would describe the beauty
of the rebel headquarters by the side of that of his own idolised
city, as something typical and perfect. But the poem throughout gives
indications of its origin in the country parts of the north. Shunem,
famous as the scene of Elisha's great miracle, seems to be the home of
the heroine.[10] The poet turns to all points of the compass for
images with which to enrich his pictures--Sharon on the western
coast,[11] Gilead across the Jordan to the east,[12] Engedi by the
wilderness of the Dead Sea,[13] as well as the northern districts. But
the north is most frequently mentioned. Lebanon is named over and over
again,[14] and Hermon is referred to as in the neighbourhood of the
shepherd's home.[15] In fact the poem is saturated with the fragrant
atmosphere of the northern mountains.
[10] vi. 13.
[11] ii. 1.
[12] iv. 1.
[13] i. 14.
[14] iii. 9; iv. 8, 15; vii. 4.
[15] iv. 8.
Now this has suggested a striking inference. Here we have a picture of
Solomon and his court from the not too friendly hand of a citizen of
the revolted provinces. The history in the Books of Kings is written
from the standpoint of Judah; it is curious to learn how the people of
the north thought of Solomon in all his glory. Thus considered the
book acquires a secondary and political meaning. It appears as a
scornful condemnation of the court at Jerusalem on the part of the
poorer and more simple inhabitants of the kingdom of Jeroboam and his
successors.[16] But it also stands for all time as a protest against
luxury and vice, and as a testimony to the beauty and dignity of pure
love, stanch fidelity, and quiet, wholesome, primitive country
manners. It breathes the spirit that reappears in Goldsmith's
_Deserted Village_, and inspires the muse of Wordsworth, as in the
poem which contrasts the dove's simple notes with the nightingale's
tumultuous song, saying of the homely bird,
"He sang of love with quiet blending;
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith and inward glee;
That was the song--the song for me."
[16] See _Ency. Brit._, Art. "Canticles," by Robertson Smith.
CHAPTER II
_TRUE LOVE TESTED_
CHAPTER i.-v. 1
The poem opens with a scene in Solomon's palace. A country maiden has
just been introduced to the royal harem. The situation is painful
enough in itself, for the poor, shy girl is experiencing the miserable
loneliness of finding herself in an unsympathetic crowd. But that is
not all. She is at once the object of general observation; every eye
is turned towards her; and curiosity is only succeeded by
ill-concealed disgust. Still the slavish women, presumably acting on
command, set themselves to excite the new comer's admiration for their
lord and master. First one speaks some bold amorous words,[17] and
then the whole chorus follows.[18] All this is distressing and
alarming to the captive, who calls on her absent lover to fetch her
away from such an uncongenial scene; she longs to run after him; for
it is the king who has brought her into his chambers, not her own
will.[19] The women of the harem take no notice of this interruption,
but finish their ode on the charms of Solomon. All the while they are
staring at the rustic maiden, and she now becomes conscious of a
growing contempt in their looks. What is she that the attractions of
the king before which the dainty ladies of the court prostrate
themselves should have no fascination for her? She notices the
contrast between the swarthy hue of her sun-burnt countenance and the
pale complexion of these pampered products of palace seclusion. She is
so dark in comparison with them that she likens herself to the black
goats-hair tents of the Arabs.[20] The explanation is that her
brothers have made her work in their vineyards. Meanwhile she has not
kept her own vineyard.[21] She has not guarded her beauty as these
idle women, who have nothing else to do, have guarded theirs; but
perhaps she has a sadder thought--she could not protect herself when
out alone at her task in the country or she would never have been
captured and carried on to the prison where she now sits disconsolate.
Possibly the vineyard she has not kept is the lover whom she has
lost.[22] Still she is a woman, and with a touch of piqued pride she
reminds her critics that if she is dark--black compared with them--she
is comely. They cannot deny that. It is the cause of all her misery;
she owes her imprisonment to her beauty. She knows that their secret
feeling is one of envy of her, the latest favourite. Then their
affected contempt is groundless. But, indeed, she has no desire to
stand as their rival. She would gladly make her escape. She speaks in
a half soliloquy. Will not somebody tell her where he is whom her soul
loveth? Where is her lost shepherd lad? Where is he feeding his flock?
Where is he resting it at noon? Such questions only provoke mockery.
Addressing the simple girl as the "fairest among women," the court
ladies bid her find her lover for herself. Let her go back to her
country life and feed her kids by the shepherds' tents. Doubtless if
she is bold enough to court her swain in that way she will not miss
seeing him.
[17] i. 2.
[18] i. 3.
[19] i. 4.
[20] i. 5.
[21] i. 6.
[22] See viii. 12.
Hitherto Solomon has not appeared. Now he comes on the scene, and
proceeds to accost his new acquisition in highly complimentary
language, with the ease of an expert in the art of courtship. At this
point we encounter the most serious difficulty for the theory of a
shepherd lover. To all appearances a dialogue between the king and the
Shulammite here ensues.[23] But if this were the case, the country
girl would be addressing Solomon in terms of the utmost
endearment--conduct utterly incompatible with the "shepherd
hypothesis." The only alternative is to suppose that the hard-pressed
girl takes refuge from the importunity of her royal flatterer by
turning aside to an imaginary, half dream-like conversation with her
absent lover. This is not by any means a probable position, it must be
allowed; it seems to put a strained interpretation on the text.
Undoubtedly if the passage before us stood by itself, there would not
be any difference of opinion about it; everybody would take it in its
obvious meaning as a conversation between two lovers. But it does not
stand by itself--unless, indeed, we are to give up the unity of the
book. Therefore it must be interpreted so as not to contradict the
whole course of the poem, which shews that another than Solomon is the
true lover of the disconsolate maiden.
[23] i. 9--ii. 6.
The king begins with the familiar device by which rich men all the
world over try to win the confidence of poor girls when there is no
love on either side,--a device which has been only too successful in
the case of many a weak Marguerite though her tempter has not always
been a handsome Faust; but in the present case innocence is fortified
by true love, and the trick is a failure. The king notices that this
peasant girl has but simple plaited hair and homely ornaments. She
shall have plaits of gold and studs of silver! Splendid as one of
Pharaoh's chariot horses, she shall be decorated as magnificently as
they are decorated! What is this to our stanch heroine? She treats it
with absolute indifference, and begins to soliloquise, with a touch of
scorn in her language. She has been loaded with scent after the manner
of the luxurious court, and the king while seated feasting at his
table has caught the odour of the rich perfumes. That is why he is now
by her side. Does he think that she will serve as a new dainty for the
great banquet, as a fresh fillip for the jaded appetite of the royal
voluptuary? If so he is much mistaken. The king's promises have no
attraction for her, and she turns for relief to dear memories of her
true love. The thought of him is fragrant as the bundle of myrrh she
carries in her bosom, as the henna-flowers that bloom in the vineyards
of far-off Engedi.
Clearly Solomon has made a clumsy move. This shy bird is not of the
common species with which he is familiar. He must aim higher if he
would bring down his quarry. She is not to be classed with the wares
of the matrimonial market that are only waiting to be assigned to the
richest bidder. She cannot be bought even by the wealth of a king's
treasury. But if there is a woman who can resist the charms of finery,
is there one who can stand against the admiration of her personal
beauty? A man of Solomon's experience would scarcely believe that such
was to be found. Nevertheless now the sex he estimates too lightly is
to be vindicated, while the king himself is to be taught a wholesome
lesson. He may call her fair; he may praise her dove-like eyes.[24]
His flattery is lost upon her. She only thinks of the beauty of her
shepherd lad, and pictures to herself the green bank on which they
used to sit, with the cedars and firs for the beams and roof of their
trysting-place.[25] Her language carries us away from the gilded
splendour and close, perfumed atmosphere of the royal palace to scenes
such as Shakespeare presents in the forest of Arden and the haunts of
Titania, and Milton in the Mask of _Comus_. Here is a Hebrew lady
longing to escape from the clutches of one who for all his glory is
not without some of the offensive traits of the monster Comus. She
thinks of herself as a wild flower, like the crocus that grows on the
plains of Sharon or the lily (literally the anemone) that is sprinkled
so freely over the upland valleys.[26] The open country is the natural
_habitat_ of such a plant, not the stifling court. Solomon catches at
her beautiful imagery. Compared with other maidens she is like a lily
among thorns.[27]
[24] i. 15.
[25] i. 16, 17.
[26] ii. 1.
[27] ii. 2.
And now these scenes of nature carry the persecuted girl away in a
sort of reverie. If she is like the tender flower, her lover resembles
the apple tree at the foot of which it nestles, a tree the shadow of
which is delightful and its fruit sweet.[28] She remembers how he
brought her to his banqueting house; that rustic bower was a very
different place from the grand divan on which she had seen Solomon
sitting at his table. No purple hangings like those of the king's
palace there screened her from the sun. The only banner her shepherd
could spread over her was love, his own love.[29] But what could be a
more perfect shelter?
[28] ii. 3.
[29] ii. 4.
She is fainting. How she longs for her lover to comfort her! She has
just compared him to an apple tree; now the refreshment she hungers
for is the fruit of this tree; that is to say, his love.[30] Oh that
he would put his arms round her and support her, as in the old happy
days before she had been snatched away from him![31]
[30] ii. 5.
[31] ii. 6.
Next follows a verse which is repeated later, and so serves as a sort
of refrain.[32] The Shulammite adjures the daughters of Jerusalem not
to awaken love. This verse is misrendered in the Authorised Version,
which inserts the pronoun "my" before "love" without any warrant in
the Hebrew text. The poor girl has spoken of apples. But the court
ladies must not misunderstand her. She wants none of their love
apples,[33] no philtre, no charm to turn her affections away from her
shepherd lover and pervert them to the importunate royal suitor. The
opening words of the poem which celebrated the charms of Solomon had
been aimed in that direction. The motive of the work seems to be the
Shulammite's resistance to various attempts to move her from loyalty
to her true love. It is natural, therefore, that an appeal to desist
from all such attempts should come out emphatically.
[32] ii. 7.
[33] See Gen. xxx. 14.
The poem takes a new turn. In imagination the Shulammite hears the
voice of her beloved. She pictures him standing at the foot of the
lofty rock on which the harem is built, and crying,--
"Oh, my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the cover
of the steep place,
Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;
For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely."[34]
[34] ii. 14.
He is like a troubadour singing to his imprisoned lady-love; and she,
in her soliloquys, though not by any means a "high-born maiden," may
call to mind the simile in Shelley's _Skylark_:--
"Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour,
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower."
She remembers how her lover had come to her bounding over the hills
"like a roe or a young hart,"[35] and peeping in at her lattice; and
she repeats the song with which he had called her out--one of the
sweetest songs of spring that ever was sung.[36] In our own green
island we acknowledge that this is the most beautiful season of all
the round year; but in Palestine it stands out in more strongly
pronounced contrast to the three other seasons, and it is in itself
exceedingly lovely. While summer and autumn are there parched with
drought, barren and desolate, and while winter is often dreary with
snow-storms and floods of rain, in spring the whole land is one lovely
garden, ablaze with richest hues, hill and dale, wilderness and
farmland vying in the luxuriance of their wild flowers, from the red
anemone that fires the steep sides of the mountains to the purple and
white cyclamen that nestles among the rocks at their feet. Much of the
beauty of this poem is found in the fact that it is pervaded by the
spirit of an eastern spring. This makes it possible to introduce a
wealth of beautiful imagery which would not have been appropriate if
any other season had been chosen. Even more lovely in March than
England is in May, Palestine comes nearest to the appearance of our
country in the former month; so that this poem, that is so completely
bathed in the atmosphere of early spring, calls up echoes of the
exquisite English garden pictures in Shelley's _Sensitive Plant_ and
Tennyson's _Maud_. But it is not only beauty of imagery that our poet
gains by setting his work in this lovely season. His ideas are all in
harmony with the period of the year he describes so charmingly. It is
the time of youth and hope, of joy and love--especially of love, for,
"In the spring a young man's fancy
Lightly turns to thoughts of love."
[35] ii. 9.
[36] ii. 11-13.
There is even a deeper association between the ideas of the poem and
the season in which it is set. None of the freshness of spring is to
be found about Solomon and his harem, but it is all present in the
Shulammite and her shepherd; and spring scenes and thoughts powerfully
aid the motive of the poem in accentuating the contrast between the
tawdry magnificence of the court and the pure, simple beauty of the
country life to which the heroine of the poem clings so faithfully.
The Shulammite answers her lover in an old ditty about "the little
foxes that spoil the vineyards."[37] He would recognise that, and so
discover her presence. We are reminded of the legend of Richard's page
finding his master by singing a familiar ballad outside the walls of
the castle in the Tyrol where the captive crusader was imprisoned.
This is all imaginary. And yet the faithful girl knows in her heart
that her beloved is hers and that she is his, although in sober
reality he is now feeding his flocks in the far-off flowery fields of
her old home.[38] There he must remain till the cool of the evening,
till the shadows melt into the darkness of night, when she would fain
he returned to her, coming over the rugged mountains "like a roe or a
young hart."[39]
[37] ii. 15.
[38] ii. 16.
[39] ii. 17.
Now the Shulammite tells a painful dream.[40] She dreamed that she had
lost her lover, and that she rose up at night and went out into the
streets seeking him. At first she failed to find him. She asked the
watchmen whom she met on their round, if they had seen him whom her
soul loved. They could not help her quest. But a little while after
leaving them she discovered the missing lover, and brought him safely
into her mother's house.
[40] iii. 1-4.
After a repetition of the warning to the daughters of Jerusalem not to
awaken love,[41] we are introduced to a new scene.[42] It is by one of
the gates of Jerusalem, where the country maiden has been brought in
order that she may be impressed by the gorgeous spectacle of Solomon
returning from a royal progress. The king comes up from the wilderness
in clouds of perfume, guarded by sixty men-at-arms, and borne in a
magnificent palanquin of cedar-wood, with silver posts, a floor of
gold, and purple cushions, wearing on his head the crown with which
his mother had crowned him. Is the mention of the mother of Solomon
intended to be specially significant? Remember--she was Bathsheba!
The allusion to such a woman would not be likely to conciliate the
pure young girl who was not in the least degree moved by this attempt
to charm her with a scene of exceptional magnificence.
[41] iii. 5.
[42] iii. 6-11
Solomon now appears again, praising his captive in extravagant
language of courtly flattery. He praises her dove-like eyes, her
voluminous black hair, her rosy lips, her noble brow (not even
disguised by her veil), her towering neck, her tender bosom--lovely as
twin gazelles that feed among the lilies. Like her lover, who is
necessarily away with his flock, Solomon will leave her till the cool
of the evening, till the shadows melt into night; but he has no
pastoral duties to attend to, and though the delicate balancing and
assimilation of phrase and idea is gracefully manipulated, there is a
change. The king will go to "mountains of myrrh" and "hills of
frankincense,"[43] to make his person more fragrant, and so, as he
hopes, more welcome.
[43] iv. 6.
If we adopt the "shepherd hypothesis" the next section of the poem
must be assigned to the rustic lover.[44] It is difficult to believe
that this peasant would be allowed to speak to a lady in the royal
harem. We might suppose that here and perhaps also in the earlier
scene the shepherd is represented as actually present at the foot of
the rock on which the palace stands. Otherwise this also must be taken
as an imaginary scene, or as a reminiscence of the dreamy girl.
Although a thread of unity runs through the whole poem, Goethe was
clearly correct in calling it "a medley." Scenes real and imaginary
melting one into another cannot take their places in a regular drama.
But when we grant full liberty to the imaginary element there is less
necessity to ask what is subjective and what objective, what only
fancied by the Shulammite and what intended to be taken as an actual
occurrence. Strictly speaking, nothing is actual; the whole poem is a
highly imaginative series of fancy pictures illustrating the
development of its leading ideas.
[44] iv. 8-15.
Next--whether we take it as in imagination or in fact--the shepherd
lover calls his bride to follow him from the most remote regions. His
language is entirely different from that of the magnificent monarch.
He does not waste his breath in formal compliments, high-flown
imagery, wearisome lists of the charms of the girl he loves. That was
the clumsy method of the king; clumsy, though reflecting the finished
manners of the court, in comparison with the genuine outpourings of
the heart of a country lad. The shepherd is eloquent with the
inspiration of true love; his words throb and glow with genuine
emotion; there is a fine, wholesome passion in them. The love of his
bride has ravished his heart. How beautiful is her love! He is
intoxicated with it more than with wine. How sweet are her words of
tender affection, like milk and honey! She is so pure, there is
something sisterly in her love with all its warmth. And she is so near
to him that she is almost like part of himself, as his own sister.
This holy and close relationship is in startling contrast to the only
thing known as love in the royal harem. It is as much more lofty and
noble as it is more strong and deep than the jaded emotions of the
court. The sweet pure maiden is to the shepherd like a garden the gate
of which is barred against trespassers, like a spring shut off from
casual access, like a sealed fountain--sealed to all but one, and,
happy man, he is that one. To him she belongs, to him alone. She is a
garden, yes, a most fragrant garden, an orchard of pomegranates full
of rich fruit, crowded with sweet-scented plants--henna and spikenard
and saffron, calamus and cinnamon and all kinds of frankincense, myrrh
and aloes and the best of spices. She is a fountain in the garden,
sealed to all others, but not stinted towards the one she loves. To
him she is as a well of living waters, like the full-fed streams that
flow from Lebanon.
The maiden is supposed to hear the song of love. She replies in
fearless words of welcome, bidding the north wind awake, and the south
wind too, that the fragrance of which her lover has spoken so
enthusiastically may flow out more richly than ever. For his sake she
would be more sweet and loving. All she possesses is for him. Let him
come and take possession of his own.[45]
[45] iv. 16.
What lover could turn aside from such a rapturous invitation? The
shepherd takes his bride; he enters his garden, gathers his myrrh and
spice, eats his honey and drinks his wine and milk, and calls on his
friends to feast and drink with him.[46] This seems to point to the
marriage of the couple and their wedding feast; a view of the passage
which interpreters who regard Solomon as the lover throughout for the
most part take, but one which has this fatal objection, that it leaves
the second half of the poem without a motive. On the hypothesis of the
shepherd lover it is still more difficult to suppose the wedding to
have occurred at the point we have now reached, for the distraction
of the royal courtship still proceeds in subsequent passages of the
poem. It would seem, then, that we must regard this as quite an ideal
scene. It may, however, be taken as a reminiscence of an earlier
passage in the lives of the two lovers. It is not impossible that it
refers to their wedding, and that they had been married before the
action of the whole story began. In that case we should have to
suppose that Solomon's officers had carried off a young bride to the
royal harem. The intensity of the love and the bitterness of the
separation apparent throughout the poem would be the more intelligible
if this were the situation. It is to be remembered that Shakespeare
ascribes the climax of the love and grief of Romeo and Juliet to a
time after their marriage. But the difficulty of accepting this view
lies in the improbability that so outrageous a crime would be
attributed to Solomon, although it must be admitted that the guilty
conduct of his father and mother had gone a long way in setting an
example for the violation of the marriage tie. In dealing with vague
and dreamy poetry such as that of the Song of Solomon, it is not
possible to determine a point like this with precision; nor is it
necessary to do so. The beauty and force of the passage now before us
centre in the perfect mutual love of the two young hearts that here
show themselves to be knit together as one, whether already actually
married or not yet thus externally united.
[46] v. 1.
CHAPTER III
_LOVE UNQUENCHABLE_
CHAPTER v. 1-viii
We have seen how this strange poem mingles fact and fancy, memory and
reverie, in what would be hopeless confusion if we could not detect a
common prevailing sentiment and one aim towards which the whole is
tending, with all its rapidly shifting scenes and all its perplexingly
varying movements. The middle of the poem attains a perfect climax of
love and rapture. Then we are suddenly transported to an entirely
different scene. The Shulammite recites a second dream, which somewhat
resembles her former dream, but is more vivid and intense, and ends
very painfully.[47] The circumstances of it will agree most readily
with the idea that she is already married to the shepherd. Again it is
a dream of the loss of her lover, and of her search for him by night
in the streets of Jerusalem. But in the present case he was first
close to her, and then he deserted her most unaccountably; and when
she went to look for him this time she failed to find him, and met
with cruel ill-treatment. In her dream she fancies she hears the
bridegroom knocking at her chamber door and calling upon her as his
sister, his love, his dove, his undefiled, to open to him. He has
just returned from tending his flock in the night, and his hair is wet
with the dew. The bride coyly excuses herself, on the plea that she
has laid aside her mantle and washed her feet; as though it would vex
her to put her feet to the ground again. This is but the playful
reluctance of love; for no sooner is her beloved really lost than she
undertakes the greatest trouble in the search for him. When he puts in
his hand to lift the latch, her heart is moved towards him, and she
rises to open the door. On touching the lock she finds it covered with
liquid myrrh. It has been ingeniously suggested that we have here a
reference to the construction of an eastern lock, with a wooden pin
dropped into the bolt, which is intended to be lifted by a key, but
which may be raised by a man's finger if he is provided with some
viscid substance, such as the ointment here mentioned, to adhere to
the pin. The little detail shews that the lover or bridegroom had come
with the deliberate intention of entering. How strange, then, that
when the bride opens the door he is not to be seen! Why has he fled?
The shock of this surprise quite overwhelms the poor girl, and she is
on the point of fainting. She looks about for her vanished lover, and
calls him by name; but there is no answer. She goes out to seek for
him in the streets, and there the watchmen cuff and bruise her, and
the sentry on the city walls rudely tear off her veil.
[47] v. 2-7.
Returning from the distressing recollection of her dream to the
present condition of affairs, the sorrowful Shulammite adjures the
daughters of Jerusalem to tell her if they have found her love.[48]
They respond by asking, what is her beloved more than any other
beloved?[49] This mocking question of the harem women rouses the
Shulammite, and affords an opportunity for descanting on the beauty of
her love.[50] He is both fair and ruddy, the chiefest among ten
thousand. For this is what he is like: a head splendid as finest gold;
massive, curling, raven locks; eyes like doves by water brooks, and
looking as though they had been washed in milk--an elaborate image in
which the soft iris and the sparkling light on the pupils suggest the
picture of the gentle birds brooding on the bank of a flashing stream,
and the pure, healthy eyeballs a thought of the whiteness of milk;
cheeks fragrant as spices; lips red as lilies (the blood-red
anemones); a body like ivory, with blue veins as of sapphire; legs
like marble columns on golden bases. The aspect of him is like great
Lebanon, splendid as the far-famed cedars; and when he opens his lips
his voice is ravishingly sweet. Yes, he is altogether lovely. Such is
her beloved, her dearest one.
[48] v. 8.
[49] v. 9.
[50] v. 10-16.
The mocking ladies ask their victim where then has this paragon
gone?[51] She would have them understand that he has not been so cruel
as really to desert her. It was only in her dream that he treated her
with such unaccountable fickleness. The plain fact is that he is away
at his work on his far-off farm, feeding his flock, and perhaps
gathering a posy of flowers for his bride.[52] He is far away,--that
sad truth cannot be denied; and yet he is not really lost, for love
laughs at time and distance; the poor lonely girl can say still that
she is her beloved's and that he is hers.[53] The reappearance of this
phrase suggests that it is intended to serve as a sort of refrain.
Thus it comes in with admirable fitness to balance the other refrain
to which reference has been made earlier.[54] In the first refrain the
daughters of Jerusalem are besought not to attempt to awaken the
Shulammite's love for Solomon; this is well balanced by the refrain in
which she declares the constancy of the mutual love that exists
between herself and the shepherd.
[51] vi. 1.
[52] vi. 2.
[53] vi. 3.
[54] Page 20.
Now Solomon reappears on the scene, and resumes his laudation of the
Shulammite's beauty.[55] But there is a marked change in his manner.
This most recent capture is quite unlike the sort of girls with whom
his harem was stocked from time to time. He had no reverence for any
of them; they all considered themselves to be highly honoured by his
favour, all adored him with slavish admiration, like that expressed by
one of them in the first line of the poem. But he is positively afraid
of the Shulammite. She is "terrible as an army with banners." He
cannot bear to look at her eyes; he begs her to turn them away from
him, for they have overcome him. What is the meaning of this new
attitude on the part of the mighty monarch? There is something awful
in the simple peasant girl. The purity, the constancy, the cold scorn
with which she regards the king, are as humiliating as they are novel
in his experience. Yet it is well for him that he is susceptible to
their influence. He is greatly injured and corrupted by the manners of
a luxurious oriental court. But he is not a seared profligate. The
vision of goodness startles him; then there is a better nature in him,
and its slumbering powers are partly roused by this unexpected
apparition.
[55] vi. 4-7.
We have now reached a very important point in the poem. It is almost
impossible to reconcile this with the theory that Solomon is the one
and only lover referred to throughout. But on the "shepherd
hypothesis" the position is most significant. The value of constancy
in love is not only seen in the steadfast character of one who is
sorely tempted to yield to other influences; it is also apparent in
the effects on a spectator of so uncongenial a nature as king Solomon.
Thus the poet brings out the great idea of his work most vividly. He
could not have done so more forcibly than by choosing the court of
Solomon for the scene of the trial, and shewing the startling effect
of the noble virtue of constancy on the king himself.
Here we are face to face with one of the rescuing influences of life,
which may be met in various forms. A true woman, an innocent child, a
pure man, coming across the path of one who has permitted himself to
slide down towards murky depths, arrests his attention with a painful
shock of surprise. The result is a revelation to him, in the light of
which he discovers, to his horror, how far he has fallen. It is a sort
of incarnate conscience warning him of the still lower degradation
towards which he is sinking. Perhaps it strikes him as a beacon light,
shewing the path up to purity and peace; an angel from heaven sent to
help him retrace his steps and return to his better self. Few men are
so abandoned as never to be visited by some such gleam from higher
regions. To many, alas, it comes but as the temporary rift in the
clouds through which for one brief moment the blue sky becomes visible
even on a wild and stormy day, soon to be lost in deeper darkness.
Happy are they who obey its unexpected message.
The concluding words of the passage which opens with Solomon's praises
of the Shulammite present another of the many difficulties with which
the poem abounds. Mention is made of Solomon's sixty queens, his
eighty concubines, his maidens without number; and then the Shulammite
is contrasted with this vast seraglio as "My dove, my undefiled," who
is "but one"--"the only one of her mother."[56] Who is speaking here?
If this is a continuation of Solomon's speech, as the flow of the
verses would suggest, it must mean that the king would set his newest
acquisition quite apart from all the ladies of the harem, as his
choice and treasured bride. Those who regard Solomon as the lover,
think they see here what they call his conversion, that is to say, his
turning away from polygamy to monogamy. History knows of no such
conversion; and it is hardly likely that a poet of the northern
kingdom would go out of his way to whitewash the matrimonial
reputation of a sovereign from whom the house of Judah was descended.
Besides, the occurrence here represented bears a very dubious
character when we consider that all the existing denizens of the harem
were to be put aside in favour of a new beauty. It would have been
more like a genuine conversion if Solomon had gone back to the love of
his youth, and confined his affections to his neglected first wife.
[56] vi. 8, 9.
On the shepherd hypothesis it is most natural to attribute the passage
to the shepherd himself. But since it is difficult to imagine him
present at this scene between Solomon and the Shulammite, it seems
that we must fall back on the idealising character of the poem. In
this figurative way the true lover expresses his contempt for the
monstrous harem at the palace. He is content with his one ewe lamb;
nay, she is more to him than all Solomon's bevy of beauties; even
these ladies of the court are now constrained to praise the noble
qualities of his bride.
Solomon's expression of awe for the terrible purity and constancy of
the Shulammite is repeated,[57] and then she tells the story of her
capture.[58] She had gone down to the nut garden to look at the fresh
green on the plants, and to see whether the vines were budding and the
pomegranates putting forth their lovely scarlet blossoms, when
suddenly, and all unawares, she was pounced upon by the king's people
and whisked away in one of his chariots. It is a vivid scene, and,
like other scenes in this poem, the background of it is the lovely
aspect of nature in early spring.
[57] vi. 10.
[58] Vers. 11, 12.
The Shulammite now seems to be attempting a retreat, and the ladies of
the court bid her return; they would see the performance of a
favourite dance, known as "The Dance of Mahanaim."[59] Thereupon we
have a description of the performer, as she was seen during the
convolutions of the dance, dressed in a transparent garment of red
gauze,--perhaps such as is represented in Pompeian frescoes,--so that
her person could be compared to pale wheat surrounded by crimson
anemones.[60] It is quite against the tenor of her conduct to suppose
that the modest country girl would degrade herself by ministering to
the amusement of a corrupt court in this shameless manner. It is more
reasonable to conclude that the entertainment was given by a
professional dancer from among the women of the harem. We have a hint
that this is the case in the title applied to the performer, in
addressing whom Solomon exclaims, "O prince's daughter,"[61]] an
expression never used for the poor Shulammite, and one from which we
should gather that she was a captive princess who had been trained as
a court dancer. The glimpse of the manners of the palace helps to
strengthen the contrast of the innocent, simple country life in which
the Shulammite delights.
[59] vi. 13. This is obscured in the Authorised Version.
[60] vii. 1-9.
[61] vii 1.
It has been suggested, with some degree of probability, that the
Shulammite is supposed to make her escape while the attention of the
king and his court is diverted by this entrancing spectacle. It is to
be observed, at all events, that from this point onwards to the end of
the poem, neither Solomon nor the daughters of Jerusalem take any part
in the dialogue, while the scene appears to be shifted to the
Shulammite's home in the country, where she and the shepherd are now
seen together in happy companionship. The bridegroom has come to fetch
his bride. Again she owns that she is his, and delights in the glad
thought that his heart goes out to her.[62] She bids him come with her
into the field, and lodge in the villages. They will get them early
into the vineyards and see whether the vines are blooming, and whether
the pomegranates are in blossom.[63] It is still early spring. It was
early spring when she was snatched away. Unless she had been a whole
year at the palace,--an impossible situation with the king continuing
his ineffectual courtship for so long a time,--we have no movement of
time. But the series of events from the day when the Shulammite was
seized in her nut garden, till she found herself back again in her
home in the north country, after the trying episode of her temporary
residence in the royal palace, must have occupied some weeks. And yet
the conclusion of the story is set in precisely the same stage of
spring, the time when people look for the first buds and blossoms, as
the opening scenes. It has been proposed to confine the whole action
to the northern district, where Solomon might have had a country house
adjoining his vineyard.[64] The presence of the "daughters of
Jerusalem," and allusions to the streets of the city, its watchmen,
and the guard upon the walls, are against this notion. It is better to
conclude that we have here another instance of the idealism of the
poem. Since early spring is the season that harmonises most perfectly
with the spirit of the whole work, the author does not trouble himself
with adapting its scenes in a realistic manner to the rapidly changing
aspects of nature.
[62] vii. 10.
[63] vii. 11-13.
[64] viii. 11.
The shepherd has addressed the Shulammite as his sister;[65] she now
reciprocates the title by expressing her longing that he had been as
her brother.[66] This singular mode of courtship between two lovers
who are so passionately devoted to one another that we might call them
the Hebrew Romeo and Juliet, is not without significance. Its
recurrence, now on the lips of the bride, helps to sharpen still more
the contrast between what passes for love in the royal harem, and the
true emotion experienced by a pair of innocent young people, unsullied
by the corruptions of the court--illustrating, as it does at once, its
sweet intimacy and its perfect purity.
[65] viii. 1.
[66] viii. 1.
The proud bride would now lead her swain to her mother's house.[67]
There is no mention of her father; apparently he is not living. But
the fond way in which this simple girl speaks of her mother reveals
another lovely trait in her character. She has witnessed the wearisome
magnificence of Solomon's palace. It was impossible to associate the
idea of home with such a place. We never hear the daughters of
Jerusalem, those poor degraded women of the harem, speaking of their
mothers. But to the Shulammite no spot on earth is so dear as her
mother's cottage. There her lover shall have spiced wine and
pomegranate juice--simple home-made country beverages.[68] Repeating
one of the early refrains of the poem, the happy bride is not afraid
to say that there too her husband shall support her in his strong
embrace.[69] She then repeats another refrain, and for the last
time--surely one would say now, quite superfluously--she adjures the
daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken any love for Solomon in her, but
to leave love to its spontaneous course.[70]
[67] viii. 2.
[68] viii. 2.
[69] viii. 3.
[70] viii. 4.
Now the bridegroom is seen coming up from the wilderness with his
bride leaning upon him, and telling how he first made love to her when
he found her asleep under an apple tree in the garden of the cottage
where she was born.[71] As they converse together we reach the richest
gem of the poem, the Shulammite's impassioned eulogy of love.[72] She
bids her husband set her as a seal upon his heart in the inner
sanctuary of his being, and as a seal upon his arm--always owning her,
always true to her in the outer world. She is to be his closely, his
openly, his for ever. She has proved her constancy to him; now she
claims his constancy to her. The foundation of this claim rests on the
very nature of love. The one essential characteristic here dwelt upon
is strength--"Love is strong as death." Who can resist grim death? who
escape its iron clutches? Who can resist mighty love, or evade its
power? The illustration is startling in the apparent incompatibility
of the two things drawn together for comparison. But it is a stern and
terrible aspect of love to which our attention is now directed. This
is apparent as the Shulammite proceeds to speak of jealousy which is
"hard as the grave." If love is treated falsely, it can flash out in a
flame of wrath ten times more furious than the raging of hatred--"a
most vehement flame of the Lord." This is the only place in which the
name of God appears throughout the whole poem. It may be said that
even here it only comes in according to a familiar Hebrew idiom, as
metaphor for what is very great. But the Shulammite has good reason
for claiming God to be on her side in the protection of her love from
cruel wrong and outrage. Love as she knows it is both unquenchable and
unpurchasable. She has tested and proved these two attributes in her
own experience. At the court of Solomon every effort was made to
destroy her love for the shepherd, and all possible means were
employed for buying her love for the king. Both utterly failed. All
the floods of scorn which the harem ladies poured over her love for
the country lad could not quench it; all the wealth of a kingdom could
not buy it for Solomon. Where true love exists, no opposition can
destroy it; where it is not, no money can purchase it. As for the
second idea--the purchasing of love--the Shulammite flings it away
with the utmost contempt. Yet this was the too common means employed
by a king such as Solomon for replenishing the stock of his harem.
Then the monarch was only pursuing a shadow; he was but playing at
love-making; he was absolutely ignorant of the reality.
[71] viii. 5.
[72] viii. 6, 7.
The vigour, one might say the rigour, of this passage distinguishes it
from nearly all other poetry devoted to the praises of love. That
poetry is usually soft and tender; sometimes it is feeble and sugary.
And yet it must be remembered that even the classical Aphrodite could
be terribly angry. There is nothing morbid or sentimental in the
Shulammite's ideas. She has discovered and proved by experience that
love is a mighty force, capable of heroic endurance, and able, when
wronged, to avenge itself with serious effect.
Towards the conclusion of the poem fresh speakers appear in the
persons of the Shulammite's brothers, who defend themselves from the
charge of negligence in having permitted their little sister to be
snatched away from their keeping, explaining how they have done their
best to guard her. Or perhaps they mean that they will be more careful
in protecting a younger sister. They will build battlements about her.
The Shulammite takes up the metaphor. She is safe now, as a wall well
embattled; at last she has found peace in the love of her husband.
Solomon may have a vineyard in her neighbourhood, and draw great
wealth from it with which to buy the wares in which he delights.[73]
It is nothing to her. She has her own vineyard. This reference to the
Shulammite's vineyard recalls the mention of it at the beginning of
the poem, and suggests the idea that in both cases the image
represents the shepherd lover. In the first instance she had not kept
her vineyard,[74] for she had lost her lover. Now she has him, and she
is satisfied.[75] He calls to her in the garden, longing to hear her
voice there,[76] and she replies, bidding him hasten and come to her
as she has described him coming before,--
"Like to a roe or a young hart
Upon the mountains of spices."[77]
[73] viii. 11.
[74] i. 6.
[75] viii. 12.
[76] viii. 13.
[77] viii. 14.
And so the poem sinks to rest in the happy picture of the union of the
two young lovers.
CHAPTER IV
_MYSTICAL INTERPRETATIONS_
Thus far we have been considering the bare, literal sense of the text.
It cannot be denied that, if only to lead up to the metaphorical
significance of the words employed, those words must be approached
through their primary physical meanings. This is essential even to the
understanding of pure allegory such as that of _The Faerie Queen_ and
_The Pilgrim's Progress_; we must understand the adventures of the Red
Cross Knight and the course of Christian's journey before we can learn
the moral of Spenser's and Bunyan's elaborate allegories. Similarly it
is absolutely necessary for us to have some idea of the movement of
the Song of Solomon as a piece of literature, in its external form,
even if we are persuaded that beneath this sensuous exterior it
contains the most profound ideas, before we can discover any such
ideas. In other words, if it is to be considered as a mass of
symbolism the symbols must be understood in themselves before their
significance can be drawn out of them.
But now we are confronted with the question whether the book has any
other meaning than that which meets the eye. The answers to this
question are given on three distinct lines:--First, we have the
_allegorical_ schemes of interpretation, according to which the poem
is not to be taken literally at all, but is to be regarded as a
purely metaphorical representation of national or Church history,
philosophical ideas, or spiritual experiences. In the second place, we
meet with various forms of double interpretation, described as
_typical_ or _mystical_, in which a primary meaning is allowed to the
book as a sort of drama or idyl, or as a collection of Jewish
love-songs, while a secondary signification of an ideal or spiritual
character is added. Distinct as these lines of interpretation are in
themselves, they tend to blend in practice, because even when two
meanings are admitted the symbolical signification is considered to be
of so much greater importance than the literal that it virtually
occupies the whole field. In the third place there is the _purely
literal_ interpretation, that which denies the existence of any
symbolical or mystical intention in the poem.
Allegorical interpretations of the Song of Solomon are found among the
Jews early in the Christian era. The Aramaic Targum, probably
originating about the sixth century A.D., takes the first half of the
poem as a symbolical picture of the history of Israel previous to the
captivity, and the second as a prophetic picture of the subsequent
fortunes of the nation. The recurrence of the expression "the
congregation of Israel" in this paraphrase wherever the Shulammite
appears, and other similar adaptations, entirely destroy the fine
poetic flavour of the work, and convert it into a dreary, dry-as-dust
composition.
Symbolical interpretations were very popular among Christian
Fathers--though not with universal approval, as the protest of
Theodore of Mopsuestia testifies. The great Alexandrian Origen is the
founder and patron of this method of interpreting the Song of Solomon
in the Church. Jerome was of opinion that Origen "surpassed himself"
in his commentary on the poem--a commentary to which he devoted ten
volumes. According to his view, it was originally an epithalamium
celebrating the marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh's daughter; but it
has secondary mystical meanings descriptive of the relation of the
Redeemer to the Church or the individual soul. Thus "the little foxes
that spoil the grapes" are evil thoughts in the individual, or
heretics in the Church. Gregory the Great contributes a commentary of
no lasting interest. Very different is the work of the great mediæval
monk St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who threw himself into it with all the
passion and rapture of his enthusiastic soul, and in the course of
eighty-six homilies only reached the beginning of the third chapter in
this to him inexhaustible mine of spiritual wealth, when he died,
handing on the task to his faithful disciple Gilbert Porretanus, who
continued it on the same portentous scale, and also died before he had
finished the fifth chapter. Even while reading the old monkish Latin
in this late age we cannot fail to feel the glowing devotion that
inspires it. Bernard is addressing his monks, to whom he says he need
not give the milk for babes, and whom he exhorts to prepare their
throats not for this milk but for bread. As a schoolman he cannot
escape from metaphysical subtleties--he takes the kiss of the
bridegroom as a symbol of the incarnation. But throughout there burns
the perfect rapture of love to Jesus Christ which inspires his
well-known hymns. Here we are at the secret of the extraordinary
popularity of mystical interpretations of the Song of Solomon. It has
seemed to many in all ages of the Christian Church to afford the best
expression for the deepest spiritual relations of Christ and His
people. Nevertheless, the mystical method has been widely disputed
since the time of the Reformation. Luther complains of the "many wild
and monstrous interpretations" that are attached to the Song of
Solomon, though even he understands it as symbolical of Solomon and
his state. Still, not a few of the most popular hymns of our own day
are saturated with ideas and phrases gathered from this book, and
fresh expositions of what are considered to be its spiritual lessons
may still be met with.
It is not easy to discover any justification for the rabbinical
explanation of the Song of Solomon as a representation of successive
events in the history of Israel, an explanation which Jewish scholars
have abandoned in favour of simple literalism. But the mystical view,
according to which the poem sets forth spiritual ideas, has pleas
urged in its favour that demand some consideration. We are reminded of
the analogy of Oriental literature, which delights in parable to an
extent unknown in the West. Works of a kindred nature are produced in
which an allegorical signification is plainly intended. Thus the
Hindoo Gilagovinda celebrates the loves of Chrishna and Radha in
verses that bear a remarkable resemblance to the Song of Solomon.
Arabian poets sing of the love of Joseph for Zuleikha, which mystics
take as the love of God towards the soul that longs for union with
Him. There is a Turkish mystical commentary on the Song of Hafiz.
The bible itself furnishes us with suggestive analogies. Throughout
the Old Testament the idea of a marriage union between God and His
people occurs repeatedly, and the most frequent metaphor for religious
apostasy is drawn from the crime of adultery.[78] This symbolism is
especially prominent in the writings of Jeremiah[79] and Hosea.[80]
The forty-fifth psalm is an epithalamium commonly read with a
Messianic signification. John the Baptist describes the coming Messiah
as the Bridegroom,[81] and Jesus Christ accepts the title for
Himself.[82] Our Lord illustrates the blessedness of the Kingdom of
Heaven in a parable of a wedding feast.[83] With St. Paul the union of
husband and wife is an earthly copy of the union of Christ and his
Church.[84] The marriage of the Lamb is a prominent feature in the
Book of the Revelation.[85]
[78] _E.g._ Exod. xxxiv. 15, 16; Numb. xv. 39; Psalm lxxiii. 27; Ezek.
xvi. 23, etc.
[79] _E.g._ Jer. iii. 1-11.
[80] Hosea ii. 2.; iii. 3.
[81] John iii. 29.
[82] Mark. ii. 19.
[83] Matt. xxii. 1-14.
[84] Eph. v. 22-33.
[85] Rev. xxi. 9.
Further, it may be maintained that the experience of Christians has
demonstrated the aptness of the expression of the deepest spiritual
truths in the imagery of the Song of Solomon. Sad hearts disappointed
in their earthly hopes have found in the religious reading of this
poem as a picture of their relation to their Saviour the satisfaction
for which they have hungered, and which the world could never give
them. Devout Christians have read in it the very echo of their own
emotions. Samuel Rutherford's _Letters_, for example, are in perfect
harmony with the religious interpretation of the Song of Solomon; and
these letters stand in the first rank of devotional works. There is
certainly some force in the argument that a key which seems to fit the
lock so well must have been designed to do so.
On the other hand, the objections to a mystical, religious
interpretation are very strong. In the first place, we can quite
account for its appearance apart from any justification of it in the
original intention of the author. Allegory was in the air at the time
when, as far as we know, secondary meanings were first attached to the
ideas of the Song of Solomon. They sprang from Alexandria, the home of
allegory. Origen, who was the first Christian writer to work out a
mystical explanation of this book, treated other books of the Old
Testament in exactly the same way; but we never dream of following him
in his fantastical interpretations of those works. There is no
indication that the poem was understood allegorically or mystically as
early as the first century of the Christian era. Philo is the prince
of allegorists; but while he explains the narratives of the Pentateuch
according to his favourite method, he never applies that method to
this very tempting book, and never even mentions the work or makes any
reference to its contents. The Song of Solomon is not once mentioned
or even alluded to in the slightest way by any writer of the New
Testament. Since it is never noticed by Christ or the Apostles, of
course we cannot appeal to their authority for reading it mystically;
and yet it was undoubtedly known to them as one of the books in the
canon of the sacred Scriptures to which they were in the habit of
appealing repeatedly. Consider the grave significance of this fact.
All secondary interpretations of which we know anything, and, as far
as we can tell, all that ever existed, had their origin in
post-apostolic times. If we would justify this method by authority it
is to the Fathers that we must go, not to Christ and or his apostles,
not to the sacred Scriptures. It is a noteworthy fact, too, that the
word _Eros_, the Greek name for the love of man and woman, as
distinguished from _Agape_, which stands for love in the widest sense
of the word, is first applied to our Lord by Ignatius. Here we have
the faint beginning of the stream of erotic religious fancies which
sometimes manifests itself most objectionably in subsequent Church
history. There is not a trace of it in the New Testament.
If the choice spiritual ideas which some people think they see in the
Song of Solomon are not imported by the reader, but form part of the
genuine contents of the book, how comes it that this fact was not
recognised by one of the inspired writers of the New Testament? or, if
privately recognised, that it was never utilised? In the hands of the
mystical interpreter this work is about the most valuable part of the
Old Testament. He finds it to be an inexhaustible mine of the most
precious treasures. Why, then, was such a remunerative lode never
worked by the first authorities in Christian teaching? It may be
replied that we cannon prove much from a bare negative. The apostles
may have had their own perfectly sufficient reasons for leaving to the
Church of later ages the discovery of this valuable spiritual store.
Possibly the converts of their day were not ripe for the comprehension
of the mysteries here expounded. Be that as it may, clearly the onus
_probandi_ rests with those people of a later age who introduce a
method of interpretation for which no sanction can be found in
Scripture.
Now the analogies that have been referred to are not sufficient to
establish any proof. In the case of the other poems mentioned above
there are distinct indications of symbolical intentions. Thus in the
_Gitagovinda_ the hero is a divinity whose incarnations are
acknowledged in Hindoo mythology; and the concluding verse of that
poem points the moral by a direct assertion of the religious meaning
of the whole composition. This is not the case with the Song of
Solomon. We must not be misled by the chapter-headings in our English
Bibles, which of course are not to be found in the original Hebrew
text. From the first line to the last there is not the slightest hint
in the poem itself that it was intended to be read in any mystical
sense. This is contrary to the analogy of all allegories. The parable
may be difficult to interpret, but at all events it must suggest that
it is a parable; otherwise it defeats its own object. If the writer
never drops any hint that he has wrapped up spiritual ideas in the
sensuous imagery of his poetry, what right has he to expect that
anybody will find them there, so long as his poem admits of a
perfectly adequate explanation in a literal sense? We need not be so
dense as to require the allegorist to say to us in so many words:
"This is a parable." But we may justly expect him to furnish us with
some hint that his utterance is of such a character. Æsop's fables
carry their lessons on the surface of them, so that we can often
anticipate the concluding morals that are attached to them. When
Tennyson announced that the _Idyls of the King_ constituted an
allegory most people were taken by surprise; and yet the analogy of
_The Faerie Queen_, and the lofty ethical ideas with which the poems
are inspired, might have prepared us for the revelation. But we have
no similar indications in the case of the Song of Solomon. If somebody
were to propound a new theory of _The Vicar of Wakefield_, which
should turn that exquisite tale into a parable of the Fall, it would
not be enough for him to exercise his ingenuity in pointing out
resemblances between the eighteenth-century romance and the ancient
narrative of the serpent's doings in the Garden of Eden. Since he
could not shew that Goldsmith had the slightest intention of teaching
anything of the kind, his exploit could be regarded as nothing but a
piece of literary trifling.
The Biblical analogies already cited, in which the marriage relation
between God or Christ and the Church or the soul are referred to, will
not bear the strain that is put upon them when they are brought
forward in order to justify a mystical interpretation of the Song of
Solomon. At best they simply account for the emergence of this view of
the book at a later time, or indicate that such a notion might be
maintained if there were good reasons for adopting it. They cannot
prove that in the present case it should be adopted. Moreover, they
differ from it on two important points. _First_, in harmony with all
genuine allegories and metaphors, they carry their own evidence of a
symbolical meaning, which as we have seen the Song of Solomon fails to
do. _Second_, they are not elaborate compositions of a dramatic or
idyllic character in which the passion of love is vividly illustrated.
Regarded in its entirety, the Song of Solomon is quite without
parallel in Scripture. It may be replied that we cannot disprove the
allegorical intention of the book. But this is not the question. That
intention requires to be proved; and until it is proved, or at least
until some very good reasons are urged for adopting it, no statement
of bare possibilities counts for anything.
But we may push the case further. There is a positive improbability of
the highest order that the spiritual ideas read into the Song of
Solomon by some of its Christian admirers should have been originally
there. This would involve the most tremendous anachronism in all
literature. The Song of Solomon is dated among the earlier works of
the Old Testament. But the religious ideas now associated with it
represent what is regarded as the fruit of the most advanced
saintliness ever attained in the Christian Church. Here we have a flat
contradiction to the growth of revelation manifested throughout the
whole course of Scripture history. We might as well ascribe the
Sistine Madonna to the fresco-painters of the catacombs; or, what is
more to the point, our Lord's discourse with his disciples at the
paschal meal to Solomon or some other Jew of his age.
No doubt the devoted follower of the mystical method will not be
troubled by considerations such as these. To him the supposed fitness
of the poem to convey his religious ideas is the one sufficient proof
of an original design that it should serve that end. So long as the
question is approached in this way, the absence of clear evidence only
delights the prejudiced commentator with the opportunity it affords
for the exercise of his ingenuity. To a certain school of readers the
very obscurity of a book is its fascination. The less obvious a
meaning is, the more eagerly do they set themselves to expound and
defend it. We could leave them to what might be considered a very
harmless diversion if it were not for other considerations. But we
cannot forget that it is just this ingenious way of interpreting the
Bible in accordance with preconceived opinions that has encouraged the
quotation of the Sacred Volume in favour of absolutely contradictory
propositions, an abuse which in its turn has provoked an inevitable
reaction leading to contempt for the Bible as an obscure book which
speaks with no certain voice.
Still, it may be contended, the analogy between the words of this poem
and the spiritual experience of Christians is in itself an indication
of intentional connection. Swedenborg has shewn that there are
correspondences between the natural and the spiritual, and this truth
is illustrated by the metaphorical references to marriage in the Bible
which have been adduced for comparison with the Song of Solomon. But
their very existence shows that analogies between religious experience
and the love story of the Shulammite may be traced out by the reader
without any design on the part of the author to present them. If they
are natural they are universal, and any love song will serve our
purpose. On this principle, if the Song of Solomon admits of mystical
adaptation, so do Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the Portuguese_.
We have no alternative, then, but to conclude that the mystical
interpretation of this work is based on a delusion. Moreover, it must
be added that the delusion is a mischievous one. No doubt to many it
has been as meat and drink. They have found in their reading of the
Song of Solomon real spiritual refreshment, or they believe they have
found it. But there is another side. The poem has been used to
minister to a morbid, sentimental type of religion. More than any
other influence, the mystical interpretation of this book has imported
an effeminate element into the notion of the love of Christ, not one
trace of which can be detected in the New Testament. The Catholic
legend of the marriage of St. Catherine is somewhat redeemed by the
high ascetic tone that pervades it; and yet it indicates a decline
from the standpoint of the apostles. Not a few unquestionable
revelations of immorality in convents have shed a ghastly light on the
abuse of erotic religious fervour. Among Protestants it cannot be said
that the most wholesome hymns are those which are composed on the
model of the Song of Solomon. In some cases the religious use of this
book is perfectly nauseous, indicating nothing less than a disease of
religion. When--as sometimes happens--frightful excesses of sensuality
follow close on seasons of what has been regarded as the revival of
religion, the common explanation of these horrors is that in some
mysterious way spiritual emotion lies very near to sensual appetite,
so that an excitement of the one tends to rouse the other. A more
revolting hypothesis, or one more insulting to religion, cannot be
imagined. The truth is, the two regions are separate as the poles. The
explanation of the phenomena of their apparent conjunction is to be
found in quite another direction. It is that their victims have
substituted for religion a sensuous excitement which is as little
religious as the elation that follows indulgence in alcoholism. There
is no more deadly temptation of the devil than that which hoodwinks
deluded fanatics into making this terrible mistake. But it can
scarcely be denied that the mystical reading of the Song of Solomon by
unspiritual persons, or even by any persons who are not completely
fortified against the danger, may tend in this fatal direction.
CHAPTER V
_CANONICITY_
It is scarcely to be expected that the view of the Song of Solomon
expounded in the foregoing pages will meet with acceptance from every
reader. A person who has been accustomed to resort to this book in
search of the deepest spiritual ideas cannot but regard the denial of
their presence with aversion. While, however, it is distressing to be
compelled to give pain to a devout soul, it may be necessary. If there
is weight in the considerations that have been engaging our attention,
we cannot shut our eyes to them simply because they may be
disappointing. The mystical interpreter will be shocked at what he
takes for irreverence. But, on the other hand, he should be on his
guard against falling into this very fault from the opposite side.
Reverence for truth is a primary Christian duty. The iconoclast is
certain to be charged with irreverence by the devotee of the popular
idol which he feels it his duty to destroy; and yet, if his action is
inspired by loyalty to truth, reverence for what he deems highest and
best may be its mainspring.
If the Song of Solomon were not one of the books of the Bible,
questions such as these would never arise. It is its place in the
sacred canon that induces people to resent the consequences of the
application of criticism to it. It is simply owing to its being a part
of the Bible that it has come to be treated mystically at all.
Undoubtedly this is why it was allegorised by the Jews. But, then, the
secondary signification thus acquired reacted upon it, and served as a
sort of buoy to float it over the rocks of awkward questions. The
result was that in the end the book attained to an exceptionally high
position in the estimation of the rabbis. Thus the great Rabbi Akiba
says: "The course of the ages cannot vie with the day on which the
Song of Songs was given to Israel. All the _Kethubim_ (_i.e._, the
_Hagiographa_) are holy, but the Song of Songs is a holy of holies."
Such being the case, it is manifest that the rejection of the mystical
signification of its contents must revive the question of the
canonicity of the book. We have not, however, to deal with the problem
of its original insertion in the canon. We find it there. Some doubts
as to its right to the place it holds seem to have been raised among
the Jews during the first century of the Christian era; but these
doubts were effectually borne down. As far as we know, the Song of
Solomon has always been a portion of the Hebrew Scriptures from the
obscure time when the collection of those Scriptures was completed. It
stands as the first of the five _Megilloth_, or sacred rolls--the
others being Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, and Ecclesiastes. We are not
now engaged in the difficult task of constructing a new canon. The
only possibility is that of the expulsion of a book already in the old
canon. But the attempt to disturb in any way such a volume as the Old
Testament, with all its incomparable associations, is not one to be
undertaken lightly or without adequate reason.
In order to justify this radical measure it would not be enough to
shew that the specific religious meanings that some have attached to
the Song of Solomon do not really belong to it. If it is said that the
secular tone it acquires under the hands of criticism shews it to be
unworthy of a place in the sacred Scriptures, this assertion goes upon
an unwarrantable assumption. We have no reason to maintain that all
the books of the Old Testament must be of equal value. The Book of
Esther does not reach a very high level of moral or religious worth;
the pessimism of Ecclesiastes is not inspiring; even the Book of
Proverbs contains maxims that cannot be elevated to a first place in
ethics. If we could discover no distinctively enlightening or
uplifting influence in the Song of Solomon, this would not be a
sufficient reason for raising a cry against it; because if it were
simply neutral in character, like nitrogen in the atmosphere, it would
do no harm, and we could safely let it be. The one justification for a
radical treatment of the question would be the discovery that the book
was false in doctrine or deleterious in character. As to doctrine, it
does not trench on that region at all. It would be as incongruous to
associate it with the grave charge of heresy as to bring a similar
accusation against the _Essays of Elia_ or Keats's poetry. And if the
view expressed in these pages is at all correct, it certainly cannot
be said that the moral tendency of the book is injurious; the very
reverse must be affirmed.
Since there is no reason to believe that the Song of Solomon had
received any allegorical interpretation before the commencement of the
Christian era, we must conclude that it was not on the ground of some
such interpretation that it was originally admitted into the Hebrew
collection of Scripture. It was placed in the canon before it was
allegorised. It was only allegorised because it had been placed in
the canon. Then why was it set there? The natural conclusion to arrive
at under these circumstances is that the scribes who ventured to put
it first among the sacred _Megilloth_ saw that there was a distinctive
value in it. Perhaps; however, it is too much to say this of them. The
word "Solomon" being attached to the book would seem to justify its
inclusion with other literature which had received the hall-mark of
that great name. Still we can learn to appreciate it on its own
merits, and in so doing perceive that there is something in it to
justify its right to a niche in the glorious temple of scripture.
Assuredly it was much to make clear in the days of royal polygamy
among the Jews that this gross imitation of the court life of heathen
monarchies was a despicable and degrading thing, and to set over
against it an attractive picture of true love and simple manners. The
prophets of Israel were continually protesting against a growing
dissoluteness of morals: the Song of Solomon is a vivid illustration
of the spirit of their protest. If the two nations had been content
with the rustic delight so beautifully portrayed in this book, they
might not have fallen into ruin as they did under the influence of the
corruptions of an effete civilisation. If their people had cherished
the graces of purity and constancy that shine so conspicuously in the
character of the Shulammite they might not have needed to pass through
the purging fires of the captivity.
But while this can be said of the book as it first appeared among the
Jews, a similar estimate of its function in later ages may also be
made. An ideal representation of fidelity in love under the greatest
provocation to surrender at discretion has a message for every age. We
need not shrink from reading it in the pages of the Bible. Our Lord
teaches us that next to the duty of love to God comes that of love to
one's neighbour. But a man's nearest neighbour is his wife. Therefore
after his God his wife has the first claim upon him. But the whole
conception of matrimonial duty rests on the idea of constancy in the
love of man and woman.
If this book had been read in its literal signification and its
wholesome lesson absorbed by Christendom in the Middle Ages, the
gloomy cloud of asceticism that then hung over the Church would have
been somewhat lightened, not to give place to the outburst of
licentiousness that accompanied the _Renaissance_, but rather to allow
of the better establishment of the Christian home. The absurd legends
that follow the names of St. Anthony and St. Dunstan would have lost
their motive. Hildebrand would have had no occasion to hurl his
thunderbolt. The Church was making the huge mistake of teaching that
the remedy for dissoluteness was unnatural celibacy. This book taught
the lesson--truer to nature, truer to experience, truer to the God who
made us--that it was to be found in the redemption of love.
Can it be denied that the same lesson is needed in our own day? The
realism that has made itself a master of a large part of popular
literature reveals a state of society that perpetuates the manners of
the court of Solomon, though under a thin veil of decorum. The remedy
for the awful dissoluteness of large portions of society can only be
found in the cultivation of such lofty ideas on the relation of the
sexes that this abomination shall be scouted with horror. It is
neither necessary, nor right, nor possible to contradict nature. What
has to be shewn is that man's true nature is not bestial, that satyrs
and fauns are not men, but degraded caricatures of men. We cannot
crush the strongest passion of human nature. The moral of the Song of
Solomon is that there is no occasion to attempt to crush it, because
the right thing is to elevate it by lofty ideals of love and
constancy.
This subject also deserves attention on its positive side. The
literature of all ages is a testimony to the fact that nothing in the
world is so interesting as love. What is so old as love-making? and
what so fresh? At least ninety-nine novels out of a hundred have a
love-story for plot; and the hundredth is always regarded as an
eccentric experiment. The pedant may plant his heel on the perennial
flower; but it will spring up again as vigorous as ever. This is the
poetry of the most commonplace existence. When it visits a dingy soul
the desert blossoms as the rose. Life may be hard, and its drudgery a
grinding yoke; but with love "all tasks are sweet." "And Jacob served
seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for
the love he had to her."[86] That experience of the patriarch is
typical of the magic power of true love in every age, in every clime.
To the lover it is always "the time of the singing of birds." Who
shall tell the value of the boon that God has given so freely to
mankind, to sweeten the lot of the toiler and shed music into his
heart? But this boon requires to be jealously guarded and sheltered
from abuse, or its honey will be turned into gall. It is for the
toiler--the shepherd whose locks are wet with the dew that has fallen
upon him while guarding his flock by night, the maiden who has been
working in the vineyard; it is beyond the reach of the pleasure-seeking
monarch and the indolent ladies of his court. This boon is for the pure
in heart; it is utterly denied to the sensual and dissolute. Finally, it
is reserved for the loyal and true as the peculiar reward of constancy.
[86] Gen. xxix. 20.
But while a poem that contains these principles must be allowed to
have an important mission in the world, it does not follow that it is
suitable for public or indiscriminate reading. The fact that the key
to it is not easily discovered is a warning that it is liable to be
misunderstood. When it is read superficially, without any
comprehension of its drift and motive, it may be perverted to
mischievous ends. The antique Oriental pictures with which it abounds,
though natural to the circumstances of its origin, are not in harmony
with the more reserved manners of our own conditions of society. As
all the books of the Bible are not of the same character, so also they
are not all to be used in the same way.
_THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH_
CHAPTER I
_HEBREW ELEGIES_
The book which is known by the title "The Lamentations of Jeremiah" is
a collection of five separate poems, very similar in style, and all
treating of the same subject--the desolation of Jerusalem and the
sufferings of the Jews after the overthrow of their city by
Nebuchadnezzar. In our English Bible it is placed among the
prophetical works of the Old Testament, standing next to the
acknowledged writings of the man whose name it bears. This arrangement
follows the order in the Septuagint, from which it was accepted by
Josephus and the Christian Fathers. And yet the natural place for such
a book would seem to be in association with the Psalms and other
poetical compositions of a kindred character. So thought the Rabbis
who compiled the Jewish canon. In the Hebrew Bible the Book of
Lamentations is assigned to the third collection, that designated
_Hagiographa_, not to the part known as the _Prophets_.
In form as well as in substance this book is a remarkable specimen of
a specific order of poetry. The difficulty of recovering the original
pronunciation of the language has left our conception of Hebrew metres
in a state of obscurity. It has been generally supposed that the
rhythm was more of sight than of sound, but that it consisted
essentially in neither, depending mainly on the balance of ideas. The
metre, it has been stated, might strike the eye in the external aspect
of the sentences; it was designed much more to charm the mind by the
harmony and music of the thoughts. But while these general principles
are still acknowledged, some further progress has been made in the
examination of the structure of the verses, with the result that both
more regularity of law and more variety of metre have been discovered.
The elegy in particular is found to be shaped on special lines of its
own. It has been pointed out that a peculiar metre is reserved for
poems of mournful reflection.
The first feature of this metre to be noted is the unusual length of
the line. In Hebrew poetry, according to the generally accepted
pronunciation, the lines vary from about six syllables to about
twelve. In the elegy the line most frequently runs to the extreme
limit, and so acquires a slow, solemn movement.
A second feature of elegiac poetry is the breaking of the lengthy line
into two unequal parts--the first part being about as long as a whole
line in an average Hebrew lyric, and the second much shorter, reading
like another line abbreviated, and seeming to suggest that the weary
thought is waking up and hurrying to its conclusion. Sometimes this
short section is a thin echo of the fuller conception that precedes,
sometimes the completion of that conception. In the English version,
of course, the effect is frequently lost; still occasionally it is
very marked, even after passing through this foreign medium. Take, for
example, the lines,
"Her princes are become like harts--that find no pasture,
And they are gone without strength--before the pursuer;"[87]
or again the very long line,
"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed--because His
compassions fail not."[88]
[87] i. 6.
[88] iii. 22.
Now although this is only a structural feature it points to inferences
of deeper significance. It shews that the Hebrew poets paid special
attention to the elegy as a species of verse to be treated apart, and
therefore that they attached a peculiar significance to the ideas and
feelings it expresses. The ease with which the transition to the
elegiac form of verse is made whenever an occasion for using it occurs
is a hint that this must have been familiar to the Jews. Possibly it
was in common use at funerals in the dirge. We meet with an early
specimen of this verse in Amos, when, just after announcing that he is
about to utter a _lamentation_ over the house of Israel, the herdsman
of Tekoa breaks into elegiacs with the words,
"The virgin daughter of Israel is fallen--she shall no more rise:
She is cast down upon her land--there is none to raise her up."[89]
[89] Amos v. 2.
Similarly constructed elegiac pieces are scattered over the Old
Testament scriptures from the eighth century B.C. onwards. Several
illustrations of this peculiar kind of metre are to be found in the
Psalms. It is employed ironically with terrible effect in the Book of
Isaiah, where the mock lament over the death of the king of Babylon is
constructed in the form of a true elegy. When the prophet made a
sudden transition from his normal style to sombre funereal measures
his purpose would be at once recognised, for his words would sound
like the tolling bell and the muffled drums that announce the march
of death; and yet it would be known that this solemn pomp was not
really a demonstration of mourning or a symbol of respect, but only
the pageantry of scorn and hatred and vengeance. The sarcasm would
strike home with the more force since it fell on men's ears in the
heavy, lingering lines of the elegy, as the exultant patriot
exclaimed,
"How hath the oppressor ceased--the golden city ceased!
The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked--the sceptre of the
rulers," etc.[90]
[90] Isa. xiv. 4 _ff._
A special characteristic of the five elegies that make up the Book of
Lamentations is their alphabetical arrangement. Each elegy consists of
twenty-two verses, the same number as that of the letters in the
Hebrew alphabet. All but the last are acrostics, the initial letter of
each verse following the order of the alphabet. In the third elegy
every line in the verse begins with the same letter. According to
another way of reckoning, this poem consists of sixty-six verses
arranged in triplets, each of which not only follows the order of the
alphabet with its first letter, but also has this initial letter
repeated at the beginning of each of its three verses. Alphabetical
acrostics are not unknown elsewhere in the Old Testament; there are
several instances of them in the Psalms.[91] The method is generally
thought to have been adopted as an expedient to assist the memory.
Clearly it is a somewhat artificial arrangement, cramping the
imagination of the poet; and it is regarded by some as a sign of
literary decadence. Whatever view we may take of it from the
standpoint of purely artistic criticism, we can derive one important
conclusion concerning the mental attitude of the writer from a
consideration of the elaborate structure of the verse. Although this
poetry is evidently inspired by deep emotion--emotion so profound that
it cannot even be restrained by the stiffest vesture--still the author
is quite self-possessed: he is not at all over-mastered by his
feelings; what he says is the outcome of deliberation and reflection.
[91] _E.g._, Psalms ix., x., xxv., xxxiv., xxxvii., cxix., cxlv.
Passing from the form to the substance of the elegy, our attention is
arrested on the threshold of the more serious enquiry by another link
of connection between the two. In accordance with a custom of which we
have other instances in the Hebrew Bible, the first word in the text
is taken as the title of the book. The haphazard name is more
appropriate in this case than it sometimes proves to be, for the first
word of the first chapter--the original Hebrew for which is the Jewish
title of the book--is "How." Now this is a characteristic word for the
commencement of an elegy. Three out of the five elegies in
Lamentations begin with it; so does the mock elegy in Isaiah.
Moreover, it is not only suggestive of the form of a certain kind of
poetry; it is a hint of the spirit in which that poetry is conceived;
it strikes the key-note for all that follows. Therefore it may not be
superfluous for us to consider the significance of this little word in
the present connection.
In the first place, it is a sort of note of exclamation prefixed to
the sentence it introduces. Thus it infuses an emotional element into
the statements which follow it. The word is a relic of the most
primitive form of language. Judging from the sounds produced by
animals and the cries of little children, we should conclude that the
first approach to speech would be a simple expression of
excitement--a scream of pain, a shout of delight, a yell of rage, a
shriek of surprise. Next to the mere venting of feeling comes the
utterance of desire--a request, either for the possession of some
coveted boon, or for deliverance from something objectionable. Thus
the dog barks for his bone, or barks again to be freed from his chain;
and the child cries for a toy, or for protection from a terror. If
this is correct it will be only at the third stage of speech that we
shall reach statements of fact pure and simple. Conversely, it may be
argued that as the progress of cultivation develops the perceptive and
reasoning faculties and corresponding forms of speech, the primitive
emotional and volitional types of language must recede. Our phlegmatic
English temperament predisposes us to take this view. It is not easy
for us to sympathise with the expressiveness of an excitable Oriental
people. What to them is perfectly natural and not at all inconsistent
with true manliness strikes us as a childish weakness. Is not this a
trifle insular? The emotions constitute as essential a part of human
nature as the observing and reasoning faculties, and it cannot be
proved that to stifle them beneath a calm exterior is more right and
proper than to give them a certain adequate expression. That this
expression may be found even among ourselves is apparent from the
singular fact that the English, who are the most prosaic people in
their conduct, have given the world more good poetry than any other
nation of modern times; a fact which, perhaps, may be explained on the
principle that the highest poetry is not the rank outgrowth of
irregulated passions, but the cultivated fruit of deep-rooted ideas.
Still these ideas must be warmed with feeling before they will
germinate. Much more, when we are not merely interested in poetic
literature, when we are in earnest about practical actions, an
artificial restraint of the emotions must be mischievous. No doubt the
unimpassioned style has its mission--in allaying a panic, for example.
But it will not inspire men to attempt a forlorn hope. Society will
never be saved by hysterics; but neither will it ever be saved by
statistics. It may be that the exclamation _how_ is a feeble survival
of the savage _howl_. Nevertheless the emotional expression, when
regulated as the taming of the sound suggests, will always play a very
real part in the life of mankind, even at the most highly developed
stage of civilisation.
In the second place, it is to be observed that this word introduces a
tone of vagueness into the sentences which it opens. A description
beginning as these elegies begin would not serve the purpose of an
inventory of the ruins of Jerusalem such as an insurance society would
demand in the present day. The facts are viewed through an atmosphere
of feeling, so that their chronological order is confused and their
details melt one into another. That is not to say that they are robbed
of all value. Pure impressionism may reveal truths which no hard,
exact picture can render clear to us. These elegies make us see the
desolation of Jerusalem more vividly than the most accurate
photographs of the scenes referred to could have done, because they
help us to enter into the passion of the event.
With this idea of vagueness, however, there is joined a sense of
vastness. The note of exclamation is also a note of admiration. The
language is indefinite in part for the very reason that the scene
beggars description. The cynical spirit which would reduce all life
to the level of a Dutch landscape is here excluded by the
overwhelming mass of the troubles bewailed. The cataract of sorrow
awes us with the greatness of its volume and the thunder of its fall.
From suggestions thus rising out of a consideration of the opening
word of the elegy we may be led on to a perception of similar traits
in the body of this poetry. It is emotional in character; it is vague
in description; and it sets before us visions of vast woe.
But now it is quite clear that poetry such as this must be something
else than the wild expression of grief. It is a product of reflection.
The acute stage of suffering is over. The writer is musing upon a sad
past; or if at times he is reflecting on a present state of distress,
still he is regarding this as the result of more violent scenes, in
the midst of which the last thing a man would think of doing would be
to sit down and compose a poem. This reflective poetry will give us
emotion, still warm, but shot with thought.
The reflectiveness of the elegy does not take the direction of
philosophy. It does not speculate on the mystery of suffering. It does
not ask such obstinate questions, or engage in such vexatious
dialectics, as circle about the problem of evil in the Book of Job.
Leaving those difficult matters to the theologians who care to wrestle
with them, the elegist is satisfied to dwell on his theme in a quiet,
meditative mood, and to permit his ideas to flow on spontaneously as
in a reverie. Thus it happens that, artificial as is the form of his
verse, the underlying thought seems to be natural and unforced. In
this way he represents to us the afterglow of sunset which follows the
day of storm and terror.
The afterglow is beautiful--that is what the elegy makes evident. It
paints the beauty of sorrow. It is able to do so only because it
contemplates the scene indirectly, as portrayed in the mirror of
thought. An immediate vision of pain is itself wholly painful. If the
agony is intense, and if no relief can be offered, we instinctively
turn aside from the sickening sight. Only a brutalised people could
find amusement in the ghastly spectacle of the Roman amphitheatre. It
is cited as a proof of Domitian's diabolical cruelty that the emperor
would have dying slaves brought before him in order that he might
watch the facial expression of their last agonies. Such scenes are not
fit subjects for art. The famous group of the _Laocoon_ is considered
by many to have passed the boundaries of legitimate representation in
the terror and torment of its subject; and _Ecce Homos_ and pictures
of the crucifixion can only be defended from a similar condemnation
when the profound spiritual significance of the subjects is made to
dominate the bare torture. Faced squarely, in the glare of day, pain
and death are grim ogres, the ugliness of which no amount of sentiment
can disguise. You can no more find poetry in a present Inferno than
flowers in the red vomit of a live volcano. Men who have seen war tell
us they have discovered nothing attractive in its dreadful scenes of
blood and anguish and fury. What could be more revolting to
contemplate than the sack of a city,--fire and sword in every street,
public buildings razed to the ground, honoured monuments defaced,
homes ravaged, children torn from the arms of their parents, young
girls dragged away to a horrible fate, lust, robbery, slaughter
rampant without shame or restraint, the wild beast in the conquerors
let loose, and a whole army, suddenly freed from all rules of
discipline, behaving like a swarm of demons just escaped from hell.
To think of cultivating art or poetry in the presence of such scenes
would be as absurd as to attempt a musical entertainment among the
shrieks of lost souls.
The case assumes another aspect when we pass from the region of
personal observation to that of reflection. There is no beauty in the
sight of a captured castle immediately after the siege which ended in
its fall, its battlements shattered, its walls seamed with cracks,
here and there a breach, rough and ragged, and strewn with stones and
dust. And yet, by slow degrees and in imperceptible ways, time and
nature will transform the scene until moss-grown walls and ivy-covered
towers acquire a new beauty only seen among ruins. Nature heals and
time softens, and between them they throw a mantle of grace over the
scars of what were once ugly, gaping wounds. Pain as it recedes into
memory is transmuted into pathos; and pathos always fascinates us with
some approach to beauty. If it is true that
"Poets learn in sorrow what they teach in song,"
must it not be also the fact that sorrow while inspiring song is
itself glorified thereby? To use suffering merely as the food of
æstheticism would be to degrade it immeasurably. We should rather put
the case the other way. Poetry saves sorrow from becoming sordid by
revealing its beauty, and in epic heroism even its sublimity. It helps
us to perceive how much more depth there is in life than was apparent
under the glare and glamour of prosperity. Some of us may recollect
how shallow and shadowy our own lives were felt to be in the simple
days before we had tasted the bitter cup. There was a hunger then for
some deeper experience which seemed to lie beyond our reach. While we
naturally shrank from entering the _via dolorosa_, we were dimly
conscious that the pilgrims who trod its rough stones had discovered a
secret that remained hidden from us, and we coveted their attainment,
although we did not envy the bitter experience by which it had been
acquired. This feeling may have been due in part to the foolish
sentimentality that is sometimes indulged in by extreme youth; but
that is not the whole explanation of it, for when our path conducts us
from the flat, monotonous plain of ease and comfort into a region of
chasms and torrents, we do indeed discover an unsuspected depth in
life. Now it is the mission of the poetry of sorrow to interpret this
discovery to us. At least it should enable us to read the lessons of
experience in the purest light. It is not the task of the poet to
supply a categorical answer to the riddle of the universe; stupendous
as that task would be, it must be regarded as quite a prosaic one.
Poetry will not fit exact answers to set questions, for poetry is not
science; but poetry will open deaf ears and anoint blind eyes to
receive the voices and visions that haunt the depths of experience.
Thus it leads on to--
"that blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened."
It may not be obvious to the reader of an elegy that this function is
discharged by such a poem, for elegiac poetry seems to aim at nothing
more than the thoughtful expression of grief. Certainly it is neither
didactic nor metaphysical. Nevertheless in weaving a wreath of
imagination round the sufferings it bewails it cannot but clothe them
with a rich significance. It would seem to be the mission of the five
inspired elegies contained in the Book of Lamentations thus to
interpret the sorrows of the Jews, and through them the sorrows of
mankind.