' 
 
 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW. 
 
 With a Study of the Plan, the Age, and the 
 Character of the Poem. 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST RENAN, 
 
 Member of the Academy. 
 
 DONE INTO ENGLISH BY 
 
 WILLIAM M. THOMSON. 
 
 WM. M. THOMSON, 
 
 LUDGATE HILL, E.G. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE, v 
 
 To M. LE BARON DE BUNSEN, . . . . xvi 
 
 M. KENAN'S PREFACE, ..... xviii 
 
 A STUDY OF THE PLAN, AGE, AND CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 POEM, ...... 1 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE POEM, . . . .109 
 
 TRANSLATION, IN WHICH ARE INTRODUCED THE DIVISIONS 
 
 AND THE SCENIC EXPLANATIONS, . . . 127 
 
 221608 
 
THE HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 In Seven Volumes, each Complete in itself. 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST RENAN 
 
 (Member of the French Academy). 
 
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ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 THIS translation into English of the Song of 
 Songs, or Song of Solomon, is given to the 
 public as a companion work to the Book of Job, 
 both works having been translated direct from 
 the Hebrew into French by Ernest Renan. 
 That M. Kenan was fully competent for such 
 a task will not be seriously questioned by any 
 one ; critics of all shades of opinion, religious 
 or secular, having for many years assigned him 
 the very highest place as a Hebrew scholar. 
 Moreover, no man living has made the study 
 of the Semitic races and their literature so 
 peculiarly his own as has the author of the 
 Life of Jesus. To him it has been the almost 
 
vi ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 exclusive work of a life-time. Among many 
 who have tacitly held M. Kenan's Hebrew 
 erudition in high esteem, may be mentioned 
 the translators of the New Version of the Old 
 Testament. It is not too much to say that, in 
 the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and especially in 
 the Song of Songs, they have slavishly followed 
 M. Kenan's translations as far as they dare, 
 without, of course, recognising their indebted- 
 ness to our author. The most cursory com- 
 parison of the two translations will satisfy 
 any one who understands French and English 
 on this point. The design of the present 
 translation of the Song of Songs is to present 
 the work in English as nearly as possible as 
 M. Kenan has presented it in French ; and not 
 as the translators of the New Version, who 
 were in no sense free agents, have seen fit to 
 render it. I do not say that the authors o 
 the New Version have wilfully perverted the 
 sense. In no instance have they done this, 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. vii 
 
 so far as I have been able to discover. But, 
 in deference to a false modesty, or to Mrs 
 Grundy, if you will, they have so " glossed over " 
 certain passages, that it is hardly possible at 
 first sight to recognise them. One instance of 
 this will suffice for our present purpose. In 
 the Authorised Version, chap. ILL, v. 9-10, we 
 read : " King Solomon made himself a chariot 
 of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars 
 thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, 
 the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof 
 being paved with love for the daughters of 
 Jerusalem." The New Version runs : " King 
 Solomon made himself a palanquin of the wood 
 of Lebanon; he made the pillars thereof of silver, 
 the bottom thereof of gold, the seat of it of 
 purple, the midst thereof being paved with love 
 from the daughters of Jerusalem." M. Kenan's 
 version is this : " King Solomon had made 
 for himself a couch of the wood of Lebanon ; 
 the posts were of silver, the pilasters of gold, 
 
viii ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 the curtains of purple ; in the centre sparkled 
 a beauty chosen from amongst the daughters 
 of Jerusalem." (Au centre Grille une belle 
 choisie entre les filles de Jerusalem.) The 
 reader will find many other similar instances 
 if he compares this version with the New 
 Version. Before leaving this part of the sub- 
 ject, let me give a few more instances to prove 
 that the authors of the New Version have 
 not done their work so well as might have been 
 expected of them. 
 
 Chap. L, v. 4, " Draw me, we will run 
 after thee," should be, " Draw me after thee, 
 let us flee." Chap, n., v. 4, " banqueting 
 house" should read " wine house." The "wine 
 house" was an apartment above ground in 
 which the wine was distributed ; it was not a 
 place for drinking. In chap. II., v. 8, we 
 read in the New Version : " The voice of 
 my beloved ! behold he cometh leaping upon 
 the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ix 
 
 beloved is like a roe or a young hart." Here 
 the translators of the New Version have missed 
 the poetical idea. The poet represents the lover 
 as bounding over the mountains with all the 
 strength and agility of a roe, and skipping upon 
 the hills with all the lightness and grace of a 
 hind's fawn faon des biches. A " young 
 hart" does not necessarily connote lightness 
 and grace. The intelligent reader will discover 
 other misrenderings, equally important. 
 
 M. Kenan's arrangement of the Song of 
 Songs into a drama of five acts, with an 
 epilogue, has given rise to much controversy. 
 By the " unco guid " it has been denounced 
 as blasphemous ; by people holding moderate 
 views on the question of divine inspiration, it 
 has been described as incomplete and inconsist- 
 ent ; while by out-and-out sceptics it has been 
 regarded as a work of supererogation, being 
 no more deserving of separate and serious 
 treatment than was one of the " racy " tales 
 
x ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 of Boccaccio or Margaret of Navarre. M. Renan 
 has answered all these critics in the admirable 
 and exhaustive "study," of about 200 pp. in 
 length, which precedes the translation of the 
 Song. Indeed, this study is by far the most 
 important part of the present work. It is 
 divided into three parts (1) the plan ; (2) 
 the age ; and (3) the character of the poem. 
 The hypothesis M. Kenan advances, to explain 
 the plan of the work, is to my mind complete. 
 At any rate, it fulfils the primary and essential 
 condition of a legitimate hypothesis : it is 
 consistent with itself, and explains the facts 
 to which it is applied, and in a way that no 
 other conceivable hypothesis can. Nay, more, 
 it explodes the hypothesis invented by the 
 early Jewish and Christian fathers, as to the 
 mystical meaning of the Song as touching God 
 and the Church. M. Eenan is equally successful 
 in fixing the age of the poem, and in demon- 
 strating that it could not have been written 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xi 
 
 by Solomon. As to the character of the poem, 
 M. Kenan has no difficulty in proving that, 
 of all the books in the Bible (the Book of 
 Esther alone excepted, in which the name of 
 God is not even once mentioned), the Song of 
 Songs is the last that could lay claim to divine 
 inspiration, in the sense in which these words 
 are commonly accepted. It is a profane work, 
 and possesses no mystical meaning whatever. 
 It is, in fact, an erotic poem and its language 
 is to be accepted literally. It deals wholly 
 and exclusively with that passion which we 
 are accustomed to denominate love ; or, we 
 might say, love versus lust. Solomon is re- 
 presented as being desirous of obtaining posses- 
 sion of the person of the Shulammite for the 
 gratification of his lust, but, despite his grandeur 
 and glory, and tempting offers, he is baffled by 
 a young shepherd, the lover of the Shulammite. 
 That a book of the nature of the Song of 
 Songs should, for a period of nearly three 
 
Xll ENGLISH TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 thousand years, have excited the interest and 
 curiosity of generation after generation, is not 
 to be wondered at. Its subject-matter, as we 
 have said, is love. Now, love is a passion of 
 which no particular age, or any particular sec- 
 tion of mankind, ever had or has a monopoly. 
 It is common to the king and the peasant, to 
 the palace and the cot. No man or woman has 
 been so great or so mean as not at some period 
 of his or her life to have been brought more or 
 less under its thrall ; or, at any rate, to have 
 given it more or less attention. It is a passion 
 which is felt by every one, and is understood by 
 none. It is ever young and unchanging in its 
 operations the same yesterday, to-day, and for 
 ever. Our grandchildren will fall in love in 
 the same way as our grandmothers and grand- 
 fathers did, and so ad infinitum. Herein has 
 consisted and consists the charm of the Song of 
 Songs. It is a universal appeal to mankind. 
 But, apart from its subject, the Song of Songs, 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XI 11 
 
 as has already been intimated, possesses a special 
 and peculiar interest. Not only has it been 
 read and studied more widely than any love 
 story, ancient or modern, but also, it has passed 
 for over two thousand years as a composition of 
 such transcendent merit as to be mistaken for a 
 work of direct divine inspiration. This is high 
 praise, but it is not wholly undeserved, as M. 
 Renan has shown in the accompanying " study." 
 That the design of the author, whoever he may 
 have been, will ever be thoroughly understood 
 and appreciated, is not probable. The poem 
 contains passages that are beyond the capacity 
 of human intelligence now to elucidate. The 
 times in which it was written have long passed 
 away, and the customs which it essays to de- 
 scribe, with them. In such instances, M. Renan 
 has given what he considers the most probable 
 interpretation, together with his reasons there- 
 for. M. Renan does not expect that his opinions 
 on doubtful passages will pass unquestioned. 
 
xiv ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 He admits frankly in the " study " that the 
 arrangement he has finally made of the poem 
 in the dramatic version is not the one he has 
 always advocated or inclined to. For example, 
 he says that for a long time he was of opinion 
 that a transposition of the scenes represented in 
 the poem was the only way by which the mean- 
 ing of the author could be made clear ; but just 
 at the moment when he was about to give effect 
 to this opinion, his hand trembled, and he 
 relented. 
 
 There is one criticism we have to offer on M. 
 Kenan's estimate of the poem. M. Eenan, while 
 repudiating the idea of divine inspiration, will 
 not, on the other hand, admit that the poem is a 
 purely erotic production. He is not very con- 
 sistent in this. For, in one place, he avers that 
 the language in which Solomon addresses the 
 Shulammite, in his first endeavours to overcome 
 her virtue, is only fitted for the ears of a pros- 
 titute ; in another, that he was compelled to 
 
ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. XV 
 
 " tone down " certain passages ; while, in a third, 
 he maintains that, though the teaching of the 
 poem in the mind of the poet was undoubtedly 
 moral, the same could not be said of a poet 
 who, in our days, would clothe his thoughts 
 in such a dress. To the pure all things are 
 pure, and it is in this spirit that I have per- 
 formed my part of the work, in placing before 
 an English reading public (to use the words of 
 M. Renan) " this antique work in all its chaste 
 nudity." 
 
 WM. M. THOMSON. 
 
TO M. LE BARON DE BUNSEN. 
 
 WHEN I saw you five months ago, I was still 
 hesitating whether to give this book to the 
 public, a book upon which frivolity might easily 
 expend itself. Your exhortations, and the 
 agreement which I remarked between your views 
 and mine, inclines me not to be deterred, by 
 the misapprehension of a few, from doing that 
 which might not be without benefit to some 
 others. You informed me that the Canticle 
 was a part of your Bible, and that you read it 
 once every year. You made me understand 
 that in the Church, which we maintain, every- 
 thing is of service in view of eternity, and your 
 conversations revealed to me how much joy (I 
 
XV11 
 
 do not speak of common gaiety) could be filled 
 into life, if we could only find again the art of 
 exciting a passion for the beautiful and the 
 true. Read, then, this spring, the Shulam pas- 
 toral, under your orange trees at Cannes, and 
 return soon to tell us that science is ever young, 
 that she supposes freshness of soul, and that, 
 when she fills up life, she puts off old age. 
 
 oth April 1860. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ISRAEL lias sometimes allowed herself to be led 
 away from her high destiny, and for centuries 
 together we witness this people forgetting the 
 religious mission it had been called upon to 
 fulfil. Judea, become the Holy Land for 
 civilised humanity, appears only to us at such 
 times as a country of priests and of prophets ; 
 all the monuments of Hebrew literature are, at 
 first glance, the sacred books. But this is a 
 delusion, resulting from the prejudice which pre- 
 vents us from seeing in great things the very 
 principle which constitutes their greatness. An 
 
PREFACE. XIX 
 
 attentive study of these different written data, 
 devoted wholly to religion, reveal to us numerous 
 traces of a profane life, which, not being the most 
 brilliant side of the Jewish people, has naturally 
 been cast into the shade. By a strange miracle 
 (thanks to a species of contempt in regard to 
 which criticism could not afford to be very 
 severe, since she has preserved to us the most 
 curious, perhaps, of the monuments of antiquity), 
 an entire book, the work of those moments of 
 forgetfulness, when the people of God allowed 
 their infinite hopes to slumber, has come down 
 to us. The Song of Songs is not the only pro- 
 fane composition which the Bible comprises, but 
 it is, among several, the one as to which the 
 scribes who decided the fate of Hebrew writings 
 have most extended their rules as to admitting 
 such works. I hence believe that I have done 
 a useful work in studying, after the Book of Job, 
 this other book, which, though less important 
 as regards philosophy and religion, is yet, also, 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 most essential to any one who would know 
 exactly the history of the development of the 
 Hebrew mind. 
 
 The peculiar nature of the difficulties contained 
 in the Song of Songs obliges me in this paper to 
 follow a plan a little different from that which I 
 adopted for the Book of Job. In neither of 
 these two studies did I propose to myself to 
 make a continuous commentary, in which the 
 meaning of every difficult passage should be 
 discussed ; rarely have I been led to propose 
 in detail entirely new interpretations ; the justi- 
 fication of my translation is found, consequently, 
 in the number of works in which each line of 
 these antique writings, together with their de- 
 velopments, has been examined, to which I have 
 added but little. But in that which concerns 
 the Song of Songs, some additional explanations 
 were necessary. The plan of the work, which, 
 in the Book of Job, is manifest, offers, in the 
 poem now in question, the most serious diffi- 
 
PKEFACE. XXI 
 
 culties ; to speak truly, it is this which is the 
 great problem in the exegesis of the Song of 
 Songs. I have, therefore, presented to the 
 reader, without once recoiling before the necessity 
 of the most complicated deductions, the whole 
 series of reasonings which have conducted me to 
 my conclusions in regard to the nature of the 
 poem. This is the object of the first paragraph 
 of the Preliminary Study. Without these de- 
 tails, the arrangement which I have given to 
 the poem might appear an artificial one, and 
 many places might present the appearance of 
 over-refinement. 
 
 The same consideration has forced me to adopt 
 a course in the arrangement of the translation 
 which at first may surprise, but whose utility, 
 I hope, will be recognised. The translation will 
 be found in this volume to be twice printed ; in 
 the first instance, without any explanatory addi- 
 tion, and under a form which should not raise 
 any prejudice as to the plan of the poem, the 
 
 \ 
 
XX 11 PREFACE. 
 
 only divisions found in it being those which at 
 first sight strike the eye of an attentive reader, 
 and those divisions in other respects " having 
 only a provisional character ; * in the second 
 instance, the divisions and explanations which 
 result from the discussion to which I have 
 applied myself in the preliminary study on the 
 plan of the poem. If I had limited myself to 
 the first form, I should have failed in the most 
 essential duty of a translator who would give 
 the reader a text which explains itself. If I 
 had given only the second form, I might have 
 been justly reproached for thrusting forward my 
 system with my translation ; it would have been 
 difficult to make an abstract of the divisions and 
 of the scenic indications ; the naked text would 
 not have been sufficiently disentangled. Con- 
 trariwise, in the arrangement I have adopted, 
 the liberty of the reader is fully respected. He 
 
 1 The old division into chapters and verses, which have no 
 critical value, but which are used for the citations, is marked, ac- 
 cording to the Hebrew, in the margin of the first translation. 
 
PKEFACE. XXlil 
 
 may, if it seem good to him, by reading only 
 the first version, attempt to construct a better 
 hypothesis than the one I have submitted. I 
 warn those, however, who would attempt this 
 ordeal, that the plan which I have fixed upon 
 is that which is the result of the labours of 
 several generations of industrious interpreters. 
 It will be easy, at first sight, to find weak parts in 
 it ; but if one would consider it as a whole, and not 
 direct one's attention exclusively to certain pas- 
 sages, such a one would, I believe, be brought 
 to acknowledge that it is impossible to propose 
 any other arrangement. The latter, however, 
 be it understood, is applicable only to the en- 
 semble of the poem. A multitude of shades of 
 meaning are, in a book of this nature, left to 
 the discrimination of each individual ; nay, it 
 is even probable that the author did not take 
 so strict account of the details of the different 
 parts as our habits of thought require. Two 
 passages especially (vi. 11, et seq. ; vm. 8, et 
 
xxiv PREFACE. 
 
 seq.) are extremely difficult. I have given the 
 explanation which appeared to me the most 
 probable ; and it would be presumptuous in me 
 to speak with assurance on passages that are so 
 obscure. 
 
 I will not dissimulate that there was another 
 method which at first attracted me, and which I 
 only renounced when I had subjected my work 
 to a final revision. I had for long thought that 
 the only means which could remedy the diffi- 
 culties that the plan of the Canticle seemed to 
 offer, was the transposition of some of the scenes. 
 Certain it is, that in the actual condition of 
 the poem, the chronological order is altogether 
 reversed. Thus, in chap. I., we witness the 
 young maiden make her entry into the seraglio ; 
 at chap. in. she enters, for the first time, into 
 Jerusalem ; at chap vi. she is waylaid at Shulam 
 by the retainers of Solomon ; at chap. vin. her 
 brothers seem to enter into a plot, the develop- 
 ment of which constitutes the nodus of the 
 
PREFACE. XXV 
 
 poem. It was in these two last portions, 
 especially, that I found the temptation to be 
 resolute, and I avow that I am sometimes yet 
 carried to believe that the poem has been 
 subjected to grave abuses. But at the moment 
 I realised the boldness of the step, of touching 
 up a text so anciently established, my hand 
 trembled. The poem, such as it is, being 
 capable of being brought back to its original 
 form certainly not to a form to satisfy our 
 . exaggerated ideas as to dramatic art, but to 
 a connected form I am interdicted from the 
 employment of extreme means, to which re- 
 course should only be had in cases of absolute 
 necessity. 
 
 I know that several passages in the translation 
 will appear a little shocking to two classes of 
 persons ; first, to those who admire only in 
 antiquity that which resembles, more or less, 
 forms adapted to French taste ; in the second 
 place, to those who know only the Canticle 
 
XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 through the mystic veil with which the religious 
 conscience has for centuries surrounded it. The 
 latter are naturally those whose habits it has 
 cost me the most pain to combat. It is never 
 without hesitation that I have carried my hand 
 over sacred texts which have founded or 
 sustained hopes of eternity, nor, in the name 
 of critical science, to rectify those conflicting 
 secular meanings which have consoled humanity, 
 which have assisted man to cross so many arid 
 deserts, and which have enabled him to conquer . 
 truths much superior to those of philosophy. 
 It were better that humanity should have hoped 
 for a Messiah, than to have fully comprehended 
 the passage in Isaiah, where it believes it has 
 seen him announced ; it were better that it 
 should have believed in the resurrection than 
 to have carefully read and fully comprehended 
 such an obscure passage in the book of Job., 
 upon the faith of which its future deliverance 
 is affirmed. Where should we be, if the con-, 
 
PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 temporaries of Christ and the founders of 
 Christianity had been as good philologists as 
 Gesenius ? Faith in the resurrection and faith 
 in the Messiah have accomplished greater things 
 than the exact science of the grammarian. But 
 it is the grandeur of the modern human mind 
 not to sacrifice the legitimate wants of human 
 nature ; our hopes depend no longer on a text, 
 whether well or ill understood. Each, however, 
 imposes his faith upon texts much more than 
 he is aware of. Those who need the authority 
 of Job to enable them to hope in the future, 
 will not believe the Hebraist, who expounds to 
 them his doubts and his objections ; without 
 being disturbed by a different interpretation, 
 they will boldly declare with humanity : De 
 terra surrecturus sum. In like manner, the 
 Canticle, so dear to so many pious souls, will 
 exist in spite of our demonstrations. Like 
 an antique statue which the piety of the 
 middle ages has transformed into a madonna, 
 
XXV 111 PREFACE. 
 
 it will continue to be respected, even when 
 archaeology shall have proved its profane origin. 
 As for me, my aim has not been to detract 
 from the veneration of the image now become 
 holy, but to despoil it for a moment of its 
 wings, in order to show to laymen antique art 
 in its chaste nudity. 
 
A STUDY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PLAN, AGE, AND CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 
 
 THE Song of Songs is one of the Hebrew books which, 
 in relation to language, presents the fewest difficulties, 
 yet, of all the literary monuments of the Jewish 
 people, it is unquestionably the one whose plan, 
 nature, and general sense are the most obscure.^ 
 Without taking into account the innumerable 
 mystical and allegorical explanations advanced by 
 theologians, and not one of which (as we shall 
 demonstrate later on) has any foundation in the 
 original, two opposing schemes still divide the 
 exegetes as to what concerns this singular book. 
 According to some, a connected action links together 
 the different parts of the poem, and makes of it a 
 coherent composition, possessing a unity. According 
 to others, the Song of Songs is but a series of 
 amorous lyrics, possessing no other bond of unity 
 than the analogy of the subject, and not implying 
 
2 
 
 /; -.A; sTuntf off TJ^ SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 beyond that a dramatic action. Although the second 
 scheme appears to us unsustainable, and is to-day 
 all but abandoned, we can yet understand that the 
 ensemble of the poem must present some difficulties, 
 when such men as Herder, Paulus, Eichhorn, 
 W. Jones, de Wette, have been driven to admit an 
 hypothesis so desperate. A hasty glance at the 
 Song of Songs justifies, moreover, the hesitations 
 of so many eminent critics. We believe that, if the 
 reader would carefully run over the first of our 
 translations of the work, it would be evident to him 
 that divers Parts, such as the second, third, eighth, 
 eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, embody 
 precise and undoubted allusions to a dramatic action, 
 whose general contexture is readily discovered. 
 Several incidents in these Parts are devoid of mean- 
 ing, if we regard the divisions in which they occur 
 merely as simple detached romances. On the other 
 hand, if we seek in the poem for a regular develop- 
 ment, similar to that which is found in our modern 
 dramas, we encounter insuperable difficulties ; and 
 we are fain to believe that the order of the scenes 
 has been inverted, or that some parts have been 
 misplaced. A minute examination of the complete 
 poem, verse by verse, can alone furnish us witli 
 a key to this singular problem. 
 
 Every one is agreed as to two points : first, that 
 the poem is in dialogue, although the distinction 
 of characters has not been indicated ; and second 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 3 
 
 that it divides itself into distinct parts, similar to 
 our acts and scenes. Two species of refrain recur 
 quite regularly in certain places, leaving little doubt 
 as to the second point. Thus, after verse n. 7, ill. 5, 
 V. 1, vi. 10, vii. 11, VIII. 4, and vm. 7, there are 
 evident pauses. An examination of the poem can 
 alone reveal to us with precision the number and 
 the importance of these breaks. But, henceforward, 
 it may be permissible to adopt a division, which 
 shall prejudge nothing in respect of the plan of the 
 work. In pausing at all the places where we are 
 conscious of an abrupt change of situation, we are 
 led to divide the poem into sixteen Parts, as follows : 
 
 I. . . I, 2 1 i, 4 
 
 II. . . I, 5 I, 6 
 
 III . . I, 7 i, 8 
 
 IV. . . i, 9 i, 11 
 
 V. . . i, 12 n, 7 
 
 VI. n, 8 n, 17 
 
 VII. . . in, 1 in, 5 
 
 VIII. . . in, 6 in, 11 
 
 IX. . . iv, 1 v, 1 
 
 X. . v, 2 vi, 3 
 
 XL . . vi, 4 vi, 10 
 
 XII. . . vi, 11 vn, 11 
 
 1 Verse 1 in the Hebrew corresponds to the title. It must be 
 'observed that the figures of the verses of the Hebrew text differ 
 sometimes from those of the Vulgate, but never move than a unit. 
 
4 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 XIII . . vii, 12 vni, 4 
 
 XIV. . . vni, 5 vm, 7 
 
 XV. . . vm, 8 vin, 12 
 
 XVI . . vm, 13 vin, 14 
 
 This division will serve as a basis for our examina- 
 tion, although we hope to demonstrate that several 
 of the Parts, which we separate provisionally, offer 
 a stronger bond and sequence than one would have 
 believed at first glance. It is taken for granted 
 that, in the whole of the reasonings which are to 
 follow, that the reader has constantly before his eyes 
 the first of our two translations, where the clearly 
 apparent division we have just indicated has been 
 adopted. 
 
 I. Part One consists of the three first verses of the 
 poem, which evidently constitute an ensemble. These 
 three verses were, no doubt, pronounced by one or 
 several women. At first sight it seems natural to 
 put all the three verses in the mouth of a captive 
 lover, who sighs after her absent beloved. The rest of 
 the work, in fact, constantly brings us back to this 
 theme. But, in examining it closely, we see that 
 such an interpretation is fraught with the gravest 
 difficulties. First, the expression of the love in the 
 three verses in question is wholly sensual. The com- 
 parison of love to wine is objectionable, for in the 
 rest of the poem the captive lover always expresses 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 5 
 
 herself with much delicacy. ' Besides, there are some 
 places in the Part which we are discussing (verse 4) 
 which seem to be pronounced by a chorus of females. 
 When the captive lover is speaking for herself alone, 
 she never uses the verb in the first person plural. 
 In a word, verses 3 and 4 presuppose that the man 
 to whom these protestations of love are addressed is 
 beloved at the same time of several women, which 
 has no meaning in the mouth of a lover who sighs 
 for a lover separated from her, Let us add that the 
 word ala/moth designates the group of women who 
 love the hero designates elsewhere (vi. 8) in a 
 positive manner the odalisques of Solomon. It 
 seems, then, that we must understand these three 
 verses as representing a scene in the harem. 1 Each 
 of the women sighs for the favours of the master, 
 and the latter is no other than Solomon (the sequel 
 certainly proves this). They express their love to 
 him in passionate invitations, which is forthwith put 
 into the mouths of the whole chorus, then taken up 
 by a single female. 
 
 As to the words, " The king has brought me into 
 his chambers," I think that we ought to attribute 
 them to a young woman who has just been shut up 
 in the harem. This conjecture becomes almost a 
 certainty when we examine the succeeding verses, 
 where we see a young woman (the heroine of the 
 
 1 This is a point which MM. Bcettcher and Hitzig were the first 
 to fully understand. 
 
6 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 poem) addressing herself for the first time to the 
 ladies of the seraglio. We must not be astonished 
 at such a scenic indication put into the mouth of the 
 actor being awkward and contrary to our usages. 
 It is here that we discover the first example of a 
 dramatic method which we shall see applied through- 
 out the whole poem, and which consists in the actor, 
 in order to make up for the imperfection in the play 
 and in the discourse, reciting what is expected of him. 
 Numerous instances will soon make that conclusion 
 perfectly clear. The tense of the verb employed to 
 express thus the action which takes place at the 
 moment when the actor speaks, is always what is de- 
 nominated in the Hebrew grammars the preterite. 
 
 There is no longer any doubt about these words : 
 "Draw me after thee; let us flee." These words 
 might very well be in the mouth of the odalisque who 
 pronounces the first words : " Let him kiss me. . . ." 
 Nevertheless, as the words which follow, " The king- 
 has brought me . . ." are in the mouth of the hero- 
 ine, I prefer to think that the words which we are 
 now discussing belong to the same person. It is a 
 cry of distress which she directs to him whom she 
 loves. In the scenes which are to follow, we shall 
 see the same heroine taking no account of her 
 surroundings, and speaking to her lover as though 
 she were alone in the world with him. 
 
 It may probably occur to the minds of some 
 persons, in pursuing this hypothesis, to place like- 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 7 
 
 wise the first words, " Let ' him kiss me," in the 
 mouth of the heroine. But this is hardly admissible ; 
 for, first, it is unnatural that the young woman who 
 is shut up in the harem should ask from her lover 
 a kiss before demanding of him her deliverance ; be- 
 sides, the second part of verse 2 is unquestionably 
 uttered by the same person that utters the end of 
 verse 4 Now, this ending of verse 4 is the part which 
 most manifestly appertains to the ladies of the harem. 
 
 II. Part Two (i. 5-6) is perfectly clear. A young 
 maiden from the country, doubtless the one who 
 has said in the preceding verse, " The king has 
 brought me to his chambers," makes her entry into 
 the harem. She excuses herself for her features 
 being browned by the sun. Her brothers have 
 maltreated her, and set her to do the roughest 
 work. We perceive that this monologue fits in well 
 with the preceding scene, and that we are still in 
 the harem. The concluding phrase, " Vineam meam 
 propriam non custodivi" presents alone any equi- 
 vocation. This phrase finds its explanation in 
 another place, vm. 12, In comparing the two 
 passages, we are convinced that these words must 
 be taken to designate metaphorically that which 
 constitutes the dowry * (bien fonds) of a young 
 maiden, to wit, her virginity and her beauty. The 
 young maiden chides herself here for some impru- 
 
 1 The word ke'rc:n (vinca) designates here, rent (fermage) of some 
 nature or another. 
 
8 A STUDY OF THE PONG OF SONGS. 
 
 dence, and, in fact, in chap, vi., verses 11-12, we 
 shall see the narrative of a surprise, which has been 
 the source of her misfortunes, and to which, through 
 her foolhardiness, she had exposed herself. 
 
 III. The meaning of Part Three (i. 7-8) presents, 
 unfortunately, a greater number of difficulties. The 
 first verse of this Part shows us a shepherdess (the 
 heroine, doubtless), asking her lover to fix upon a 
 place where they may meet, and we expect the re- 
 sponse of the shepherd, which is contained in verse 
 VIIL It is not absolutely impossible that it may 
 not have been so ; nevertheless, it must be avowed 
 that such a response would have been not at all 
 natural, since, far from indicating the place for a 
 secret interview, the shepherd, on the contrary, 
 counsels his lover to associate with the other shep- 
 herds. Again, in order to obtain this meaning, we 
 are obliged to accept these words *]b ^1D $b Dtf 
 in the sense of " Si nescis" which, independently of 
 the extreme listlessness of the meaning which results 
 therefrom, is contrary to the tenor of the poem, in 
 which JTP N 1 ? signifies "to act stupidly; to lose 
 one's head " (vi. 12). Finally, the expression, 
 " Oh, thou fairest among women," with which the 
 interlocutor in verse 8 addresses the peasant girl, 
 is the one selected for the occasion when the chorus 
 addresses itself to the heroine. We are hence almost 
 compelled to believe that verse 8 ought to be placed 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 9 
 
 in the mouth of one of the ladies of the harem, and 
 that verse 7 is pronounced by the peasant girl dur- 
 ing a sort of dream, or some kind of distraction. 
 The poor simpleton imagines she is still in the 
 country ; a victim of love, and a stranger to the 
 dissimulations of the seraglio, she speaks aloud to a 
 lover whom she has left behind her in the village, 
 and asks of him where he will lead his flock to at 
 noon. One of her companions, or perhaps the entire 
 chorus, 1 shocked at the na/ivett with which she has 
 betrayed her love, discover to her her imprudence, 
 and engage her, since she is so little mistress of her- 
 self, to quit this abode, and to betake herself again 
 to the tending of her flocks. What such a hypo- 
 thesis may in appearance possess of the fanciful, 
 will soon be explained. We see that the scene thus 
 understood is quite consistent with the preceding 
 scene, and that we have not yet quitted the harem. 
 
 IV. Part Four, regarded separately, is very simple. 
 There can be no question that these verses have not 
 been put into the mouth of Solomon. The young 
 peasant girl has received in the seraglio her first 
 trousseau. Solomon sees her, addresses to her a 
 compliment, to which the poet appears to have in- 
 tentionally given a somewhat awkward turn, and 
 promises her some new finery. We shall still have 
 
 1 In our poem, as in the Greek drama, the rdle of the chorus is at 
 once individual and collective. 
 
10 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 to remark more than once that the words put into 
 the mouth of Solomon have a doubtful charm, and 
 are very different from those which are prompted 
 by true love. 
 
 V. The short monologue contained in verses 12-14, 
 is by itself sufficiently clear. These three verses evi- 
 dently proceed from the lips of the paysanne. The 
 king is in his divan ; the young maiden is full of the 
 thoughts of a lover who is coming to repose between 
 her breasts. That this lover is not the king himself, 
 is made manifest by the clear distinction established 
 on the one hand between the king (hosmmele/c), whose 
 absence she regards as a piece of good fortune, and, 
 on the other, the well-beloved (nirdi, dodty, whose 
 arrival she is momentarily expecting. The existence 
 of the shepherd, who is the beloved of the young 
 maiden, whom we have already discovered in verse 7, 
 becomes now an absolute certainty. This is a capital 
 point, and the key to the entire poem. We are not so 
 much led into error by the plan of the work as by 
 the fact that sufficient attention has not been given 
 to the capital distinction made in this place, a dis- 
 tinction whence results that Solomon is not the loved 
 object ; nay, more, that his absence is the necessary 
 condition to the enjoyment of the loved object. 
 
 At verse 15, grave difficulties spring up. One of the 
 two lovers of the young maiden enters upon the scene, 
 and addresses to her a vulgar enough compliment, 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 11 
 
 which is to be found word for wx>rd in chap. IV., verse 
 1, and which is certainly put into the mouth of 
 Solomon. A similar expression is found in chap. VI., 
 verse 4, and there, too, of a certainty it proceeds from 
 the mouth of Solomon. Moreover, the word which 
 the interlocutor makes use of in addressing himself to 
 the maiden is raiati, " my love." This is the word 
 which is used immediately by Solomon (i. 9) and 
 which he uses again in the sequel (iv. 1, VL, 4). Now, 
 it seems that this is an hypothesis much resorted to 
 by the poet in following up a strict rule in the employ- 
 ment of these vocatives, of which the difference serves 
 to mark the change of the interlocutor, and takes the 
 place of the name of the personages. 1 
 
 True it is that ra'iati appears also, II. 10, and v. 2, 
 in the mouth of the lover, but is lost in an enumera- 
 tion, and attached to other words much more tender. 
 We hold it, then, as indubitable that verse 15 ought to 
 be put into the mouth of Solomon. 
 
 Verse 16 belongs assuredly to the rdle of the maiden. 
 She responds by taking up again the turn of phrase 
 of the interlocutor in verse 15. It seems then natural 
 to suppose that she addresses Solomon. But to this, 
 two difficulties oppose : 1st, she calls him dodi, " my 
 well-beloved," a designation which she always reserves 
 for her lover, whom she has already addressed by this 
 appellation (l. 13, 14), and whom she has formally 
 
 1 Tliis capital principle in the exegesis of the Song of Songs has been 
 established by M. Ewald (Das Hohclicd Solomon's, Gcettin^en, 1826). 
 
12 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 distinguished from Solomon ; 2d, this phrase, " Lectulm 
 noster viridis" is but little adapted to a seraglio. It 
 seems that here, as in verse 7, the peasant girl, whose 
 youthful and lively imagination is constantly trans- 
 ported to the country, recalls to her lover the bed of 
 leaves which was a witness to their childish delights. 
 It is at least very probable that this verse is addressed 
 to her lover, and not to Solomon. 
 
 Who pronounces verse 17 ? This is a question 
 upon which many interpretations have been put. 
 Some suggest that this verse, like the one preceding 
 and following, should be put in the mouth of the 
 peasant girl, with the three verses, I. 16, I. 17, n. 4, 
 and form a discourse for the maiden. But these three 
 verses so joined make an incoherent and contradictory 
 ensemble. The similies of the green bed, beams of 
 cedar, lilies of the valley, clash with one another in a 
 manner altogether unusual with the poet. It is still 
 less natural to place verse 17 in the mouth of the 
 shepherd who has not yet spoken. We therefore 
 conclude that verse 17 comes from the lips of Solomon. 
 The peasant girl, who dreams only of her vine and her 
 lover, has just recalled the greenwood bed where she 
 first knew love. Solomon, who has no notion of her 
 fidelity, contrasts the greenwood bed with the beams 
 of cedar and the rafters of fir of his seraglio. 
 
 We perceive now the singular character of this little 
 scene. Verse 15 and verse 17 proceed from Solomon, 
 verse 16 is in the mouth of the peasant girl ; but, 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 13 
 
 in place of addressing herself to Solomon, the maiden 
 speaks there of her absent lover, whose coming she 
 has been expecting (verses 12-14), or, at least, the 
 thought of whom was occupying her mind. However 
 strange this result may be, it appears to us it ought to 
 be accepted. For to suppose that verse 15 and verse 
 17 come from the mouth of a real lover, who is 
 expected at verses 12-14, as it is so natural to think, 
 is out of the question. The author, in fact, takes 
 great care in distinguishing the sentiments of his 
 characters, and he could never commit the blunder of 
 putting here into the mouth of a lover, the same 
 words that he puts elsewhere into the mouth of 
 Solomon. And as to saying that the tender protesta- 
 tion of the peasant girl (verse 16) is addressed to 
 Solomon, is in contradiction both with verses 12-14, 
 where the maiden is happy in the absence of the king, 
 and with the entire poem, where the triumph of the 
 shepherdess rightly consists in her having passed 
 through various experiences without having responded 
 in a single word to the love and advances of Solomon. 
 We have, then, no hesitation in avowing that there 
 is here a sort of bye-play, further examples of which 
 we shall find as we proceed. To the compliments of 
 Solomon, the youthful maiden responds by protesting 
 that the king may, if it seem good to him, take her to 
 himself ; but, in reality, she is addressing herself to 
 an absent friend. This friend himself is absent only 
 according to the meaning we attach to the scene. 
 
14 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 We see him soon after interposing abruptly, and 
 speaking as if he had heard what had preceded. 
 Further on, other applications of this dramatic method 
 will present themselves to us. We are led to believe ' 
 that, in representations such as those to whieh the 
 poem has given scope, all the actors were present at \ 
 once, and that they took up speech in turn, in fulfil- 
 ment of their part, on the presumption that the 
 characters not engaged in the scene had not heard 
 them. The Hebrews, in composing dramatic scenes,! 
 do not appear to have attained to the idea of the ] 
 complete drama, where it is essential to place the 
 action before the eyes of the spectator, and where 
 verisimilitude, in its relation to changes of place, ought 
 to be observed. 
 
 Verse n. 1, which, by unanimous consent, must 
 be put in the mouth of the shepherdess, has no connec- 
 tion whatever with what precedes and what follows ; 
 it takes a singular turn, and one is tempted at times 
 to regard it as a mere debut, or the beginning 
 of a scene. Nevertheless, the following verses con- 
 tinue very appropriately the scene of verses 15, 16 
 and 17. We are hence of opinion that the dual 
 dialogue is here still protracted. Solomon has just 
 been boasting of his palace of cedar. The peasant 
 girl, as in verse 16, recurs to her dreams of the 
 country, and protests her innocence in ambiguous 
 terms. If, in adopting this interpretation, the 
 statement in verse 1 is found to be a little dis- 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 15 
 
 tortecl, there is no reason why we should not regard 
 it as a couplet of a popular song, which is sung by 
 the shepherdess, in a bantering tone, in order to 
 reveal her presence to her lover. In fact, it is very 
 remarkable that the lover, as though he had re- 
 cognised in that sign the fidelity of his beloved, enters 
 abruptly upon the scene, which we will prove 
 presently. At verse II. 15, we shall find, without 
 the possibility of a doubt, a similar artifice. What- 
 ever be the exact meaning, we are compelled to 
 see in the verse in question, a continuance of the 
 disagreement which the poet seems to take pleasure 
 in establishing between Solomon and the young- 
 maiden, each of them pursuing his or her idea, and 
 (thanks to the ingenious mechanism of the scene) 
 prolonging the misunderstanding. 
 
 Verse 2. Is it pronounced by Solomon or by the 
 lover? The word raiali, "my friend," leads one to 
 believe that it is by Solomon. But it is only in 
 the apostrophes in the vocative cases that the poet 
 makes use of the distinction in the terms of love. 
 We are tempted, on the contrary, by very strong 
 reasons, to attribute this verse to the lover. Be- 
 ginning with the following verse (verse 3), it is, in 
 fact, no longer possible for the scene to take place 
 in the absence of the lover, while, at verse 7, his 
 presence is beyond dispute, inasmuch as he speaks- 
 Is it at this point that the new character is intro- 
 duced ? In our opinion, it is at verse 2. The in- 
 
16 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 terlocutor, in fact, enters into the feelings of the 
 peasant girl, and continues the rural metaphors of 
 verse 1 ; contrariwise, each time that the poet brings 
 Solomon on the scene, it is always inopportunely, 
 and represents him as being antagonistic to the 
 sentiments of the young maiden. Whilst Solomon 
 is responding to the bed of green by the beams of 
 cedar, the interlocutor is carried away in thought 
 to the village. The young women are now called 
 banoth, and not alamoth, like the odalisques of the 
 seraglio (i. 3; VI. 8). One very characteristic fact 
 is that the actor who pronounces this verse does not 
 speak directly to the young maiden. Indeed, it 
 might be said that the conversation of Solomon with 
 the peasant girl takes place outside of the piece, and 
 that it is abruptly inserted in the dialogue. The 
 action of the scene which we have described, p. 14, 
 seems then to reappear here. And what is not to be 
 gainsaid is the improbability of the lover entering 
 the harem, and making Solomon a witness to his 
 own wrong-doing, since at the end of the scene 
 (verse 7) the lover is undoubtedly present, and 
 speaks. Other portions of the poem show us the 
 same uncertainty in the entrances and exits of the 
 actors. Verse IV. 8, in particular, will show us an 
 entry of the lover on the scene identical with the 
 latter. 
 
 Verses 3, 4, 5 and 6 ought, without doubt, to be put 
 in the mouth of the young maiden. The protestations 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 17 
 
 of love in verse 3 could only be addressed to the 
 lover. The voice of the lover (verse 2) awakens the 
 shepherdess out of her dream, and leads to that eager- 
 ness of tone peculiar to one coming out of a swoon. 
 We can even take for granted that, in pronouncing 
 the last words of verse 3, the maiden has thrown her- 
 self into the arms of her lover, adhering always to 
 the principle that, in the dramatic arrangement of 
 the poet, each actor announces what he does at the 
 moment he does it. To speak the truth, the whole 
 difficulty turns upon verse 4. How is this passage 
 to be understood ? " He brought me into his wine- 
 house, and his banner over me was love." The 
 word " wine-house " seems to signify a cellar above 
 ground, and we are abruptly transported thence into 
 the country. For to admit with Gesenius that this 
 expression designates "the room in which wine is 
 drunk," and that that signifies metaphorically, " he 
 has inebriated me with love," is what a man of judg- 
 ment will not readily assent to. The female vine- 
 dresser is never used except as a rural figure of 
 speech. The words of verse 5, where the heroine, 
 about to faint away, asks to be comforted with fruit 
 or with a piece of those pressed raisin cakes which 
 are the residuum of the vintage, proves that the 
 scene takes place, or is ascribed to take place, at a 
 spot where the wine is made and stored away. When 
 we. compare the passage in question with the very 
 similar passage (i. 4) : " The king has brought me to 
 
18 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 his chambers," we feel convinced that there is here, 
 again, one of those indications of change of place 
 which the poet (the fault of the scenic machinery) 
 puts in the mouth of the actor. The shepherdess, 
 who has not been able to detach herself in imagina- 
 tion from the village, having refound him whom she 
 loves, gives herself wholly up to the allusion ; or, to 
 speak more exactly, the poet, desirous of expressing 
 the triumph of the two lovers, shows them to us, 
 after their separation, reunited at the farm where 
 they first became enamoured of one another. Between 
 verse ill. 4 and verse ill. 5, we shall find yet another 
 of those passages, which transport us in imagination 
 from Jerusalem to the country. It is evident that, 
 in the mind of the dramatist, the scene is never strictly 
 localised, and that no figure of speech indicates the 
 exterior circumstances in the midst of which the 
 action has taken place. 
 
 What follows, up to verse 7, is perfectly clear. The 
 young maiden experiences an amorous fainting-fit, and 
 falls into the arms of the shepherd. The formula which 
 expresses the swooning away is reproduced in two 
 other places in the poem, III. 5 and VIIL 4. In these 
 two places, as in the present instance, the fainting 
 away indicates a very marked division, the end of an 
 act. We are, therefore, justified in forming from 
 the twenty-three verses which we have so far ex- 
 amined, a first act, whose construction is this : A 
 young female vine-dresser, reared in her native village, 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 19 
 
 is brought by compulsion into the harem of Solomon. 
 Being a stranger to the whole surroundings, she re- 
 serves all her thoughts for a lover whom she has left 
 in the fields. It is in vain that Solomon promises 
 her jewels, and compliments her on her beauty. 
 While the king is absent, she abandons herself to the 
 hope of seeing her lover. She believes that he is 
 about to come. But, instead, it is Solomon who pre- 
 sents himself, and seeks to gain her good graces. Then 
 follows a dialogue, in which the young maiden re- 
 sponds to the compliments of Solomon in significant 
 terms, which in reality are intended for her lover. A 
 phrase, perhaps a couplet of a popular song which the 
 young maiden sings, suddenly brings the lover on the 
 scene. The two lovers are reunited. In imagination 
 both they and the spectators are transported to the 
 country ; the lover is supposed to introduce his be- 
 loved into the wine room of the farm, where they are 
 recognised, and the young woman faints away in the 
 arms of her lover. 
 
 Such a dramatic arrangement, viewed from the 
 standpoint of our modern usages, appears, I admit, 
 somewhat singular ; we are astonished, in particular, 
 at finding at the end of the first act the denouement 
 which we did not expect to meet until the end of 
 the drama; but the second act, which we are about 
 to analyse, presents an analogous disposition : and 
 here it is so palpable that the doubts which might 
 still remain as to our deductions will, I hope, dis- 
 
20 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONCS. 
 
 appear when the dramatic method of the author 
 shall, by a second application, have become clear. 
 Let it be observed, however, that the final ending 
 (vn. 12, et seq.) sensibly differs from the peculiar 
 endings of the first and second acts. The final 
 ending is indeed realistic, and is accompanied by all 
 the scenic apparatus which befits lovers returning 
 to the village. Here, instead, as well as in the act 
 which immediately follows, the two lovers do not 
 actually leave Jerusalem, and the reunion in the 
 village is represented only in perspective and in 
 imagination. 
 
 VI. Part Six (n. 8-17) leaves room for no manner 
 of doubt. The young captive dreams of her lover. 
 She imagines she hears him, and descries him stand- 
 ing behind the window bars. She addresses to him 
 a passionate discourse, and establishes a kind of 
 dialogue between herself and him. The lover is 
 regarded as being outside the seraglio, at the foot of 
 a terraced tower (verse 14) ; he asks his beloved to 
 let him hear her voice : she responds in a spring lyric, 
 which they had probably sung in the village, and 
 which serves as a token of recognition. She finishes 
 by protesting that she will never belong to any one 
 but her lover, and engages to return to him in the 
 evening^ It is all the time doubtful whether this 
 scene ought to be considered as a dream or as a 
 reality. It is equally difficult to say whether, in 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 21 
 
 the intention of the poet, this scene is a monologue, 
 comprising a dialogue recited by the heroine, or 
 whether the person who enacts the role of the 
 shepherd ought to pronounce in person verses 
 10-14. The formula, 1DNT TOtf, "He spake and 
 said unto me," of verse 10, and still more the 
 refrain of verse 16, where the heroine continues 
 her discourse, after having repeated the response 
 which she made to her lover, induces the belief 
 that the amorous dialogue of verses 10-15 is wholly 
 recited by the shepherdess. 
 
 VII. Part Seven presents still fewer difficulties 
 than the preceding. The shepherdess awakens during 
 the night, seeks her lover, perambulates the city, 
 encounters him, attaches herself to him. By a turn 
 of expression analogous to that which terminates the 
 first act, the poet suddenly transports us in imagina- 
 tion from Jerusalem to the maternal home of the 
 young maiden, and shows us the shepherdess in a 
 faint. This is decisive. What doubt might remain 
 as to the abrupt passages in verses II. 4, 7, disappears 
 on a comparison with verses in. 4-5. At verse in. 5, 
 there terminates a second act, which is in a manner 
 the counterpart of the first, in respect of the denoue- 
 ment, at least. The design of the author is to show, 
 in each act, the heroine undergoing an experience 
 which terminates in the victory of true love over 
 corruption and constraint, the two essential features 
 
22 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 of his method of composition. The changes of place 
 effected in imagination, and the tendency to supply 
 by recitations that which the imperfect dramatic 
 machinery at his disposal was insufficient to do, 
 appear thus in their full light. 
 
 VIII. This scene has a character peculiar to itself. 
 The interlocutors are the bourgeois of Jerusalem, who 
 form a male chorus. They assist, and we make them 
 assist, at a solemn entry of Solomon into Jerusalem. 
 We see first the cortege in the distance, which an- 
 nounces itself by a cloud of perfumes. Then the 
 palanquin of Solomon defiles past, its guard composed 
 of sixty men ; its litter contains a new dazzling beauty 
 whom he is taking to his seraglio ; and the king him- 
 self, with his crown on his head, ready for the cere- 
 mony of the marriage. There is no portion of the 
 poem which bears more than this the traces of a 
 realistic representation, and even of a definite scenic 
 mounting, as well as of costumes. 
 
 IX. The long Part which follows, comprising the 
 whole of chap. IV. and the first verse of chap, v., 
 forms a very satisfactory continuation, if the principles 
 which we have above been compelled to premise in 
 the two preceding acts are admitted. Most people 
 have taken it for granted that the whole of the 
 amorous tirade which makes up chap, iv., except the 
 last sentences, were uttered by Solomon. On ex- 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 23 
 
 amining the matter attentively, we see that it is neces- 
 sary to make a distinction. There can be no doubt 
 at all that the first seven verses are not in the mouth 
 of Solomon ; the mise en scene of the preceding Part, 
 the formulas of verse 1, and the general tenor of 
 the whole passage, which is more a rhetorical display 
 than an expression of tenderness, proclaims this in 
 a positive manner. But from verse 8 up to the first 
 half of verse 16, inclusive, the tone is entirely different. 
 The interlocutor is much more passionate ; he calls 
 the heroine "my espoused sister." Similarly, in 
 verse II. 14, he complains that his "dove" is shut 
 up in a place which to him is inaccessible. He asks 
 her to look on him. Then, as though he had been 
 accorded this favour, he declares that she has ravished 
 his heart ; he is firmly convinced of her fidelity, and 
 he praises her virtue as a fountain sealed to every one 
 save himself. It can hardly be doubted, then, that 
 this whole scene ought to be put into the mouth of 
 the lover. The language of verse 6, where Solomon 
 promises himself in the evening the favours of his 
 new spouse, are overheard by the shepherd ; * he 
 trembles in case his beloved prefers the splendours of 
 the palace of Solomon to the love which she has 
 pledged to him. Making use of an artifice, of which 
 we have already discovered a striking example in the 
 first act, the poet now makes the lover interpose with 
 this eager exclamation : " Come to me. Come to me, 
 
 1 S<j above, pp. 13, 14. 
 
24 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 my spouse ! " The shepherdess responds to his volup- 
 tuous entreaties with an invitation no less passionate. 
 The lover celebrates his triumph before the chorus, 
 and engages it to be a sharer in his joys. 
 
 I will not insist upon an observation which might 
 be taxed with subtlety; I mean, the necessity of 
 making a break after verse 6. Certain it is that 
 verse 7, regarded as the final sentence of Solomon's 
 discourse, is somewhat lugubrious. Expressions 
 similar to that of verse 6, which are to be found 
 in other places (n. 17, in. 4), w^ould ordinarily suggest 
 that the action announced by the future verb was 
 accomplished before the verse which follows: more 
 than this, these kind of verses which imply an 
 amorous hope should always terminate a scene. 
 I am hence led to believe that verse 7, although 
 pronounced, as well as the preceding one, by 
 Solomon, commences another scene ; I mean, the 
 interview in the evening, which terminates in a 
 manner so contrary to the hopes of Solomon. This 
 would be a certainty if the Hebrews had had 
 a theatre similar to ours; but the liberties which 
 the poet takes with the verisimilitudes of time and 
 of place ought to make us very circumspect when 
 the question is one of superimposing modern 
 exigencies upon a composition so far removed from 
 our usages. 
 
 We see that Parts VIII. and IX., when combined, 
 form a complete act, which is conducted exactly 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 25 
 
 according to the plan of the two previous acts. The 
 poet, first of all, excites the imagination with the 
 eclat of the cortege of Solomon. The marriage is 
 in some manner celebrated in advance, so that the 
 triumph of this powerful king over a simple vine- 
 dresser appears certain. Solomon announces that 
 he will return in the evening. At that decisive 
 moment, the voice of the lover makes itself heard, 
 and reawakens the passion of the young maiden; 
 she has no longer any ears except for him, and the 
 shepherd obtains the victory under the very eyes 
 of his rival. The scene does not close this time 
 with a swooning fit, but by the union of the two 
 lovers and the jubilation of the chorus. 
 
 And let it not be objected to me that the chorus, 
 which is composed at the commencement of the 
 bourgeois of Jerusalem, cannot be the same as that 
 which the lover invites here to share in his rejoicings. 
 The chorus, in the poem, has no distinct identity. 
 It is a neuter- entity, representing in a kind of way 
 the crowd of spectators who give expression to 
 the sentiments which the situation suggests. Let 
 no one accuse me any longer for the circumstance 
 that the scene of Part VIII., in which we show the 
 triumphal entry of Solomon with his new spouse, 
 is anterior in time to the scenes of the preceding 
 acts, which all take place in the harem. This objec- 
 tion would lie if the different acts of the poem were 
 consecutive; that is to say, if each of these took 
 
26 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 up the action where the preceding act left it. But 
 it is not so ; the acts are in a manner parallel ; each 
 of them represents the same idea, we mean the hopes 
 and efforts of Solomon baffled to the advantage of 
 the lover. The third act takes us back a little 
 farther than the two preceding acts, which commence 
 in the harem : this is the whole difference. 
 
 X. Part Ten, in regard to its general sense, does 
 not present any confusion. It is the scene of Part 
 VII. more developed. The young maiden starts out 
 of her sleep ; she hears the voice of her well-beloved, 
 who is knocking at the door. Yielding to a petty 
 amorous fancy, she makes some difficulty about open- 
 ing. She opens, finally, but the lover, responding 
 to her "teasing by teasing" her in turn, has disap- 
 peared; she goes in search of him, and meets with 
 the same adventures as in Part VII. She encounters 
 the chorus of women, to whom she gives a descrip- 
 tion of her beloved. Piqued by curiosity at her 
 description, the women of Jerusalem wish to aid 
 her in her search. The response of the young 
 maiden (vi. 2, 3) appears singular, and has made 
 some critics believe that it was owing to a sentiment 
 of jealousy that she refused the services of her 
 female friends. But the principle that we have laid 
 down in verses I. 4, II. 4, v. 1, and numerous 
 instances of which we shall yet discover, to wit, 
 that the actor indicates generally by a verb in the 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 27 
 
 preterite, the action which, according to our theatrical 
 usages, has taken place at the moment it is uttered, 
 gives us the key to the passage. It is hardly to be 
 doubted that, between verse 1 and verse 2, the meet- 
 ing of the two lovers has not taken place. The Part 
 ends thus, like the three first acts, and constitutes an 
 act by itself alone. 
 
 Here, as in Part VII., the young maiden recites 
 a dialogue which is represented as having taken 
 place between her and her lover, and which, accord- 
 ing to the usages of our theatres, must be presented 
 at once ; for, although the speech of the lover at 
 verse v. 2 has not preceded IQJOrOy, as at verse 
 II. 10, the refrain of verse 4 indicates clearly that 
 it is the young maiden who speaks, and that it is 
 the invitation of the lover and her own response. 
 
 XL Part Eleven presents but few difficulties. That 
 verses vi. 4-7 are in the mouth of Solomon, there 
 can be no doubt. The king commences, as is his 
 habit, with a compliment, which produces little effect 
 upon the heart of the female vine- dresser, inasmuch 
 as her only response to it is cold and fixed eyes. 
 Embarrassed, Solomon begs of her to turn her eyes, 
 and repeats to her the compliment he has made be- 
 fore (Part IX). There is nothing in this which is 
 absolutely opposed to that which has been put into 
 the mouth of Solomon at verses 8-9. Nevertheless, 
 this is far from being natural. Several particulars, 
 
28 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 such as the recollection of the young maiden's mother, 
 a recollection that recurs frequently between the two 
 lovers (in. 4, vnr. 1, 5), have no meaning as between 
 her and Solomon. The epithets which the inter- 
 locutor applies to the shepherdess are such as affect 
 the lover. The interlocutor speaks of the harem as 
 a stranger would. Finally, the plan of the first and 
 of the third acts seem to be reproduced here. Now 
 the plan requires that, after the speech of Solomon, 
 the lover should intervene, in order to destroy the 
 effect of the words of the king, and as preparatory to 
 his own victory over the heart of his beloved. 
 
 Verse 10 is the ordinary formula of the chorus. 
 Having regard always to the unity of the personages, 
 the poet insists, as in verses in. 6, vm. 5, upon the 
 principal circumstance of the scene, which is here the 
 obstinate determination of the lover, who is resolved 
 not to yield. This formula is made use of in other 
 places (Parts VIII. and XIV.) of the work, and is, so 
 to speak, the rising of the curtain ; but, seen as it is 
 here, joined to the final words of verse 9, it would be 
 better to regard it this time, at least provisionally, 
 as a scenic close. We shall show presently that the 
 scene of Part XII. is designed to follow immediately 
 the scene of Part XI. The question of knowing to 
 what scene verse 10 belongs becomes now almost 
 purposeless. 
 
 XII. It is here that the sequence of the poem 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 29 
 
 presents the greatest difficulties. We have just left 
 the shepherdess victorious over the blandishments of 
 Solomon ; we expect the proof of it to follow in the 
 ordinary finale that is to say, the ardent expression 
 of the happiness of the two lovers, reunited. There 
 is nothing of the kind. At verse 11 we find in the 
 scene a young maiden who has left the house of her 
 mother, in order to go and enjoy herself among the 
 plants and the flowers of the valley. The scene 
 would now seem to be removed from Jerusalem. At 
 verse 12 the young simpleton finds herself trans- 
 ported, without her knowing it, into the midst of a 
 princely suite, which is unquestionably the suite of 
 Solomon. In Hebrew the indecision as to the tense 
 prevents us from determining at first sight whether 
 this is the recital of an action which has taken place 
 long before, or the enunciation of a fact which is 
 intended should take place in the view of the spec- 
 tator. In the first portion of verse vii. 1, some one 
 calls out to the young maiden to return or to turn 
 round (the word in. Hebrew may be construed in 
 both senses), which evidently implies that the young 
 maiden, after pronouncing verse 12, either makes a 
 pretence to flee, or stands with her back turned. 
 Hence the interpretation which one adopts as to 
 this verse depends wholly upon the meaning of the 
 scone. If the former is adopted, the scene must 
 evidently be placed in the country, and assumes 
 that it is the people of the cortege, who, seeing- a 
 
30 A STUDY OF THE SOKQ OF SONGS. 
 
 young peasant girl confused and frightened, recall 
 her to her senses (pour la regarder). If, on the 
 contrary, we adopt the latter, the scene takes place 
 in the harem, and it is the wives of Solomon who 
 pronounce verse vm. 1. The former sense, certainly, 
 appears at first the more natural. And such is the 
 singular structure of the poem, that those kinds of 
 retours do not contain any element of improbability ; 
 and the scene in Part VII., which is evidently an- 
 terior to those which precede, is the proof of this. 
 But we must next assume that Part XI. is a com- 
 plete act in itself, which is opposed to the whole 
 economy of the poem. 1 In point of fact, each act 
 terminates with the reunion of the two lovers. We 
 have not, however, witnessed resistance on the part 
 (of the young maiden at verse 10. It is necessary to 
 ; assume, further, that Part XII. happens in the country, 
 | previous to the principal action, and Part XIII. 
 'occurs at Jerusalem, at the moment of departure; 
 and being at the close of the action form a single 
 act, which is simply impossible. It cannot, then, be 
 admitted that a scene, happening in the country, 
 has been mortised into that place in the poem. One 
 is, in a manner, led to think that Part XII. forms 
 
 1 In order to escape from this difficulty, I have for long considered 
 that the whole scene of Part XII. ought to be transferred to the com- 
 mencement of the poem. But the principle guiding transpositions 
 ought only to be admitted in evident cases, and such a principle being 
 seldom resorted to in the criticism of Hebrew writings, I have re- 
 nounced such desperate means of getting rid of the embarrassment. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 31 
 
 a second scene of the act commenced by Part XL 
 that Part XI. going back, as is the habit with the 
 poet, to the debut of the action, and even further 
 than any of the preceding acts, shows us the first 
 efforts made by Solomon to overcome a young maiden 
 whom his servants are about to carry off, and who 
 resists fiercely; that verses vi. 11-12 are pronounced 
 as a sort of aside, the shepherdess, newly introduced 
 into the seraglio, turning her back upon the com- 
 pany, and refusing to look at anything; that, at 
 verse VII. 1, finally, the women of the harem seek to 
 quiet her. and induce her to let them look at her. 
 
 There is a word in verse vm. 1 which strikes us. 
 The persons who recall the young maiden are termed 
 kassulammith. This word is not a proper name, for 
 it is preceded by the article. The name of Shulam- 
 inith hence signifies "a young maiden of Shulam" 
 Shulam, or Shunam, was a village belonging to the 
 tribe of Issachar, the country of a certain Abishag the 
 Shunammite, whose adventures, related at I. (Vulg. 
 m.) Keg. L, 3, II. 17, et seq., are not without some 
 analogy to those which form the ground- work of the 
 poem. We read, in fact, at the first of the passages 
 cited, that the people of David, in circumstances too 
 far removed from our modern manners to be repro- 
 duced here, caused a search to be made in all the 
 tribes of Israel for the most beautiful young virgin, 
 and that that virgin was Abishag the Shunammite. 
 This Abishag, on the decease of David, was trans- 
 
32 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ferred to the harem of Solomon, but she had inspired 
 such a passion in the breast of Adonijah, another son 
 of David, that the latter had the temerity to make an 
 indiscreet demand for her hand from Solomon, which 
 was the cause of or the pretext for his death. What- 
 ever be the resemblance, it is certain that the two 
 verses and a half, which we have just been analysing, 
 throw a singular light upon the fable which forms 
 the subject of the poem. In the first place, the scenic 
 name of the young maiden is given us. In the second 
 place, we know how the young maiden, whom we have 
 formerly seen shut up in the harem, was brought there. 
 It was a young peasant girl of Shulam who, as she 
 was walking about one day among the flowers, was 
 captured by a party of Solomon's people. 
 
 The second half of verse vn. 1 is, unfortunately, 
 a great stumbling-block, and has never been inter- 
 preted in a manner to gain the positive assent of 
 critics. The first words, " Quid intuemini Sulam- 
 mitidem ? " or " Quid vultis intueri Sulammitidem?" 
 seem to respond to these words of the women of 
 the harem, " ut intueamur te" But if we place 
 them in the mouth of the Shulammite, we obtain a 
 sense not at all natural, and an unusual turn of ex- 
 pression. This manner of speaking of her, in order 
 to designate her by name, is exceedingly clumsy. 
 But, above all, how are the concluding words 
 of the verse, D^HDH rbnni to be understood? 
 This passage is one of those where the lack of 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 33 
 
 grammatical precision in the Hebrew, causes the 
 greatest embarrassment to the philologist. Let us 
 put to one side the difficulty contained in the word 
 Mahanaim, which is only a matter of detail. 1 Who 
 utters these two last words ? What is the meaning 
 of these dances to which it would appear the Shulam- 
 mite is compared ? What bond is established between 
 all these ideas, which jar with one another ? How 
 are we to link them on to the grand descriptions of 
 verses 2-10 ? Before answering these questions, it is 
 of moment to subject the description contained in 
 verses 2-10 to a searching examination. 
 
 In short, this description, or, rather, this dithy- 
 rambus, in praise of a woman, is distinguished from 
 the analogous parts which precede, by some essential 
 features. Everything goes to show that the young 
 maiden referred to in these verses executes a dance 
 while she is being praised. " How beautiful are thy 
 feet," is by itself almost conclusive of this. The 
 
 1 Some translate this word by " Choirs of angels ; " others regard 
 it as the city of Mahanaim, situated near the confines of Gad and 
 Mannasah. At bottom, these two interpretations differ in little if 
 we read chap. xxxn. of Genesis. The name of the city of Mahanaim 
 is there associated with a group of angels or of elohim, which Jacob 
 encountered in that place. The word in question signifies duo castra, 
 and may designate two groups of dancers executing some figures, 
 facing each other. It is probable that the city of Mahanaim had 
 been the centre of some non-Israelitish cult, and was still celebrated 
 for its dancing girls. Did the author of the Sony of Songs believe it 
 to be the city of Mahanaim, or did he consider it as a common noun 
 (duo. chori), the very word from which the city of Mahanaim has 
 derived its name ? This is a question which is very difficult to 
 decide. 
 
 C 
 
34 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 remark which has been made by critics, to wit, that 
 the other descriptions proceed a capite ad calcem, 
 whilst the latter proceeds a calce ad caput, is, put 
 in such form, simply childish. In short, the simi- 
 larity of the last words of the verse proves that the 
 dance, at this moment, is an important circumstance 
 in the poem. This premised, two questions present 
 themselves ; First, In whose mouth should this Part 
 be placed ? Second, Who is the woman who dances, 
 or, in other words, to whom are verses 2-10 ad- 
 dressed ? 
 
 The first question need only detain us for a short 
 time. Verses 9-10, uttered with the tone of a master, 
 imply such a positive confidence of possession, that 
 they could only proceed from Solomon. 1 The chorus, 
 collectively, might well pronounce verses 2-8, but 
 verses 9-10 do not fit in with it at all. The chorus, 
 moreover, hardly ever intervenes, except by short 
 exclamations, of a character easily recognisable. As 
 to the second question, that of discovering the person 
 to whom these verses are addressed, is a subject of 
 very great difficulty. 
 
 1 I agree with Ammon, Ewald, Hitzig, that we must suppress in 
 verse 10 the word *nVv> which has no meaning there. The word 
 iTflbj recurring at a distance of twenty-three letters, that is to say, 
 at almost the next line, we may assume that this word commenced 
 a, line in the manuscript, from which all the others proceeded. 
 The copyist must at first have made the mistake of a line, then, 
 perceiving his error, he marks the word ^TYl? as a sign of de~ 
 Icatur. The copyists following him have not taken into account 
 these marks. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 35 
 
 Many interpreters have thought that the young 
 maiden who dances is the Shulammite. Dividing verse 
 1 into three parts, they translate it thus, or nearly so : 
 " Return, return, oh ! Shulammite, that we may behold 
 thee ! What will ye see in the Shulammite ? A 
 Mahanaim dance." Yielding to the invitation ad- 
 dressed to her, the Shulammite executes a dance, dur- 
 ing which the compliments contained in verses 2-10 
 are addressed to her. Let us put out of sight for a 
 moment the repugnance that one experiences in put- 
 ting into the mouth of the Shulammite the clause of 
 a sentence in which she refers to herself. Even so, 
 enormous difficulties spring up against such an inter- 
 pretation. And, first, it is grammatically untenable. 
 The particle 2 which follows the verb HTH in two 
 clauses of consecutive phrases, mark in the former an 
 accusative case. In the latter, it is impossible that 
 it should not have the same value. M. Hitzig has 
 acknowledged this with perfect frankness. It is in- 
 dubitable that it must be translated by the accusa- 
 tive : " CUT intuemini Sulammitidem ? " or " Cur 
 vultis intueri Sulammitidem?" But this is the 
 least of the objections which may be brought against 
 the opinion which we combat. It implies so many 
 incongruities, that we are surprised that men of 
 judgment have been puzzled by it. What ! that a 
 timid, reserved, peasant girl, such as the poet is 
 anxious to hold up to us as a model of fidelity, who, 
 losing her wits in the court of Solomon, seeks only 
 
36 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 to flee or conceal herself, should become so sud- 
 denly emboldened that, on the first asking, she dances 
 in such manner as to merit the praises which could 
 belong only to a nautch girl ! The first compliment of 
 Solomon to a poor girl, who had been engaged in 
 attending vineyards, would be to ask for his slippers ! 
 How can we suppose that the poet, who elsewhere 
 gives proof of so just a taste, has forgotten himself at 
 this point ? Let us add, 1st, that the king calls the 
 danseuse bath nadib, " prince's daughter," which 
 words, addressed to a peasant girl, would be absurd, 
 the rather when they are to be found two verses above 
 applied to the people of Solomon's cortege ; 2d, that 
 Solomon had been for a long time acquainted with 
 the woman to whom he speaks, seeing that he boasts 
 of her hidden charms (vn. 7) ; 3d, and, finally, that 
 the compliments addressed to the Shulammite in the 
 other portions of the poem are of an absolutely differ- 
 .ent character from those which we read here, The 
 passage which we are now discussing is the only one 
 in which Oriental sensuality is given full swing, and 
 one which the translator was obliged to tone down. 
 It is impossible to admit that Solomon, seeing for the 
 first time the young shepherdess, held language to her 
 which was only fitting to be addressed to a prosti- 
 tute, and which forms so striking a contrast to that 
 which he has elsewhere addressed to her. 
 
 Only one hypothesis is then possible, and that is, 
 that verses 2-10 are addressed to a dancing girl of 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 37 
 
 Solomon's seraglio. It seems that here the poet 
 wishes to contrast, like as he has already done in 
 Part I., the sensual manners and the licentious love 
 of the seraglio with the innocent manners and the 
 sincere love of his rustic heroine. I am disposed to 
 see in that scene, as well as in Part XV., which we 
 shall analyse presently, a sort of contrast designed to 
 set off the tender and strong passion of the other 
 scenes. Perhaps, too, a slight pretext served the 
 author, like that which has a place in our operas, to 
 introduce a ballet. Several scenes, indeed, in the 
 poem would appear to be conceived with a view to 
 furnishing motifs for the nuptial festivities. In this 
 relation, Part VII. presents a great similarity to that 
 now under consideration. 
 
 Such an explanation being admitted as the least 
 improbable which is compatible with the bizarre 
 monologue of verses 2-10, we must go back to the 
 last words of verse 1, which serve as its introduction, 
 and the significance of which we have, up to this point, 
 left in abeyance. Entertaining an invincible repug- 
 nance to putting a phrase, in which the Shulammite is 
 named, into the mouth of the Shulammite herself, I 
 am led to believe that it is necessary to place all 
 the second half of verse 1 in the mouth of a woman 
 of Solomon's harem, probably in that of the dancing 
 girl praised in verses 2-10. The women of the harem 
 have just requested the Shulammite to turn towards 
 them, in order that they might judge of her beauty. 
 
38 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 The dancing girl interrupts in order to oppose to the 
 charms of the peasant girl those of her own, which 
 she believes to be superior. " How can you," she says, 
 " pay any attention to a Shulammite in presence of 
 charms like mine ? " which leads up to the divertisse- 
 ment of verses 2-10. The definition which must be 
 ascribed to the particle 3 in order to obtain this sense, 
 will not surprise Hebraists who are willing to have 
 recourse to the examples cited by Gesenuis (Thes. p 
 649, B. 3.), and, above all, to the passage in Isaiah 
 xvni. 4, 5. 
 
 As if chance itself took delight in accumulating 
 difficulties in that part of the poem, verse 11 again 
 gives occasion for a certain amount of doubt. M. 
 Hitzig places this verse in the mouth of the danseuse. 
 According to him, the poet would thus oppose the 
 condescension of the women of the harem to the 
 fidelity of the peasant girl. The phrase l/lplt^Jl seems 
 to him a voluptuous phrase, which is not in keeping 
 with the rdle of the Shulammite. But the words *\rf) 9 
 "to my well-beloved," applied to Solomon in the 
 mouth of the danseuse, is still much more incongruous 
 than the words l/p^Tl in the mouth of the Shulam- 
 mite. We are of opinion, then, that the phrase i*]Y] is 
 applied here, as throughout the poem, to the lover, 
 that, consequently, this verse belongs to the Shulam- 
 mite, and that we are forced to regard it as a pro- 
 testation of fidelity analogous to those which termi- 
 nate several other scenes. The bold tone of verses 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 39 
 
 0-10 excites only amongst the , village people a senti- 
 ment of disgust ; she hugs the memory of her lover, 
 and is consoled by thinking that he, in turn, reserves 
 for her all his thoughts and desires. 
 
 Let any one examine the whole of these interpre- 
 tations, and he will not, I believe, find one of them 
 more natural to the text than the one we have just 
 analysed. Solomon has just delivered, in Part XI., 
 a first assault on the virtue of the shepherdess; 1 
 the Shulammite has responded to it only by obstinate 
 looks, which strike the chorus with astonishment. 
 The heroine, as in Parts I., II., III., is placed face to 
 face with the women of the harem : thrown into this, 
 to her, new world, she opens her mouth only to pro- 
 test that she will remain faithful to her lover. The 
 dramatic arrangement of the author, which consists 
 in completing the acts, the one by the other, rather 
 than by exhibiting them to us in their natural order, 
 is thus once more demonstrated. The spectator, in- 
 deed, knew the fable beforehand, and that which he 
 sought for in these spectacles is less surprises and 
 peripatetics than passionate developments and some 
 snatches of music. This is the reason why the hero- 
 ine is only named at so late a stage. This is also 
 how it happens, that Part VIII. , in which we witness 
 Solomon re-entering Jerusalem after an expedition 
 
 1 We must always remember that each act takes us back to the 
 debut, and what we are now considering in particular, is that which 
 takes us back furtherest, since it all but makes us assist at the abduc- 
 tion of the young maiden. 
 
40 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 which has resulted in capturing a new beauty for 
 his seraglio, is only explained by Part XII., in which 
 we assist in the love-hunting expedition of which 
 Part VIII. shows us the return. 1 
 
 XIII. This charming scene is happily as clear as 
 the preceding is obscure. The overpowering desire 
 for the country again seizes the Shulammite ; she 
 beseeches her lover to restore her to the village, to 
 her mother's house, near to which their love had its 
 origin. To this tender effusion succeeds, as in Parts 
 V. and VII., a fainting away into the arms of her 
 lover. This swooning is the ordinary formula that 
 marks the close of the acts, and it seems at first sight 
 that the act which we are discussing ought to ter- 
 minate here. The Shulammite, in fact, has just over- 
 come a trial which is to be the last of the series in the 
 poem, a voluptuous scene of which she has been a 
 witness tends only to fortify her in her virtue. The 
 prize of the victory is, as in the other acts, the reunion 
 of the two lovers. Only, before this reunion is made 
 definitive, the poet nas qualms of conscience in regard 
 to allowing her to return to her rough toil in the 
 
 1 M. Ewald has clearly recognised that the gravamen of the scene 
 we are now discussing is the first rencontre of the Shulammite and 
 Solomon. Only a learned Hebraist would think of placing the entire 
 scene in the form of a recital in the mouth of the Shulammite. This 
 hypothesis, which M. Ewald applies in other places, and the result of 
 which is the putting of the entire dialogues of two or three persons into 
 the mouth of a single actor, occasions complicated and most unnatural 
 scenic arrangements. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 41 
 
 village. The Shulamraite then postpones the final 
 pledges of her love until the day on which her 
 beloved shall return to Shulam. 
 
 XIV. Here, again, there can be no doubt as to the 
 march of the poem. The scene commences with the 
 accustomed salutation of the chorus, modified to suit 
 the circumstances. The Shulammite crosses the stage, 
 supported by her dearly-beloved. She is asleep, as is 
 proved by the first words of the second part of the 
 verse. While she is asleep, the lover is supposed to 
 transport her to the village. We have already observed 
 changes of place brought about as instantaneously, 
 and in as wholly unconventional a manner. The 
 lover disposes his sleeping beauty under an apple tree 
 in the vineyard, and awakens her to point out the 
 spot where she was born. The Shulammite (verse 6) 
 resigns herself to him, and rejoices in the invincible 
 power of love. Verse 7 is a resumd of the whole 
 piece. "Nothing can quench true love; to offer to 
 purchase it with gold " (as Solomon does) " is only to 
 expose one's self to reproach." It is not impossible 
 that this verse likewise proceeds from the mouth of 
 the Shulammite. Nevertheless, there is something 
 objectionable in the speech of the maiden, at the 
 moment of the fulfilment of her desires, when she 
 sets herself to moralising and to pointing epigrams 
 at Solomon. Verse 6 makes an excellent close to the 
 role of the Shulammite, The admirable art and the 
 
42 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 exquisite taste to be remarked in these two last scenes, 
 interdict us from believing that the poet had com- 
 mitted the blunder of putting the abstract formula of 
 his drama into the mouth of the heroine. We assume, 
 then, that verse 7 is spoken by a person, a stranger 
 to the action, by a sort of moralist, or choragus, or 
 perhaps by the chorus. However it may be with this 
 unimportant detail, it is evident 1st, that the end of 
 the act occurs at Shulam ; and 2d, that the piece, 
 properly speaking, finishes at verse 7. Not only, 
 indeed, is the action terminated by the oath taken 
 by the two lovers, but also by the moral having been 
 drawn in such an explicit manner ; still, we experience 
 some surprise in seeing the poem prolonged beyond 
 the scene with which we have just been occupied. 
 
 XV. Our surprise increases when we study the 
 verses thus placed as a sort of appendix to the final 
 act. The scene of these verses is at Shulam; but at first 
 sight it seems impossible to give any meaning, after 
 the conclusion of verse 7, to the action which takes 
 place there. The hypothesis advanced by several 
 exegetes that it is some new snares laid by her brothers 
 for the Shulammite, is opposed to the text, and ascribes 
 to the poet inconceivable stupidity. What ! that when 
 the action is closed, he should begin another action, 
 not to develop it, but to introduce a dry and insig- 
 nificant dialogue of four or five lines ! When we 
 seriously reflect upon the difficulties of this singular 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 43 
 
 part, we cease to regard as strange the opinion of 
 Umbreit, who considers that the epilogue in question 
 had no manner of connection with the poem, and that, 
 in fair criticism, it ought to be suppressed. We believe, 
 nevertheless, that a minute analysis of the passage 
 will show us that it is too closely interwoven with the 
 general action of the poem to be struck out in such 
 an arbitrary manner. 
 
 Verse 8 is perfectly clear. The brothers and a 
 young sister, who has not yet reached a marriageable 
 age, have a conversation together, and the question 
 is, what shall be done with her on the day when 
 people begin to seek after her. At verse 9 one of 
 her brothers makes an equivocal answer, which, by 
 many interpreters, is explained thus : " If she be 
 still irreproachable, we shall reward her : if she have 
 shown weakness, we shall shut her up." But this 
 interpretation opens the door to grave difficulties. 
 I do not insist upon the point that she has become 
 dejected and languid. Let us admit, in face of all 
 probability, that the battlement of silver spoken of 
 by the brothers is intended to designate a sort of 
 jewel which the young maiden has received as a 
 recompense for her virtue. There yet remains one 
 point, the signification of which is an enigma. If 
 the brothers are desirous of punishing their sister in 
 the event of her having committed a fault, why do 
 they threaten to enclose her with panels of cedar? 
 It is apparent that this circumstance implies an idea 
 
44 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 of wealth and of luxury. Battlements of silver, 
 panels of cedar, is the response. Neither of these 
 alternatives connotes an idea of punishment or recom- 
 pense. If they both comprise the idea of vigilance 
 and of great care, of some sort, they must be in- 
 terpreted thus : " If our sister is virtuous, let us 
 guard her well ; if she is frail, let us guard her still 
 more." This cannot be. In short, if she is virtuous, 
 why enclose her with walls of silver ? Why these pre- 
 cautions (which, in the mind of the poet, are impera- 
 tive) of cedar and silver? Is it natural, again, to 
 suppose that the brothers of the heroine should 
 constitute themselves the jealous guardians of her 
 virtue, when we read elsewhere (i. 6) that they are 
 her enemies, that they hate her, and that, so far from 
 confining her, they have made her pass her life in the 
 open air ? l Everything, then, induces the belief that 
 the thought expressed in verses 8-9 is not a bene- 
 volent thought. We believe that, in these verses, 
 the brothers of the Shulammite announce their inten- 
 tion of trying to profit by the beauty of their sister, 
 and of selling her to some harem. These figures of 
 battlements of silver and panels of cedar designate, 
 in their minds, the luxury of the seraglio, or, mayhap, 
 
 1 The idea of representing the young maiden as a little orphan and 
 outcast pervades the whole poem. The question is often as to her 
 mother, but never as to her father. I know that, in the manners of 
 polygamous Orientals, the child is much more closely drawn to the 
 mother than to the father. .Nevertheless, in Psalm XLV., so like our 
 poem, it is the house of her fatJier that the fiancee abandons to go to 
 join her future spouse. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 45 
 
 the silver which they hoped to receive as the reward 
 of their evil action. Two distinct shades of meaning, 
 at least, appear to us as certainly implied in this little 
 dialogue. These are, on the one hand, the desire 
 of being relieved from the surveillance of their 
 sister; on the other, a selfish desire which would 
 lead them to disengage themselves of that sur- 
 veillance in a manner advantageous to their avarice. 
 
 These two verses seem to refer us, as in verses VL, 
 11-12, to a period anterior to the abduction, a period 
 when the heroine of the poem was still a little peasant 
 girl at Shulam. But verse 10 assumes, on the con- 
 trary, that the Shulammite, at the time of which we 
 are now speaking, has crossed the threshold of the 
 harem. This verse, in fact, undoubtedly proceeds 
 from the lips of the Shulammite. She interposes, in 
 the dialogue between her brothers that she is pre- 
 sumed to have heard, and replies to the alternative 
 they have posited. She is as a wall (that is to say, 
 her virtue is unassailable), her breasts are as towers 
 (which no one has been able to capture). The literal 
 interpretation presents no difficulty. But the shade 
 of meaning she wishes, in veiled language, to convey, 
 is difficult to seize, and depends upon the meaning 
 which is given to the words which follow, ' Tune 
 fui oculis ejus sicut inveniens pacem." These words 
 have caused interpreters to despair. Taken with 
 verse VIL, 1, they comprise the nodus of the diffi- 
 culties of the Canticle. Without entering here into a 
 
46 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 discussion of all the hypotheses which have been pro- 
 posed, let us say that, after much hesitation, one only 
 appears to us as tenable, namely, the one which ascribes 
 the pronoun ejus to Solomon. The brothers have just 
 given expression to their concern as touching the 
 virtue of their sister. The sister suddenly enters 
 upon the scene, and declares to them that her virtue is 
 unshaken, and that, thanks to her firmness, she has 
 obtained leave from Solomon to depart in peace. All 
 my efforts to escape from such a conclusion have been 
 of no avail. 1 The second member of verse 10, and, in 
 particular the particle IN " then," which recalls to our 
 mind a past adventure, has driven me to adopt this 
 sense, let the objections raised against it be what 
 they may. 
 
 These objections can all be pointed out at once. 
 Solomon does not figure, directly or indirectly, in 
 the place where the scene of the poem, at the point 
 we have at present in view, is laid. How can the 
 author designate him by a simple personal pronoun ? 
 Again, if the Shulammite, at the moment we are now 
 
 1 For a long time I believed that the whole epilogue vm. 8-14 
 ought to be transposed, and that we must recognise in it a prologue 
 designed to point out to us that the parents of the Shulammite were 
 ready to make merchandise of her beauty. This hypothesis, which is 
 almost that of Velthusen, might very well be applied to verses 8-9, 
 but not so appropriately to verses 11-12 ; much reflection, however, on 
 verse 10 has forced me to abandon this idea. The transposition of the 
 whole of chap. VIII. recently proposed by M. Blaubach (Das llohe 
 Lied, Berlin, 1855) is to no purpose, and but serves to augment the 
 difficulties. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 47 
 
 discussing, has made the grand adventure of the 
 harem, how could her brothers speak of her in verse 8 
 as a young woman who had not yet reached the age 
 of puberty, and upon whose fate her relations were 
 deliberating ? Two solutions might be put forward 
 to obviate these difficulties, and, first, we can say 
 that the brothers of the Shulammite did not know of 
 her abduction and of her enforced sojourn in the harem. 
 They believed she was in the country attending to 
 the vines, and they speak of her future lot as if 
 nothing extraordinary had taken place. We cannot, 
 it is true, very well make out how by this hypo- 
 thesis the Shulammite, when speaking to them of her 
 adventure, merely alludes to it, and designates her 
 seducer by a simple personal pronoun, which would 
 induce the belief that the latter was known of them 
 all. But it is necessary to remember that scenic 
 probabilities are not, in our poem, rigidly observed. 
 It is much more with a view to please the public 
 than her brothers that the Shulammite interposes. 
 What she desires is much less to give a clear account 
 of her adventure than to affirm her victory and to 
 insist, conformably with the idea in verse 7, upon 
 the discomfiture of Solomon. M. Ewald has proposed 
 another solution. In his view, the dialogue of the 
 brothers should be pronounced by the Shulammite. 
 He founds this upon the analogies of Parts VI., 
 VII., X., where the Shulammite recounts the conversa- 
 tions which, according to our usages, ought to be re- 
 
48 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 cited almost immediately by the other actors, and 
 assumes that the Shulammite, overwhelmed with joy 
 and proud of her triumph, repeats herself the words 
 of her brothers, stamped with defiance and ill-will, 
 in order to jeer at and to oppose to them, at verse 10, 
 a kind of challenge. But in Parts VI., VII., X., 
 the passages quoted are woven into a recital which 
 determines its sense. Here, on the contrary, the cita- 
 tion made by the Shulammite would embrace some- 
 thing which was too unnatural. It is imperative 
 that there should be placed at the head of verse 8 : 
 'ON "02 "HEN, "the sons of my mother have 
 said. . . ." 
 
 It is difficult to pronounce between these diverse 
 meanings. With the extreme latitude of the author's 
 dramatic method, with the liberty he avails himself 
 of, in taking little account of neither time nor place, 
 it is not impossible that, in order to show the as- 
 surance of the Shulammite he should make the dis- 
 course, which he gives to the heroine, precede the 
 retrospective dialogue between the brothers a dia- 
 logue which is destitute of meaning at the point in 
 the poem at which we have now arrived, but which 
 shows clearly the idea which is designed to be put 
 in relief. Verses VI., 11-12, are, indeed, also of a 
 retrospective character at the place in the poem where 
 they are inserted. 
 
 We are of opinion, then, that all this Part, as far as 
 verse 8, ought to be considered as an epilogue, de- 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 49 
 
 signed, not to complete the action (the latter finishes 
 at verse 7), but to show the dangers with which the 
 poor girl was threatened, and to hurl a last shaft at 
 Solomon. Verses 11-12, under this supposition, have 
 received a very natural explanation. Almost all the 
 interpreters, in fact, are at one as to putting these 
 two verses in the mouth of the Shulammite. 1 " Solo- 
 mon," says she, "has vineyards which are esteemed 
 very highly by the keepers ; as for me, I have my 
 beauty and my virginity, which are my vineyard, and 
 which I have known how to protect." She finishes 
 with an ironical apostrophe addressed directly to 
 Solomon. Solomon is not supposed to be present 
 during the scene ; nevertheless, as all the actors, in 
 our opinion, would figure at once on the estrade, the 
 epigram would strike him full in the breast, which, it 
 it is true, is opposed to all probability, but would 
 doubtless be received with great applause by the 
 lookers-on. 
 
 XVI. These two verses form by themselves alone 
 .a short scene, very clear in itself, but which, in the 
 place we find it, causes us some surprise. At verse 13, 
 we see a young man, accompanied by youths from 
 the village, at the end of a pavilion situated at the 
 
 1 1 had for long the idea that verses 11-12 proceeded from the mouth 
 of a brother or au uncle of the Shulammite, who dreams of paying his rent 
 by the bestowing of the young maiden on the harem of Solomon. But, 
 by adopting this hypothesis, the ensemble of the scene would be exposed 
 to too many grave objections. 
 
 D 
 
50 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 bottom of the garden. He calls to his well-beloved, 
 and asks her to let him hear her voice. At verse 14, 
 the well-beloved responds, and begs of the young 
 man to listen. It is evident that the young man is 
 the lover of the Shulammite, and the young people 
 are his paranymphs, or village companions. The 
 lovers are mutually pledged (vm. 6). Preparations 
 are now made for the marriage, and the whole 
 village becomes interested in the doings of the 
 shepherd. There is here, doubtless, some allusion 
 to those usages which are still to be found in the 
 countries in which ancient manners have been con- 
 served, and which consist in imposing upon the 
 fiances a series of first of April quests, and attempts 
 at deception. The response in which the Shulammite 
 engages her lover to take flight, can only be accepted 
 as a mere pleasantry. In a word, this verse is 
 superimposed upon verse II. 17, where the captive 
 lover invites, in similar terms, the shepherd to re- 
 turn. We feel, moreover, that the whole of this 
 appendix, from verse 8, is only of secondary import- 
 ance. It is probable that it will come to be re- 
 garded as hardly forming any part of the poem, 
 and that it will be omitted in the majority of 
 representations. 
 
 The consequences to be drawn from the preceding 
 analysis lead us to divide the Song of Songs into 
 five complete acts, plus an epilogue, which may be 
 detached from the poem at will. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 51 
 
 The 1st Act extends from I. 2 to II. 7. 
 
 The 2d n. 8 to in. 5. 
 
 The 3d m. 6 to v. 1. 
 
 The 4th v. 2 to VI. 3. 
 
 The 5th vi. 4 to VIIL 7. 
 
 The Epilogue vm. 8 to vm. 14. 
 
 Another consequence which results from our ex- 
 amination is, that it is not necessary to suppose, 
 although several exegetes 1 have done so, that the 
 text of the Canticle has suffered from transpositions, 
 nor that some parts of it have been lost. The end 
 of the poem is abrupt, and bears little resemblance 
 to our usages. It may be that the closing verses 
 were made use of to introduce new developments. 
 But, in the body of the poem, no essential lacune is 
 discoverable ; while as to transpositions, if there are 
 some which have the appearance of probability, there 
 are none which betray evidence sufficient to necessi- 
 tate a modification of the text which the Hebrew 
 manuscripts, conforming to the most ancient versions, 
 have transmitted to us. 
 
 In applying to this ancient poem the usages of our 
 modern theatres, we are thus warranted in present- 
 ing a list of the characters, as well as an analysis of 
 the several parts of which it is composed, as follows : 
 
 1 The system which M. P. Macpherson has recently developed, under 
 the title Cantici Canticorum structura architectonica (Berlin, 1857), 
 and according to which the Canticle ought to be written in columns 
 similar to those employed on the inscriptions of the Alhatnbra, is a 
 mere fancy which has no serious foundation in fact. 
 
52 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS, 
 
 PERSONS. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, a young maiden of the milage of 
 Shulam, of the tribe of Issachar. 
 
 A SHEPHERD, the lover of the Shulammite. 
 
 KING SOLOMON. 
 
 BROTHERS OF THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 LADIES OF THE HAREM OF SOLOMON. 
 
 WOMEN OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 CITIZENS OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE SUITE OF SOLOMON. ) 
 
 PARANYMPHS OP THE SHEPHERD. }* e P ersona S es - 
 
 THE CHORUS. 
 
 SAGE drawing the moral from the poem. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Scene I. The poet introduces us to the harem of 
 Solomon, and shows us the ardour of the venal and sen- 
 sual love which surrounds the master. The Shulammite, 
 a young orphan, abducted from her native village by a 
 party of Solomon's retainers, who scour the tribes of the 
 north in order to supply the seraglio of Solomon at 
 Jerusalem, is introduced, and utters a few words, which 
 show her naivete. Scene II. Ignorant of the dissimula- 
 tions of the seraglio, and a stranger to that which is 
 passing around her, the young maiden addresses herself to an 
 absent friend. An odalisque recalls her to reason. Solomon 
 makes her a first compliment, and promises her jewelry. 
 Scene HI. The Shulammite, during the absence of Solomon, 
 dreams of her lover, and believes he is about to arrive, when 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 53 
 
 Solomon enters. The Shulammit resists his flattery, and 
 responds in affectionate terms, which have reference only to 
 her lover. The lover suddenly enters on the scene. The 
 Shulammite, overwhelmed, is, or believes herself to be, 
 transported to the village, and falls swooning into the 
 arms of her lover. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Scene I. The Shulammite hears, or believes she hears, 
 the voice of her well-beloved, who hastens to her, and 
 invites her to return to the village. She engages to 
 return in the evening. Scene n. In the evening, she 
 seeks her well-beloved; not finding him, she sets out to 
 perambulate the city in order to find him. She is repre- 
 sented as meeting him, and returning with him to her 
 mother's house. She swoons away in his arms. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 Scene I. Solemn entry of Solomon into Jerusalem, 
 bringing with him the Shulammite that he is going to 
 espouse. Scene n. Solomon addresses to the Shulammite 
 the most pressing flatteries, and promises himself that in 
 the evening he will enjoy her favours. The lover, supposed 
 to be at the end of the pavilion, recalls the Shulammite to 
 fidelity. He is reassured by a look from the young 
 maiden. The Shulammite invites him to enter. The lover 
 enters, and, with the chorus, celebrates his triumph. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ACT IY. 
 
 A single Scene. The Shulammite, while asleep, hears, or 
 believes she hears, her lover knocking, and calls to him. 
 She delays a moment in opening. The lover has disap- 
 peared. The Shulammite goes in search of him. She 
 encounters the night watchmen, who maltreat her ; then 
 the chorus of women, whom she invites to assist her in 
 seeking for her lover. She gives them her lover's signal. 
 But the moment when they are about to begin the search 
 with the young maiden, she encounters her lover, and 
 throws herself into his arms. 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 Scene I. Solomon attempts to overcome the obstinacy 
 of the Shulammite. The voice of the lover makes itself 
 heard, and triumphs again. Scene n. The Shulammite 
 recounts how that, in the morning, when she was taking a 
 walk amongst the shrubs of the valley, she was surprised 
 by Solomon's servants. The women of the harem en- 
 deavour to mollify her. She is a witness to voluptuous 
 dances, and, learning their design, which, far from seducing 
 her, serve only to make her cling more closely to the 
 memory of her lover. Scene in. The Shulammite, victori- 
 ous over all temptations, supplicates her lover to carry her 
 back to the village; there she will give him the highest 
 pledges of her love. She falls fainting into the arms of 
 her lover, who transports her, asleep, to the village of 
 Shulam. Scene iv. The lover disposes his sleeping burden 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 55 
 
 under the apple tree of the farm on which she was born, 
 and awakens her. They swear eternal fidelity to one 
 another. A personage, a sort of chorister, interposes, in 
 order to extract a moral from the piece. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 The brothers of the Shulammite, who are ignorant of 
 the adventure, hold a consultation among themselves as to 
 what should be done about their sister. The Shulammite 
 interposes, mocks at their useless precautions, declares that 
 she has known, and shall know, how to take care of herself, 
 and hurls disdainful defiance at all the wealth of Solomon. 
 Meanwhile, the voice of the shepherd, who has arrived with 
 his paranymphs, is heard. The young maiden again adjures 
 him to confide in her. 
 
II. 
 
 THE plan and the method pursued in the composition 
 of the Song of Songs must now appear, if I am not 
 mistaken, in their true light. If we take the term 
 dramatic poetry in its widest sense to designate a 
 composition in dialogue form with its corresponding 
 action, the Song of Songs is a drama. But it is 
 useless to set forth again how much this drama lacks, 
 not only of that which the moderns, but also the 
 Greeks, the Romans, and the Hindoos have considered 
 as the essence of stage poetry. The theatre of the 
 Greeks, Latins, and Hindoos is a complete theatre, 
 possessing actors, who, at a very early period, suc- 
 ceeded in making a profession of their art. With 
 all these peoples, the estrade is erected in public 
 or in some spacious buildings ; the actors have their 
 entries and exits ; scenery, however imperfect, guides 
 the attention of the spectator ; finally, the scene is 
 always laid in a fixed place, and probability is re- 
 spected up to a certain point. It is not so in the 
 Song of Songs: in it changes of place are made 
 instantly, and in such manner that no mechanism 
 could indicate them; the characters enter upon the 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 57 
 
 scene in a fashion contrary to all probability: the 
 contexture of the poem 'proves that the actors 
 recite, sing, and declaim, but that they act very 
 little. The passages I. 4, n. 4, v. 1, vi. 2, vm. 5, 
 would otherwise be destitute of meaning. In all 
 these passages, in fact, the actor recites that which 
 is supposed to be set down for him ; such indications 
 would be manifestly absurd if the actor had acted 
 at the same time as he spoke. The same remark 
 applies to Parts VI., VII, X., which are narrative 
 rather than dramatic, and in which a character 
 not only recounts the fact which, with us, would 
 be placed before the eyes of the spectator, but also 
 repeats the words appertaining to other actors. M. 
 Ewald has pressed this principle too far in admitting 
 that some entire scenes and dialogues are so recited 
 by a single person ; yet it is certain that, in the three 
 parts above cited, the poem almost ceases to be 
 dramatic, and falls into romance or song. 
 
 The absence of mountings is not less clearly shown 
 in the passages above cited, and above all by the 
 abrupt changes of place, which assume that it is 
 never localised by any exterior signs. When we seek 
 to represent to ourselves the circumstances in which 
 this singular drama is enacted, we are led to conceive 
 of an area or arena where three principal actors 
 figure the shepherd, the shepherdess, and the king. 
 The shepherdess is placed between the king and the 
 shepherd, and receives in turn their homage. These 
 
58 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 actors are always present, even at the moment when 
 the exigencies of the scene require that they should 
 be out of view. The actors express by their gestures 
 and their facial expression the sentiments which ani- 
 mate them (bear witness, Part XL). The meetings, 
 and on one occasion (iv. 10. V. 1) even the kissing of 
 the two lovers, the fainting fits of the shepherdess, 
 the falling into the arms of her lover, the transporting 
 of the sleeping shepherdess, supported by her well- 
 beloved (vin. 5), and some other instances of a similar 
 kind, were in reality represented, as is proved by the 
 exclamations of the chorus or by indications more 
 clear still ; but, in the detail, no care is taken to pre- 
 sent to the eye an action which is at once complete 
 and possible. Behind the three principal actors, or 
 standing around them, there must have been ranged 
 the secondary characters forming two choirs, the one 
 composed of men, the other of women, who intervened 
 in the piece with reflections appropriate to the circum- 
 stances, and executed at times some evolutions, as is 
 proved by the ceremony of Part VIII. The scene of 
 Part XIII., in fine, supposes dances and divertisse- 
 ments analogous to our ballets. Some portions were 
 doubtless chanted ; in the formulas of the fainting fits, 
 and in the ingenious rhythm of some passages (the 
 first half of verse vii. 1, for example), one feels even, 
 if I may say so, the modulations which accompany 
 the voice of the actors. A single reading, on the other 
 hand, suffices to show the difference between solo 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 59 
 
 lyrics, where one of the characters gives forth in a 
 studied manner his sentiments, and the dialogues in 
 prose which serve to lead up to their developments. 
 Nevertheless, the distinction between prose and verse 
 is, in the poem, far from being as apparent as in the 
 Book of Job or in the Psalms, and it would be sheer 
 temerity to seek to establish rigorous distinctions as 
 to this point. 
 
 One very important fact bears out the preceding 
 inductions, and completely reveals to us what was 
 the nature of the drama amongst the ancient 
 Hebrews. In the whole history of the Jews, before 
 Herod, there is not a trace of a theatre at Jerusalem, 
 even at the periods when this city was following 
 in paths the most profane. Neither is there a trace 
 of professional actors, nor of any institution what- 
 ever bearing a relation to scenic representations. One 
 may even say a priori that institutions of this char- 
 acter would very soon have presented an appearance 
 of idolatrous practices; that, doubtless, the people 
 might not yet have seen the feasts of Baal, and that, 
 amongst the declamations of the prophets, who often 
 pursued objects much more objectionable, there might 
 not have been directions against a usage so contrary 
 to the simplicity of the Hebrew mind. The high 
 priest Jason incurred the maledictions of his co-reli- 
 gionists for having established a gymnasium at Jeru- 
 salem, and for having celebrated Greek fetes therein* 1 
 
 1 Mace. IV. 11, et seq. ; 22 et seq. 
 
60 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 Herod, in constructing a circus in his capital, wounded 
 much more deeply still the Jewish conscience. 1 A 
 lack o appreciation for grand fictions is one of the 
 characteristics of the Semitic mind. The Mussulmans 
 of our day have inherited strongly this ancient anti- 
 pathy, while the efforts which have been made at 
 Beirouth and in Algeria to introduce among the Arabs 
 theatrical representations have not resulted in suc- 
 cess; 2 and as to the 'mysteries which are acted in 
 Persia on the anniversary of the death of Ali, they 
 are a product of the ^Persian mind, so opposed in 
 everything to that of Islamisrn. 
 
 This singular deficiency in the literature of the 
 Semitic peoples proceeds, moreover, from a more 
 general cause : I mean, from the absence of a compli- 
 cated mythology, resembling that which is possessed 
 by all the Indo-European peoples. Mythology, her- 
 self the daughter of primitive naturalism, is the fruit- 
 ful source whence issues all epics and all dramas. The 
 only two great original theatres of antiquity, the 
 Greek and the Hindoo theatres (I persist in believing 
 that the latter is not a copy of the former), spring 
 directly from mythology, and derive from it most of 
 their subjects ; and it is not long ago since it was the 
 
 1 Joseph. Antiq. XV. vm. 1 ; De bello jud. I. xxi. 8. 
 
 2 Poems in dialogue form, or accompanied by singers, are very com- 
 mon in the East ; but whatever M. Ewald may say (Die Dichter des 
 Alien Bundes, I. 39 et seq. Gesch. des Volkes Israel, III. 459, note), 
 these poems have always been far removed from the drama. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 61 
 
 custom for people to found dramas on the simplest 
 fictions of the fancy. Monotheism, in stifling the 
 development of mythology, shattered with the same 
 blow the theatre and grand poetical recitals amongst 
 the Semites. 
 
 We have every warrant, then, in affirming that 
 theatrical representations did not at Jerusalem par- 
 take of any public character. Whereas, on the other 
 hand, the Song, if one sees in it only a literary com- 
 position, designed solely to be read, is inexplicable, 
 the dryness and incoherency of certain passages denot- 
 ing clearly a libretto designed to be completed by the 
 playing of the actors and the music one is forcibly 
 driven to believe that this poem was represented in 
 private theatricals and en famille. There is an opin- 
 ion, first developed in a most ingenious manner by 
 Bossuet, 1 then adopted by Lowth, 2 which is, since the 
 discoveries of modern criticism, found to be perfectly 
 admissible, viz., that the Canticle ought to be divided 
 into days corresponding to those on which the fetes 
 and marriages take place. Perhaps it was played on 
 these solemn occasions. The formulas, "Wake not 
 up," etc. (n. 7 ; in. 5 ; vm. 4), would appear to indi- 
 cate what we call "waits." In two places, it is a 
 question whether the scene has reference to the morn- 
 ing or the night (ll. 17 ; IV. 6). The unity of char- 
 acter which the acts, regarded separately, present. 
 
 1 Commentary upon the Song of Songs. Pref. 
 
 2 Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, Third Part, lesson xxx. 
 
62 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 each having its own denotement and always a happy 
 denotement, is thus very clearly set forth by this 
 hypothesis. Finally, several circumstances in the 
 representation, such as the procession of Part VIII., 
 in which the young men of the village defile past in 
 imitation of the bodyguards of Solomon, and in which 
 the females represent the dames of Jerusalem (in. 11), 
 the final scene of the paranymphs (vm. 13), the two 
 scenes representing the pursuit (Parts VII., X.), the 
 passage V. 1, in which we see so clearly that the 
 chorus at certain times was composed of the com- 
 panions of the fiance ; the allusion which is made in 
 the same passage to the continuation of the nuptial 
 feast, according to Oriental usage, whilst the union of 
 the espoused couple is accomplished ; the divertisse- 
 ment of Part XII, as well as other traits, seem ex- 
 pressly designed for noce festivities. All that we 
 know of the marriage feasts of the Hebrews l is in 
 accord with this hypothesis. Marriage amongst the 
 Hebrews was not accompanied by any religious cere- 
 mony. It was celebrated en famille, or, rather, in 
 the centre of the village or of the tribe, by songs and 
 dances, and with processions of lamps and of choirs 
 of music, banquets accompanied with jeux d'esprit, 
 such as riddles in verse. I doubt not that the Song 
 of Songs was the most celebrated of these perform- 
 
 1 S.e especially Judges xiv. 10, ct scq.; Ps. XLIV. ; I. Mace. ix. 37, 
 et seq. ; III. Mace, (apocr.), xiv. 6 ; Evang. Saint Matthew ix. 15 ; 
 xxv. 1, et seq. ; Saint John ill. 29. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 63 
 
 ances which were held on the occasions of marriage, 1 
 and which probably all turn upon a subject analogous 
 to the latter. The fiance and the fiancee seek one 
 another, and overcome every obstacle in order to be 
 reunited. 
 
 The defects which the Song of Songs seems to 
 present, when we apply to it the ordinary rules of 
 dramatic poetry, thus disappear. There is nothing 
 more shocking, according to our ideas, than that the 
 finales of acts, which, in place of keeping the interest 
 in suspense, should provide a denotement, and thus 
 make of the act an entire drama by itself. There is, 
 on the contrary, nothing more natural than to find in 
 each act a distinct performance, designed for each 
 day of the fete. The resemblance which Parts VII. 
 and X. have to one another would be a defect in a 
 consecutive drama, where each scene is immediately 
 connected with the one preceding. This is sufficiently 
 accounted for by a series of divertissements which do 
 not follow a rigorous plan. In fine, the Song of 
 Songs is not an exception to that great law which 
 shows to us the Hebrew mind, incapable of pro- 
 ducing literary works having grands ensembles and 
 a well-defined unity. The regular progress of an 
 
 1 M. Ch. Schefer, who is so well acquainted with the Orient Mussul- 
 man, informs me that divertissements of the same kind are practised 
 still at marriages in Damietta, and in certain localities of Syria. They 
 last for several days, during which the bride appears each day in a 
 different costume. These festivities take place in the harems ; the in- 
 vited, as is the case in our poem, form the chorus. 
 
64 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 action always hastens the arrival of an event, a 
 progress which constitutes the essence of the drama 
 and of the epic, has never been well understood by 
 them. In like manner, in the poem of Job, the dis- 
 cussion, from beginning to end, does not advance a 
 step, and the last speaker takes up the question 
 where each of the previous speakers has taken it 
 up and left it; that is to say, at the point he set 
 out at. In ancient times it was the Greek genius 
 alone which had discovered the secret of the con- 
 tinuous march of events in poetry, and the art 
 of combining secondary incidents in view of a 
 denotement. 
 
 The Song of Songs ought then to be regarded as 
 occupying a middle place between the regular drama 
 and the eclogue or pastoral in dialogue form. It 
 possesses less progressive action than the former. 
 It has more plot than the latter in its action and 
 incidents. The middle ages here offer us the nearest 
 approximation. Without having a regularly estab- 
 lished profane theatre, the middle ages had some- 
 times, in addition to the mysteries, scenic plays 
 fairly well worked out. The bourgeois of Arras, 
 especially, succeeded in creating some very ingenious 
 amusements. The most celebrated of their perform- 
 ances, the Play of Robin and Marion, is, both in 
 relation to the subject and to scenic arrangements, 
 a perfect analogue of the Canticle. The principal 
 data in both are the same, a shepherdess preferring 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 65 
 
 the shepherd, her lover, to a knight who wished to 
 seduce her ; the same changes of place and the same 
 disposition of characters, there being only two prin- 
 cipal parts, all the other actors constituting the 
 chorus ; the same means used to bring about the 
 divertissements and the cantilenes ; the same mean- 
 ing to be attached to the unity and the march of the 
 poem. The want of nobleness and of style, which 
 spoiled almost all the works of the middle ages, and 
 imprint upon them the seal of garish vulgarity, 
 constitute the only difference between the old lyric 
 pastoral of the Hebrews, and the work of Adam de 
 la Halle. The poem of Aucassin and Nicolette. [' 
 which, in the manuscripts, has the form of a romance 
 besprinkled with ariettes, seem likewise to have had 
 originally a dramatic arrangement analogous to that 
 which we have been attempting to explain. 
 
ITT. 
 
 To what period does the poem, whose plan and 
 character we have been investigating, belong ? This 
 is a question which has greatly divided critics. 
 Between those who attribute the Song of Songs to 
 Solomon, and those who, like Eichhorn, Rosenrnuller, 
 Bertholdt, Koester, Hartmann and Gesenius, believe 
 it to belong to the last days of Hebrew literature 
 (some have ventured to come down as far as thejbhird 
 century before Jesus Christ), there is an interval of 
 TOO or 800 years. To speak the truth, we are of 
 opinion that so great a divergence ought not to 
 exist, and that it is owing to the incomplete method 
 which the Hebraists of the school of Gesenius have 
 followed in the determination of the age of Hebrew 
 books. Pre-occupied exclusively with grammatical 
 niceties, they have too often neglected the historical 
 and literary considerations, which are not less im- 
 portant than those of philology in questions of the 
 kind that we are now treating of. 
 
 The title which the Song of Songs bears in the 
 Hebrew text, implies a distinct attribution of the 
 poem to Solomon. But such an attribution can in no 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 67 
 
 wise be maintained. Solomon plays in the poem 
 a part which is manifestly sacrificed, and sometimes 
 almost ridiculous. In a multitude of places, a touch 
 of opposition or of ill- humour is allowed to present 
 itself against the harem of this prince, and against 
 the manners which the sumptuous royalty of the son 
 of David caused to prevail. Verses vin., 7, 11-12, 
 embody a bitter derision of his power, and a sort of 
 retaliation which partook of the old free spirit of the 
 tribes in regard to the servility which absolute power 
 had already created about him at Jerusalem. It is 
 hence certain that the present title was added at a 
 period comparatively modern, and that when the 
 poem was no longer well understood. The vague 
 name of Sir hassirim was unquestionably not the 
 original title (to the extent that our version carries 
 one); it presupposes that the poem, at the head of 
 which it is inscribed, was already celebrated. We 
 know that, in the attribution of works to the authors 
 of antiquity, the scribes permitted themselves often 
 to be guided by the most superficial considerations. 
 The name of Solomon being inscribed in the title of 
 the Song of Songs no more proves the designation 
 of the real author than does the name of David 
 inscribed at the head of several psalms, which notori- 
 ously, and by the admission of every one, could not be 
 by this king. Let us add that a multitude of details 
 (I. 4, 5, 12; m. 6-11; IV. 4; vn. 6; vm. 11-12) formally 
 banishes the idea that Solomon may himself have 
 
68 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ^written the drama in which he appeared as an actor, 
 and that, too, in a role often so little flattering to his 
 vanity. 
 
 There is no mention made, nor absolute citation to 
 be discovered, of the Song of Songs in other Hebrew 
 works. But I find a very probable allusion to our 
 poem in the book of Jeremiah. 1 "I will cause to 
 cease in the cities of Judah and the places of Jeru- 
 salem the shouts of joy and the jsongs of gladness, 
 the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, 
 for all the land shall be desolated." What do these 
 words signify the voice of the bridegroom and the 
 voice of the bride, used as synonymous with songs 
 of joy ? It would be the height of affectation to 
 regard them simply as conversations which the 
 fiances had had with each other at Jerusalem. 
 Everything goes to show that these phrases were 
 applied to a particular species of gladsome poems, and 
 to a kind of literary composition then in vogue, and of 
 which the Song of Songs was the most celebrated speci- 
 men. Perhaps the words of Jeremiah H^DblpI ]/1!"6lp 
 give us the title by which, before the captivity, they 
 were designated. 
 
 Many resemblances are to be remarked between 
 verses of the Canticle and passages in other Hebrew 
 books, especially in the Book of Proverbs. That of 
 
 1 vii. "4 ; xxv. 10. We know that .Jeremiah is the most scholarly 
 of the ancient Hebrew authors. Almost every work anterior to his 
 time is referred to in his book. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 69 
 
 verse VI. 9, and of Prov. xxxi. 28, are the most strik- 
 ing. But none of these rapprochments furnish solid 
 inductions, 1 for it is difficult to determine on which 
 side the imitation may have taken place; besides, 
 there are here some peculiarities which, in a manner, 
 are public property, and run off spontaneously from 
 the pen of every writer. It is only in a general way 
 that the Canticle ought to be regarded as belonging 
 to the epoch of the Kings, an epoch in which these 
 kind of peculiarities were in some sort the common 
 places of Hebrew poetry. It is in an examination of 
 the Song of Songs itself that we must seek for precise 
 indications of the question under discussion ; for a 
 poem which adheres so closely to popular customs 
 cannot fail but reveal to us the state of the nation at 
 the time it was written. 
 
 This revelation is one of such transparency that we 
 are surprised it has not struck the whole race of 
 critics. One passage (vi. 4) is of itself a sufficient 
 demonstration. The Shulammite in point of beauty is 
 compared in it to Tirzah and Jerusalem. The author 
 here brings into juxtaposition the capitals of the two 
 kingdoms of Judah and -of Israel. Now Tirzah was 
 the capital of the kingdom of Israel from the reign of 
 Jeroboam to that of Omri, 975 to 924, before Jesus 
 Christ. In 923 Omri built Samaria, which became 
 thenceforward the kingdom of the north. From 
 this period Tirzah almost disappears from history ; its 
 
 1 bte the discussion of Hitzig. Das Uokc Lied, p. 9. 
 
70 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 downfall was so complete that its situation is un- 
 known, and it is now no longer attempted to repre- 
 sent it upon the maps of Palestine. How could a 
 poet subsequent to the captivity, or even in the last 
 days of the Kings, after the fall of the kingdom of 
 Israel, have the idea of putting the forgotten city of 
 Tirzah in juxtaposition with Jerusalem ? The anti- 
 pathy against Samaria was such at this period that it 
 is wholly inadmissible that any one should cite as a 
 type of beauty a city of the north. If it is said 
 that the author desired to paint the manners of the 
 time of Solomon, and chose Tirzah in order to give 
 a local colouring to his picture, this is but to raise up 
 fresh difficulties. For Tirzah was only the capital 
 from the schism which took place under Rehoboam ; 
 consequently, it is necessary to accuse the poet of an 
 inadvertence irreconcilable with the finished design he 
 has been credited with. Let us suppose a poem in 
 which Clovis played a part, and in which Aix-la- 
 Chapelle figured by the side of Paris ; we should con- 
 fidently affirm that this poem must have been written 
 under the first Carloviginians ; in short, a learned 
 poet of a more modern age could not have been guilty 
 of such an inexactitude, and the error of ingenuous 
 poets always consists in transporting into the past 
 the world which is under their eyes. 
 
 This passage alone would justify us in affirming 
 that the first adaptation of the Canticle must have 
 been anterior to the year 924 before Jesus Christ. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SON OF SONGS. 71 
 
 On the other hand, it is evident that it is posterior 
 to the death of Solomon and to the schism, which 
 happened in the year 986. We are thus brought 
 to fix within very narrow limits the date of the 
 composition of our poem. But indications like that 
 drawn from the name of the city of Tirzah is not 
 an isolated case ; many other circumstances prove, 
 in a very complete manner, that the Song of Songs 
 was composed a short time after the death of 
 Solomon. 
 
 So far, in fact, from the reign of that prince being 
 represented therein with those legendary character- 
 istics, which should invest a distant ideal, it appears 
 there in a character singularly determined. The 
 king's defences consist of sixty forts; his arsenal 
 contains a thousand bucklers ; his seraglio comprises 
 sixty queens and eighty concubines. Such is the 
 true state of affairs. We know that the bands 
 which made the fortune of David, and which were 
 bequeathed to Solomon, were not very numerous; 
 an arsenal containing a thousand bucklers, at a 
 period so little removed from the anarchy of the 
 Judges, appeared an unheard of marvel. Doubtless, 
 at a more recent period, and in the mouth of a poet, 
 sketching a hyperbolic ideal, these modest figures 
 might have become thousands of thousands. In the 
 book of the Kings, and in the book of Chronicles, 
 in which some legendary and exaggerated documents 
 might be mixed up with original and exact docu- 
 
72 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ments, the numbers are very much greater, 1 forty 
 thousand appears to be the round number affected 
 by the author ; the harem is composed of seven 
 hundred queens and three hundred concubines. The 
 riches and the power of Solomon are described with 
 an emphasis which gives to the sobriety of our poem 
 a singular relief. A multitude of incidents, such as 
 the mentioning of Heshbon 2 (Heshbon had ceased 
 to be a Jewish city at the time of Isaiah) ; 3 the 
 familiar relations with the ancient Arab tribe of 
 Kedar ; the circumstance that the luxurious equipages 
 are called the " Chariots of Pharaoh " 4 (we know 
 for certain that Solomon bought at great expense 
 horses and chariots in Egypt) ; 5 the lively impres- 
 sions of the reigns of David and of Solomon; the 
 mention of the Mahanaim dances, which we regard 
 as the most ancient traditions of Israel, 6 all point 
 to the same result, or at least render inadmissible 
 the opinion of those who would place the composition 
 of the Canticle after the captivity, a period when 
 the recollections of the ancient kingdom had become 
 much effaced. 
 
 The spirit of the poem, if I may say so, furnishes 
 
 1 I. (III. according to the Vulgate) Kings v. (vi. according to 
 the Vulgate); x. xi.; II. Chron. I. 10. 
 
 2 Seetzen saw them still existing in 1805. 
 
 3 Is. xv. 4 ; Jeremiah XLVIIT. 2. 
 
 4 1. 9. 
 
 5 1. (III. Vulgate) Kings x. 29; II. Chron. i. 17. See Ceseniua 
 Thes., p. 942. 
 
 6 Compare Genesis xxxn. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 73 
 
 arguments even more decisive. In every page we per- 
 ceive the opposition that the luxury and the habits 
 of the Egyptians and Tyrians, rather than that of 
 the Israelites of the time of Solomon, had excited in 
 the breasts of the representatives of ancient Hebrew 
 simplicity. There is no doubt that the poet was 
 animated by a spirit of strong dislike against the 
 king; the establishment of the harem, especially, 
 appeared to irritate him to a great degree, and he 
 experiences a lively pleasure in representing to us a 
 simple shepherdess victorious over the presumptuous 
 sultan, who believed that he could purchase love, like 
 everything else, for its price in gold. We know that 
 the principal animosity of the republican Israelites 
 against royalty was the right which the king assumed 
 of taking their daughters to make domestics of them. 1 
 We know, likewise, that the great expenditure of 
 Solomon was odious to the tribes of the north, and 
 that it was one of the causes of the revolt which 
 occurred after his death. 2 Our poem seems to embrace 
 the result of this twofold opposition. Now, such a 
 view could only be arrived at in the years immediately 
 succeeding the death of Solomon. The transient dis- 
 content which resulted from the royal expenditures 
 were speedily forgotten ; soon after only the monu- 
 ments of it remained, without a question being asked 
 as to what they had cost. The recollections of the 
 
 1 I. ftaumel VIII. lo. 
 
 2 I. (III. Vulg.) Kings xii. 4, ct stg.; II. Chron. x. 1, 
 
74 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 sufferings which rendered the reign of Louis XTV. 
 odious to the people, and made the latter insult his 
 obsequies, were soon effaced by the general impression 
 of grandeur which his reign had left behind it, and by 
 the forms of admiration which the rhetoricans made 
 fashionable in speaking of him. It was the same 
 with Solomon. At the time of his death, we see the 
 hatred against his administration produce a violent 
 revolution ; later, we find nothing but glowing legend 
 and enchantment. 
 
 The freshness, the na'ivctd, the youthfulness of the 
 poem, suffice to persuade us that the Song of Songs 
 belonged to the period when the genius of Israel had 
 reached its liveliest and most unrestrained point. 
 Never shall we believe that wholly profane composi- 
 tions like our poem, or like the Book of Job, 1 could 
 have been the progeny of an epoch of rabbinism and 
 of littleness of spirit, such as was that of Esdras, and 
 even (in going further back) that of Josias and 
 Jeremiah. The Jewish nation, setting out with this 
 grand triumph of pietism, becomes absorbed by its 
 religious idea ; to it, art becomes indifferent, and is 
 only made use of, as in a few of the psalms, in 
 
 1 1 have sometimes been tempted to place the Koheleth or Ecclesiastes 
 in the same category. But the latest study I have made of this work 
 has convinced me that it belongs to a modern epoch, and that it must 
 be assigned to the period of the re-awakening of parabolic poetry, 
 which took place about the time of Alexander. Solomon being the 
 chosen representative of that kind of literature, it is to him that people 
 persisted in ascribing the works composed in imitation of the old 
 Hebrew sages. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 75 
 
 celebrating the Law of Jehovah. Every one of the 
 bold and comprehensive works of the Hebrew genius, 
 works which I should rather call Semitic than Jewish, 
 in the sense that the neighbouring peoples to Palestine 
 possessed a similar literature, and that there has only 
 been found in it the special seal of the Jewish spirit, 
 must be placed before the times of the great religious 
 vojcation of Israel. Henceforth, in fact, a vast differ- 
 ence makes itself felt in the poetic creations of the 
 Hebrew people. Ruth, Job, the Shulammite, the 
 Femme forte all these ancient types, imprinted with a 
 masculine vigour, give place to the pious heroines, to 
 the Judiths, to the Esthers, devoted victims of the 
 faith which had been preached to them by holy 
 persons, such as Esdras and Nehemiah, to a few types 
 of interior devotion, such as are represented in the 
 Book of Tobias. There is an indefinite interval 
 between the compositions of that period of decadence 
 and the bold enchantments of our poem. The pride 
 of the young republican of the tribes of the north, 
 and his disdain for Solomon, would not have any 
 longer had any object at an epoch when almost all 
 Israel was embraced in Jerusalem, and when Solomon 
 had become a miracle of wisdom, the model of an 
 accomplished prince. Compare Esther with the 
 Shulammite, for example. The former, by assuming 
 the truculent manners of an eunuch, finds no difficulty 
 in pushing her fortune, and in gaining by her com- 
 plaisances the favour that another woman would have 
 
76 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 forfeited by her pride; 1 a motive excuses all in her 
 eyes : the interest and the vengeance of her co-reli- 
 gionists. The latter yields to promptings much less 
 subtle (raffine's). The sincere love for the lover she 
 has left behind in the village, the taste for the fields, 
 the hatred of the artificial life of the seraglio, the 
 sentiment of the simple and noble manners of the 
 tribe these were her religion. 2 The eclat of Solomon's 
 court, to which succeeding ages had given a sort of 
 semi-sacred ideal, inspired her only with disgust and 
 contempt. The gladness, the openness, the liberty of 
 spirit which breathe throughout the poem, are the in- 
 verse of the sentiments which prevail in the literary 
 monuments of the dogmatic and godly ages. 
 
 But there is one consideration to which I am dis- 
 posed to attribute even greater importance. We shall 
 presently establish that the allegorical explanations 
 of the Song of Songs (explanations, assuredly, of 
 which the author never dreamt) began to take shape 
 in the century which preceded and the century which 
 followed the Christian era. In other words, about 
 the time of Jesus Christ, the Song of Songs, together 
 with the ideas that people had arrived at in respect of 
 canonicity, had become a source of embarrassment, 
 from which there was no means of escape except 
 
 1 See especially chapter II. cf the Book of Esther. 
 
 2 The piquante expression of these old ideas is found to be opposed to 
 the new customs introduced by royalty in the 1st Book of Samuel, ch. 
 
 V1U. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 77 
 
 in pious subterfuge. Let us picture to ourselves 
 the consequences which, in adopting the hypothesis 
 that the Song of Songs was composed 300 or 400 
 years before Christ, would result from this fact. Two 
 or three hundred years after the period when such a 
 book might have reflected the popular conscience, 
 people have come to regard it as scandalous, and feel 
 that it is their duty to give it a different acceptation ! 
 This is inadmissible. We ca,n quite well understand 
 how a pious book like the Wisdom of Jesus, son of 
 Sirach, came to be canonised a short time after its 
 composition, for the canonisation of writings, which 
 was neither the Law nor the Prophets, implied only 
 a certain aptitude to produce edification, something 
 analogous to the character which the Catholic Church 
 attributes to the Imitation, the Spiritual Combat, 
 etc., by the side of the Bible. We can understand even 
 better how that a very old book, though little edify- 
 ing, became sacred, and how that it came to be sur- 
 rounded with a halo of pious allegory, for antiquity 
 has been, with all peoples, the principal factor in 
 veneration. But that a book at once so profane and 
 modern should be unhesitatingly accepted as canonical 
 is out of the question impossible. For, in a word, if 
 people were scandalised at the libertinism of the work, 
 why approve it ? Canonicity, in this epoch, did not 
 understand inspiration in the sense that Christians 
 have attached to this word, but it implied, at least, 
 the opinion that the book was pious. If, then, the 
 
78 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 artificial composition of the Song of Songs at a 
 modern epoch is contrary to all the probabilities of 
 literary history, the canonicity of the book and the 
 allegorical interpretation which was applied to it, are 
 much more inconceivable still in the hypothesis which 
 we are combating. For, on the one hand, this canon- 
 icity, not being founded on the internal character of 
 the work, can only rest on the single ground of its 
 antiquity, and, on the other, the allegorical interpreta- 
 tion supposes that the book, when explained in such a 
 manner, was entirely foreign to the popular usages. 
 Such misconstructions can only be practised on old 
 texts which no longer correspond to the spirit of the 
 times, and which are no longer well understood. 
 
 What are the reasons, then, which have led some 
 eminent critics to adopt an hypothesis in regard to 
 the age of the Song of Songs which explains so badly 
 both its literary style and its symbolic character? 
 One only, and one, assuredly, very grave, but one 
 which requires to be considered with the closest 
 attention. I mean the styje of the poem. The 
 language of the Song of Songs has appeared to the 
 minute grammarians who have analysed it that, for at 
 least a century, the science of the Hebrews inclined 
 towards the forms of the Chaldean epoch, that is to 
 say, the epoch which began a little before the Cap- 
 tivity. To them it appears that several words can 
 only belong to the Persian epoch, or even to the Greek. 
 Chaldeanisms, when reference is had to the age of 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 79 
 
 Hebrew books, are a very dangerous critdrium. 1 
 Certain peculiarities of the dialects of the north of 
 Palestine, or some traits of the common language, are 
 often taken for Chaldeanisms. In that which con- 
 cerns the Song of Songs, these two solutions are 
 equally applicable. On the one hand, we have a 
 popular book, and on the other, we shall show pre- 
 sently that this book was probably written in the 
 kingdom of the north. Now, the popular language 
 and the language of the tribes of the north trench 
 both very strongly upon the Aramean. The pure 
 Hebrew of Jerusalem became, at an early period, a 
 sort of classic tongue which the purists alone spoke 
 a tongue which was at once concise, rhythmic, and 
 enigmatic, in the common use of which people pre- 
 ferred its more analytical and scientific forms to those 
 which were to be found in the Aramean. There are 
 no idioms from which we can draw any conclusions 
 as to the modern date of the Song of Songs that are 
 not thus to be explained in a sufficient manner. If 
 the style is somewhat loose and very different from 
 that of the ancient Hebrew poetry, it must be borne 
 in mind that this violent contortion, similar to that of 
 a cord firmly plaited, which characterise the verse of 
 Job, for example, would not be suitable for a composi- 
 tion designed for such humble uses. The language of 
 Plautus has even more resemblance to the low Latinity 
 than that of Cicero and Seneca. As for the words in 
 
 1 See Hist, generate des langues Semitiyues, I. n. c. 1. sec. 3. 
 
80 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 which traces are believed to have been found of 
 Greek and Persian influence, one only merits con- 
 sideration, and that is the word pardes, "park." 
 This word, by common consent, could not have entered 
 into the Hebrew any more than it has into the 
 languages of Western Asia, and into the Greek 
 (vapddsiGoi), except at the Achemenidian period. The 
 argument of those who would bring down the Song 
 to the Greek or Persian epoch is here better founded. 
 Still, I own that I hesitate to to do violence to a 
 whole series of concordant inductions for a single em- 
 barrassing word. The text of works whiclfliad little 
 religious importance were not so strictly guarded as 
 to permit us to appeal to a peculiarity in a detached 
 style when the question is one of the compilation of 
 the whole book. It may be that the Song of Songs 
 served for a long time as a popular ballad, and was 
 not written down till some considerable time after. 
 We know that these kind of unwritten songs were 
 subjected, in the mouth of the people, to perpetual 
 changes. Let us add that the Achemenidian origin of 
 the word paradis is, perhaps, not incontestable. 1 The 
 Achemenides might have borrowed the word and the 
 thing itself from the great royal houses which had 
 preceded them in Western Asia. The word is of 
 
 1 The Greeks believed in this origin (see Thess. lingua:, Grcecce edit. 
 Didot, on the word Tra/actcJacros). But it is natural they should ascribe 
 the words to the people who had transmitted them, without being at 
 the trouble to find out whether this people itself had not accepted it 
 otherwise. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 8] 
 
 Ayrian origin, but it is not specially Iranian. It 
 seems rather to be connected with the Armenian. 
 
 We persist, then, with Herder, Ewald, de Wette, B. 
 Werzel and Hitzig, in placing the composition of the 
 Song of Songs a little after the schism, that is to say, 
 about the middle of the tenth century before Christ. 
 This was one of the most licentious epochs of the 
 Hebrew genius. No great prophet appeared about 
 this time to impose his spirit upon the nation ; religious 
 institutions had not the rigour which they attained 
 later on ; royalty at Jerusalem timidly continued the 
 ostentatious customs inaugurated by Solomon; but 
 the old republican spirit had its abode in the north, 
 and very soon reached a climax on the appearance 
 of the most seditious of the prophets the demagogue 
 Elias. It was in the midst of these historic sur- 
 roundings that, in our opinion, the author of the 
 Song of Songs moved. This is equivalent to admit- 
 ting, as most probable, an hypothesis proposed by 
 Ewald and Hitzig, according to which our poem 
 must have been composed in the north. We can 
 understand quite well how a poem proceeding from 
 the kingdom of Israel would place on the same level 
 the little capital of Tirzah and Jerusalem, whilst we 
 cannot conceive it in the case of a Jerusalemite, The 
 antipathy against the harem of Solomon, composed 
 of the "daughters of Jerusalem," is also a feature 
 which does jaot fit in with the north. The style 
 carries us to the regions bordering on Syria. Finally, 
 
82 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 the rapprochements which M. Hitzig 1 has established 
 between our author and Hosea, who, as we know, 
 was an author from the north (eighth century before 
 Jesus Christ), if they do not distinctly prove that this 
 prophet had read the Song of Songs, prove, at least, 
 that the two authors were surrounded by the same 
 circle of images, and were familiar with the same 
 expressions. 2 We scent in them, if I may say so, 
 the aroma of the north, at once green and fresh. 
 Palestine of the north, as is justly observed by M. 
 Reville, 3 appeared in the history of the Israelites, 
 as less accessible to religious spiritualism, less prone 
 to a reaction contrary to nature and to a natural life, 
 than the Palestine of the south. It was there, too, 
 that popular poetry seems to have taken its boldest 
 nights. It is thence that has come to us the patriotic 
 Song of Deborah, the Apologue of Jotham (Judges 
 IX. 5-20) ; the narratives of Gideon, Jephthah, and of 
 Samson, in which the poetic element holds so great 
 a place; the prophecies of Hosea, so strongly coloured; 
 the prophets who did not write, but whose vigorous 
 impression upon the popular imagination is attested 
 by history, Elias and Elisha, the legend of Jonah, 
 etc. Let us add that the natural beauties of the 
 country of Lebanon, an agricultural country of mar- 
 
 ^Das HoJie Lied, p. 9-10. 
 
 2 This consideration is especially important, if we remember that the 
 very ancient poets present always a poverty of expression, and make no 
 effort to vary their periods. 
 
 3 Revue de Thtoloyie de M. Colani, May 1857, pp. 278-279. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 83 
 
 vellous fertility, rich in woods, in grassy plains, in 
 running streams, .were better inspirations for pastoral 
 poetry than the sandy and somewhat rocky districts 
 of the south. Let us add, further, that, with the 
 exception of Engedi, Jerusalem, and Heshbon, the 
 whole of the localities cited in the poem, Sharon, 
 Gilead, Tirzah, Lebanon, Amana, Shenir, Baal-hamon 
 and Shulam, the country of the heroine, appertain 
 to the kingdom of the north. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE history of the preservation and the interpreta- 
 tion of the Song of Songs is too singular, and gives 
 birth to problems that are too nearly allied to the 
 nature of the book itself, to be passed over here in 
 silence. There can be no doubt that, in its inception, 
 the Song of Songs was not a profane book, in the 
 ordinary acceptation of that term. Not only is there 
 no mystical afterthought left in it to be divined, 
 but the contexture and the plan of the poem ab- 
 solutely exclude the idea of an allegory. The tone 
 and the images of the impassioned utterances are 
 those of the love songs ^of the Arabs, in which no 
 one has ever pretended to find a trace of religious 
 symbolism. 
 
 One solitary argument may be invoked to uphold 
 the possibility of a religious arriere-pensee in the 
 Song of Songs: to wit, the mystical-erotic poetry 
 of India and Persia. We know that, in those two 
 countries, a vast literature has been developed, in 
 which divine and terrestrial love are interwoven in 
 such a fashion that it is often difficult to distinguish 
 between them. The origin of this singular species 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 85 
 
 of poetry is a question that has not yet been cleared 
 up. In many cases, the mystical sense which has 
 been lent to certain Persian and Hindoo erotic poetry 
 has no more reality than the allegories of the Song 
 of Songs. In Hafiz, for example, it seems indeed 
 that the allegorical explanation is of tener a product of 
 the commentator's fancy, or mere precautions which 
 the admirers of the poet were obliged to take in 
 order to save the orthodoxy of their favourite author. 
 Imagination then mounting this theme, and minds 
 being deceived by an exegesis which would see no- 
 thing but allegories, people came to give to the 
 poem a really double sense, like those of Djelal-Eddin 
 Roumi, de Wali, etc. A distinct line of demarca- 
 tion, in fact, divides these later poems, in which the 
 author has actually sought to conceal a mystical 
 thought under an erotic form, from those in which 
 the mystical thought has been invented by some 
 complaisant exegetes. In India, at least, the allego- 
 rical exegesis seems to have preceded the allegorical 
 poems, and to have been the cause of their composition. 1 
 However it be on this point, it is quite certain that 
 neither in India nor in Persia is the kind of poetry 
 of which we speak very ancient. Soufism, to which it 
 is attached in Persia, began only to produce such writ- 
 ings towards the twelfth century of our era. The most 
 celebrated mystical-erotic poem of India, the Gita- 
 
 1 F. Albert Weber, Hittoire de la Liltirature Indienne (trad. Sadous), 
 pp. 330-331. 
 
86 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 Govinda de. Jayadeva, belongs, in all probability, to the 
 middle of the fourteenth century. 1 The Adhyatma 
 , Ramayana, another poem of the same kind, does not 
 appear to be more ancient. 2 In India and Persia, 
 this kind of poetry is the result of an extreme re- 
 finement and a lively imagination, carried the length 
 of quietism, of a strong liking for mystery, and also in 
 Persia, at least, by the hypocrisy imposed by Mussul- 
 man fanaticism. It is, in fact, a sort of reaction 
 against the barrenness of Islamism that Soufism 
 has made headway among the non-Arab Mussulmans. 
 There is to be seen in it a revolt of the Aryan spirit 
 against the hideous simplicity of the Semitic spirit, 
 excluding by the rigour of its theology all individual 
 worship, all secret doctrine, all living and varied 
 religious devotion. 
 
 It is evident that no reconciliation could be es- 
 tablished between the products of a mysticism so 
 advanced and a pastoral drama which has not, like 
 ours, any religious pretensions. And, first, if the 
 author had really had any theological pretension, it 
 is not the dramatic form that he would have selected : 
 
 1 M. A. Weber has kindly sent me a short memoir, full of science 
 and criticism, in which the date above indicated is established by 
 rapprochements which have great weight. 
 
 2 What is indubitable, at least, is that it is not anterior to the 
 eleventh century. M. Weber has established this as a positive fact. A 
 silly synchronism, which is difficult to comprehend, is the almost simul- 
 taneous appearance of a similar allsgorism, although of a much less 
 religious character, in the Latin world by Francis d'Assisi, Dante, and 
 the Florentine school in general. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 8"7 
 
 the lyric form alone becomes those sort of debauched 
 metaphysics. To what improbabilities, however, do 
 we not expose ourselves in placing a great develop- 
 ment of transcendental theology in Judea, in the 
 tenth century before Jesus Christ ? Nothing was ! 
 ever more removed from mysticism than the ancient 
 Hebrew spirit, than the Arab spirit, and, in general, 
 than the Semitic spirit. The idea of putting the 
 Creator en rapport with the creature, the supposition 
 that they could be enamoured of each other, and the 
 thousand refinements of this kind in which Hindoo 
 mysticism and Christian mysticism go hand in hand, 
 are the very antipodes of the severe Semitic con- f 
 ception of God. It is unquestionable that such ideas 
 could only be regarded in Israel as blasphemies. Up 
 to the last or second last century before the Christian 
 era, there had been no secret doctrine in the bosom 
 of Judaism.. These kind of religious allegories in- 
 dicate always a certain necessity for concealment, a 
 retaliation against some exterior compression. Under 
 the refined language of the Soufis, under the burning 
 lyrical passion of Louis de Leon, under the studied 
 quietude of Madame Guyon, one feels the intolerant 
 rigour of orthodox Islamism, the inquisition, and of 
 Gallican Catholicism. Now, the history of the Jewish 
 people does not present, at least before the epoch of 
 the prophets addicted to a severe Mosaism, and the 
 pietest kings, any example of persecution on account 
 of doctrine. The old patriarchial religion was so 
 
88 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 simple, so natural, and so little embarrassing, that no 
 one thought of seeking to evade it. The mystical- 
 erotic poems, in a word, implied that there was around 
 them a great development of the philosophical and 
 theological schools. Now, no people has been more 
 ' discreet in regard to symbolism, allegories, and 
 speculations as to the divinity, than the Hebrews. 
 Drawing a line of absolute demarcation between God 
 and man, all familiarity, all tender sentiment, all 
 reciprocity between heaven and earth, were rendered 
 impossible. Christianity has changed only in this 
 sense, by doing violence to its Judaic origin, and in 
 provoking the anger of true Israelites, who have re- 
 mained faithful to the severe notion of the Divinity. 
 
 We regard it, then, as certain that the author of 
 the Song of Songs, in writing his poem, had no. 
 n\vj3Jiical intention. Why, and at what epoch, did 
 the idea of seeing in this poem an allegorical and 
 sacred work begin to be formed? The answer, it 
 seems, must be that the want of an allegorical and 
 mystical signification made itself felt, when the idea 
 of the canonisation of the ancient books had gained 
 consistency. Saved from the wreck of ancient 
 Hebrew books because of its celebrity, and of its 
 almost daily use, the Song of Songs, in consequence 
 of the difficulties which it presented, ceased very 
 early, probably from the days of Esdras and of 
 Nehemiah, to be thoroughly understood. It is never- 
 theless improbable that, from that time, it was looked 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 89 
 
 upon as sacred ; the Law, the historical books and 
 the prophets, had alone at that period a recognised 
 authority. But little by little the idea of inspiration 
 was extended and determined. About the time of 
 the Maccabees, all the ancient books were much 
 venerated, 1 and about the epoch of Jesus Christ, 
 they were sacred. The authors of New Testament 
 books never cited, it is true, the Old Testament as 
 a body of works ; they refer incidently to the Law, 
 the Prophets, and the Psalms. 2 But Josephus, their 
 contemporary, gives us a canon of books "reputed 
 divine," of which the Song of Songs forms a part. 3 
 We can understand the revolution that such a notion 
 of canonicity must have produced in the exegesis. 
 The Song of Songs, which had passed almost into 
 oblivion from the time of Esdras to the Christian 
 era, must have appeared a scandalous book when 
 looked at from the point of view of rigorous ortho- 
 doxy, whose chief pretension was that the canonical 
 books comprised nothing that was not holy. People 
 thought, hence, of saving the honour of the ancient 
 poem by searching in it for an allegorical meaning. 
 But as their explanations rest upon the most com- 
 plete arbitrary grounds, no system has accepted un- 
 
 1 See Ecclesiasticus, prologue. This prologue was written about 
 130 years before Jesus Christ. 
 
 2 See especially Luke xxiv. 44. 
 
 3 Contre Apion, i. 8. The text of Josephus leaves us in doubt as to 
 whether he understood the Sony in an allegorical sense, or in a purely 
 human sense, 
 
90 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 reservedly the above, hence the multitude of inter- 
 pretations, often poetic, sometimes insignificant, which 
 have been put forth by both Jews and Christians, 
 with an exuberance of imagination which produces 
 sometimes veritable astonishment. 1 
 
 It is, then, in the first century before our era, or in 
 the first century after Jesus Christ, that it is proper 
 to place the commencement of the allegorical exegesis 
 of the Canticle. 2 The preference for this perverted 
 sense was never more strong than at that period, as 
 we see in Philo, the Evangelists, St Paul, and in the 
 Talmud. 3 A doctor of the second century, well versed 
 in the science of the Scriptures, Melito, Bishop of Sar- 
 
 1 It is important to observe, moreover, that these interpretations were 
 not most often given by those who imagined them, as representing the 
 idea of the author. The usages of rigorous philology, which leads us to 
 seek only in a text for that %\hich the author had intended to say, did 
 not belong to those times. A text was something objective, indepen- 
 dent of the intentions of him who wrote it, a theme, in short, which 
 every one expounded after his own manner. When Etienne Langton 
 in the twelfth century composed a sermon in praise of the Virgin on the 
 song, Bde Alix matin leva, he did not pretend that, in the intention of 
 the author of that song, Bele Alix had been the Virgin. In like 
 manner, when such a preacher would moralise on Ovid, he, doubtless, 
 did not maintain that Ovid had had the ideas which he had set forth 
 (v. Histoire Litterature de la France, tome xxui. p. 250, et seq.). At 
 these periods everything became a text, or rather pretexts, for so-called 
 allegories and homilies. 
 
 2 The traces of the allegorical explanation of the Song, which some 
 have believed to discover in the Book of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the 
 Gospels, the Apocalypse, the fourth book (Apocrypha), Esdras, and in 
 Josephus, are wholly doubtful. 
 
 3 The same exege is was current for a long time with the Greeks, at 
 least with Homer ( V. Egger, Hist, de la Critique chez les Grecs, p. 55, et 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 91 
 
 dis, had already constructed a key to these allegories. 1 
 The so-called Greek version of the Septuagint does 
 not present, it is true, for the Song of Songs any 
 trace of mystical interpretation, but the Syriac ver- 
 sion seems to offer one ; 2 the Talmud is full of them. 
 The Christians, above all, in greatly exaggerating the 
 ideas of the Jews in respect of canonicity and inspir- 
 ation, were obliged to make desperate efforts to find 
 in the Song a mystical sense. Theophilus of Antioch, 
 in the second century, explains the wood of Lebanon 
 by Ruth, which comprises in its bosom the whole race 
 of David, and the litter by the souls which carry God 
 in themselves. 3 Origen, finally, in the third century, 
 gave the first complete allegorical explanation of our 
 poem, laying down as a principle that everything 
 which appeared in the Bible to be unworthy of divine 
 inspiration, and, consequently, everything which did 
 not serve for the edification and instruction of the 
 reader, must embrace some hidden meaning, and de- 
 clared that the love in question of the Song of Songs 
 could only be divine love, and that this poem was 
 nothing else than the epithalamium of the Church 
 with her celestial bridegroom, Jesus Christ. 
 
 1 Numerous remains of this ancient symbolism have been collected to- 
 gether, but not always with enough discernment as to dates s by Don 
 Pitra in the vols. II. and in. of his Spicilegium Solesminse. 
 
 " The Chaldean Targum is impregnated throughout with allegories, 
 but it is posterior to the Talmud. 
 
 3 Gallindi, Bibl. Pair. torn. n. pp. 141-142. The ascription of this pas- 
 sage to Theophilus of Antioch is not altogether a certainty. 
 
92 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 After this, we can understand how the inductions 
 we have drawn are denuded of their value, in favour 
 of the mystical interpretation, of the presence of the 
 Song in the canon and of the tradition which, for 
 eighteen centuries, ascribes to it a pious sense. Why 
 suppose, say people, that a purely profane book could 
 be accepted as a sacred book ? Is not this consecration 
 a proof of the religious character which from that 
 time the book so adopted presents ? Let us observe, 
 first, that even though it should be proved that, at the 
 period when the Jewish canon was formed, the Song 
 was held to be allegorical, it does not thence follow 
 that it was in the mind of its author, since, between 
 its composition and canonisation, eight or nine cen- 
 turies must have rolled over. We have found in 
 Persia and in India some poems to which all commen- 
 tators ascribe some theological sense, and which, how- 
 ever, in their origin possessed nothing mysterious. 
 Let us observe, further, that the symbolic hypothesis 
 was formed at a period when all sentiment of veritable 
 exegesis was lost, and when the taste for allegorical 
 interpretations had been pressed to foolish lengths. 
 There is not a book in the Bible which has not been 
 subjected to contortions of this kind, and, in order to 
 be consistent, the partisans of tradition were obliged 
 to treat the book of Ruth also as an allegory, for this 
 book has an allegorical explanation as complete as the 
 Song of Songs. The ancient Jewish exegesis admitted 
 that each passage of the Bible had seventy senses, all 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 93 
 
 equally true, and among a maze of senses, anagogical, 
 tropological, etc., which acknowledged the Christian 
 interpretation, the literal sense was almost the only 
 sense which was neglected. Remark, finally, that the 
 above argument rests upon a false notion of the 
 canonicity current among the Jews. The idea of 
 a strictly limited canon, and of a divine inspiration 
 which was uniform in all the books contained in the 
 canon, is a Christian, not a Jewish, idea. 1 The ancient 
 Jewish doctors permitted the fullest criticism of the 
 reputed sacred books of Ecclesiastes and the Song 
 of Songs, for example. 2 When people began to regard 
 indifferently the ancient books as a repertoire of wis- 
 dom, there was no longer any choice to be made. 
 Time had solved the question : all that remained of 
 the old literature, even that portion which did not 
 correspond with the religious sentiment of the period, 
 was carefully preserved. It was in this way that 
 moderately instructive works passed for sacred. The 
 Song of Songs, in fact, is not the only book to which 
 the objection that I am answering may be applied. 
 The book of Proverbs, and several of the Psalms, are 
 moral, but not religious works. The book of Job is a 
 philosophical and controversial book; no work re- 
 sembles less a sacred book. The psalm Eructavit 
 cor meum, is an epithalamium like the Song of Songs. 
 
 1 Vide the excellent observations of M. Derenbourg upon this point 
 in the Archives Israelites, March 1856. 
 
 2 Vide de Wette, Einleitung, sects. 276-283. 
 
94 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 Ecclesiastes, in fine, although composed at a modern 
 epoch, and containing much that is so singular, was 
 none the less consecrated, because, at the period when 
 the first ideas of canonicity were formed, it was 
 found to be read by lettered men. Canonicity, though 
 embracing a wholly religious idea, appears, then, as a 
 matter of fact, to have been applied to some works 
 which had hardly any religious character, and people 
 were at a loss to know how to treat the efforts which 
 were subsequently made to sanctify these works 
 which might have, in the mind of the author, the 
 sense that a pious tradition ascribed to them. 
 
 It does not enter into our plan to follow up the 
 whole of the arguments of that singular exegesis, 
 which, from the point of view of a rabbinical or 
 Christian literateur, possesses a certain interest, but 
 which is of no value in the interpretation of the book 
 itself. 1 One solitary voice, previous to the sixteenth 
 century, was raised in support of the justness of this 
 sound exegesis, to wit, that of Theodore de Mopsuestus. 
 The condemnations of the second council of Constanti- 
 nople show the scandal which his opinion caused. 
 In the middle ages, not a single doubt was raised, nay, 
 new allegories were even invented, namely, the great 
 extension which was made to the cult of the Virgin ; 
 
 1 Tliis history has been set forth with much erudition and judg- 
 ment in a thesis which was argued before the Faculty of Protestant 
 Theology of Strasburg, by M. Ed. Cunitz. Hist. Grit, de V Interpretation 
 du Cantique des Cantiqucs (Strasburg, 1834). See also the article of 
 M. lieville in the Revue de Tlitdogie of M. Colani, Apiil 1 857. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 95 
 
 the Shulammite was identified with Mary, and almost 
 all the characteristics of the Song of Songs were applied 
 to the mother of God. The absence of real exegetical 
 and philosophical studies in the monasteries and uni- 
 versities, joined to a habit of seeking in the Scriptures 
 for distorted and arbitrary senses, precluded any 
 doctor of the time from divining the true interpre- 
 tation of the Song of Songs. The first Protestant theo- 
 logians differed in no particular from the Catholic 
 tradition. In fine, the Jewish exegetes, like all the 
 others affected with the mania, gave to it a figurative 
 explanation. When the Arab philosophy became the 
 fashion amongst them, the Shulammite became the in- 
 tellect actif to which the individual soul aspired to be 
 united. 1 Some gleams of a better method penetrated 
 the Jewish school. Several rabbis, like Aben-Esra, 
 carefully distinguished the literal sense, the reality of 
 which they recognised, from the mystic sense : we some- 
 times even see orthodox interpreters arguing with 
 illiterate persons who regarded the Song as a profane 
 poem. But the names of these bold disputants have 
 not come down to us, and I do not believe that a single 
 Jewish doctor of the period of which we speak would 
 have dared to oppose to the reigning prejudice as to 
 the indispensable necessity of seeking for the antique 
 idyl of Israel, any other sense than the literal one. 
 
 1 Upon the origin and progress of this singular interpretation, see 
 Steinsclmeider, in the EncyL of Ersch and Gruber, Section II. part 
 xxxi. p. 53, et seq. 
 
96 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGb. 
 
 The first, after Theodore de Mopsuestus, who dared 
 to maintain that the Song of Songs was a profane book, 
 was the noble and unfortunate Sebastian Castalion. 
 He pushed his opinions to extremes, and, through an 
 error which must have exercised a hurtful influence 
 upon the exegesis, he declared it to be an objectionable 
 book a book which should be struck out of the 
 canon. His opinion found no supporters for nearly a 
 century. Grotius and Jean Leclerc revived it, the 
 former timidly and awkwardly, the latter decisively 
 and keenly. A mitigated opinion was formed by 
 another group, which included Vatable (or the author, 
 whoever he was, of the notes published under his 
 name), Bossuet, and Lowth. According to this opinion, 
 similar to that of Aben-Esra, the two senses, the one 
 natural, the other mystic, both existed, and ought 
 both to be upheld. There was, hence, amongst the 
 theological opinions of the time, a veritable progress 
 which allowed Bossuet, in particular, to advance ideas 
 as to the plan of the poem much more correct than 
 those which any one before him had done. 
 
 The grand exegetical school which was formed in 
 Germany towards the close of the last century, laid 
 down at length the essential condition of a good 
 interpretation of the Song, in absolutely discarding 
 the mystical sense, or, at least, in proving from 
 evidence that the author had not had in view any 
 other sense than that which conformed with the 
 letter. Semeler, J. D. Michaelis, and Herder exult- 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 97 
 
 ingly insist upon this point. 1 But this was far from 
 finding a key to the poem. The principal obstacle 
 to a good interpretation was thus removed, but the 
 work still presented in itself a veritable chaos. The 
 error of Castalion engaged the most enlightened 
 minds. It was difficult to make people believe that, 
 if the Song was not a mystical, it was an obscene 
 book. The idea that Solomon was the object of the 
 love of the shepherdess closed the door completely 
 to a satisfactory interpretation. Neither Grotius 
 nor Leclerc, who had demonstrated the vanity of 
 mystical explanations, nor Bossuet, who had so art- 
 fully discovered the literal character and division of 
 the work, did not perceive that which constituted 
 its essential meaning: to wit, the love of the Shulam- 
 rnite for a lover who was not Solomon, her resist- 
 ance to the proposals of the king, and her triumph 
 over the seductions of the seraglio. 
 
 The first who established this fundamental point 
 was J. F. Jacobi (1771). Michaelis had already 
 clearly perceived that the Song, interpreted liter- 
 ally, was far from being an object of scandal. He 
 had proclaimed that the love which was chanted 
 
 1 The allegorical interpretation finds still at the present day, in 
 Germany, two defenders in MM. Hengstenberg and Delitzsch. But 
 their arguments, so denuded of reason, and much less poetic than 
 those of the Fathers, the scholastics, and the theologians, are con- 
 ceived from a standpoint wholly different from those of the critic or 
 the philologist. M. Delitzsch has acknowledged, however, that the 
 author of the Song had only in his mind the natural sense. 
 
 G 
 
98 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 therein was sincere love (castos conjugum amores). 
 But Jacobi found the explanation of the enigma in 
 demonstrating that the subject of the drama was 
 " the victory of the faithful lovers ; " that the 
 heroine was a shepherdess brought to the court to 
 minister to the sensual desires of the king, and 
 that, far from setting forth unbecoming ideas, the 
 poem was, in the mind of the poet, perfectly moral. 
 The role of the shepherd, which is the nodus or 
 plot of the whole poem, began henceforth to dis- 
 engage itself. Anton, Ammon, Stseudlin, Linde- 
 mann, and especially Velthusen (1786), developed 
 the idea of Jacobi in discarding the subtle explana- 
 tions which had been confounded in it. But such 
 are the obscurities which, according to our modern 
 ideas, this singular poem presents, that the methods 
 pursued by these ingenious critics were not at first 
 able to command universal assent. A contrary 
 method, which regarded the Song as a simple col- 
 lection of love songs, amongst which we must not 
 seek for either bond or consecutive plan, an idea 
 which had already seduced Richard Simon, found 
 numerous adherents Herder, Dcederlein, Hufnagel, 
 Kleuker and Eichhorn, and, even in our own day, 
 Doepke, Magnus, and de Wette. 
 
 The vast labour of philology and criticism which, 
 in the first half of our century, has brought about 
 such great progress in the knowledge of ancient 
 Hebrew literature, has fully confirmed, by modify- 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 99 
 
 ing several points of detail, the hypothesis of Jacobi 
 and Velthusen. The able studies of MM. Umbreit 
 (1820), Ewald (1826), and Hitzig (1855), in putting 
 wholly to one side so many doubts, have obtained 
 an almost unanimous assent, 1 and triumphantly 
 established the plan of the Song and its true char- 
 acter. The poem is neither mystical, as the theo- 
 logians would have us believe, nor objectionable, 
 as Castalion has thought, nor purely erotic, as 
 Herder would have it ; it is moral ; it is summed 
 up in a verse, the 7th of chap, viu., the last of the 
 poem. " Nothing can overcome sincere love ; where 
 riches aspires to purchase love, it purchases only 
 shame." The object of the poem is not the volup- 
 tuous passion which insinuates itself into the seraglios 
 of the degenerate East, nor the equivocal sentiment 
 of Hindoo or Persian quietism, concealing under its 
 deceptive mask its refined hypocrisy, but true love, 
 the love inspired by courage and sacrifice, preferring 
 unconstrained poverty to servile opulence, opposing 
 a vigorous hatred to. all that is false and base, and 
 resulting in undisturbed happiness and fidelity. 
 
 Thus the difficulties, both in the eyes of theologians 
 and of critics, raised by the book on which we are 
 now engaged, have been solved. Even in the eyes of 
 the critic, it must have appeared strange that, from 
 
 1 We can name, among those who have adhered to their opinion, 
 MM. B. Hirzel, Boettcher, E. Meier, Veth, Hcekstra, and Reville. 
 This opinion has become in a manner classic in Germany, Holland, 
 and England. 
 
100 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 amongst this literature, there should proceed one of 
 the props of the faith of humanity, from amongst the 
 monuments of this Hebraic thought, always grave 
 and reserved, one of those venerated writings which 
 have passed the ordeal of so many pious scribes, to 
 appearance an equivocal booklet, a poem consecrated 
 unreservedly to sensual love. The Song of Songs is 
 /no such work. 1 It is neither to the purely erotic 
 poems of India, such as the poetry of Amarou and 
 Bhartrihari, nor to the poetry of Hafiz, nor to the 
 maouals of the Arabs, that the present poem must be 
 compared. The Song of Songs is a profane book, 
 but it is not a frivolous book. The traits of de- 
 tail, though they may seem to shock our modesty 
 (too often carried to a ridiculous extent), are those 
 which are to be found in all antique poetry. Voltaire 
 did wrong in making game of it, and the faithful were 
 wrong in feeling scandalised. It should be remarked, 
 however, that the only two really sensual passages in 
 the work (I. 2-4 ; vn. 2-10) are designed to represent 
 the harem and the manners of the court of Solomon 
 in a most hideous light, and serve to produce a sort of 
 contrast. The sentiment of the book, like that of all 
 Hebrew books, is pure, and, if the execution some- 
 times lacks delicacy and discrimination, yet these latter 
 qualities, the product of our attenuated modesty, are 
 by no means characteristic of the Semitic genius in 
 
 1 See the excellent reflections of M. Eeville in the Revue de TMo- 
 logic, May 1857, p. 284, et seq. 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 101 
 
 general. For my part, I find the Song } understood in 
 its natural sense, much more sacred than many other 
 books which do not shock us very much the Book 
 of Esther, for example, which is inhuman, boastful, 
 cruel, and arrogant, whence God is absent (it is the 
 only book in the Bible in which the name of God is 
 not once pronounced). I might even say that the 
 Song of Songs is of great importance as touching the 
 honour of the Jewish people, in the sense that it 
 brings out qualities in the Hebrew mind which, but 
 for it, would never have been suspected. In view of 
 the terrible tension of that austerity of character 
 which has produced the ardent passion of a David, 
 and the fanaticism of the prophets, one might be 
 tempted to believe that there could be no lodgment 
 for any sentiment of tenderness and of goodness in the 
 mind of such a people. The Song of Songs proves 
 that, if the grandiose struggle in which Israel engaged 
 stifled for a certain period the purely human part 
 of its development, this part of the Hebrew character 
 had its season, and produced its flower. Israel, be- 
 come the people of God, ought not to make us forget 
 the young Israel at the time of the patriarchs ; Israel, 
 the Arab tribe, whose spirit was continued, especially 
 in the kingdom of the North, and in whose bosom 
 developed freely a life wholly profane, though eclipsed 
 in the end by the incomparable eclat of the religious 
 vocation. y^ 
 
 From the point of view of enlightened philosophy, 
 
102 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 it was then an error to believe that the Song, if it 
 was not a scandalous book, must be a mystical book. 
 But the conscience of humanity was never so wholly 
 deceived. Such is the force of religious sentiment, 
 that it knows how to give a double sense of beauty 
 and of charm. The mystical sense is false philo- 
 logically, but true theologically. It corresponds to 
 that grand sanctification of love which Christianity 
 has inaugurated. The Shulammite has taken the 
 Christian veil ; under this veil she is beautiful still. 
 In a word, why regret this garland of poetic false- 
 hoods which the Christian imagination has woven 
 round the object of its favourite dreams, when one 
 remembers that, without this network of pious decep- 
 tions, mystical souls should never have had their holy 
 book ? What love can be more pure than is contained 
 in that beautiful Vulnerasti cor meum which the 
 Church chants at its feasts ? Those litanies of the 
 Virgin, and those hymns composed wholly of melan- 
 choly images or brdlantes empruntees to the sacred 
 idyll 1 which have caused many tears (the best, per- 
 haps, which have been shed on earth) to flow ! Let 
 it be added that the Christian interpretation has given 
 to the Song what in the original it lacked of trans- 
 parency and delicacy. The Christian Shulammite is, 
 indeed, more distinguished than the ancient virgin of 
 
 1 See in particular several hymns of Adam de Saint Victor (t. II., 
 pp. 189, 340, edit. Gautier), and of his school (Pitra, Spicil Solesm. III. 
 p. 4:i). 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 103 
 
 the tribe of Issachar ; the delicacy of sentiment of 
 modern races has corrected that which the Hebrew 
 genius lacks of polish and brightness. 
 
 Within the compass of the ancient Song has thus 
 been constructed a book altogether different from 
 anything Hebrew infinitely curious, however, and 
 in a manner sacred. In philology the letter alone 
 ought to be considered. In the original development 
 of humanity, it is the spirit which giveth life. To be 
 the fruit of mystical conceptions far removed from 
 those of ancient Israel, the mystical spouse which 
 aesthetic Christians have evolved from their dreams 
 ought not to be banished from amongst the conse- 
 crated images. Yet, by being a stranger to the subtle 
 theology of her Christian sister, the poor shepherdess, 
 who preferred to Solomon him whom she loved, ought 
 no longer to be disdained. None of her contempor- 
 aries in the heathen world, although more civilised 
 the Chamite and Couschite races has accomplished 
 what she has done ; no daughter of Memphis or of 
 Babylon, a thousand years before Jesus Christ, has 
 resisted a king, or preferred a hut to a seraglio. The 
 Shulammite was a -saint of her time. She signalised 
 the first appearance of the virtue of love the moment 
 when, sensual though it yet was, the profound instinct 
 which God has concealed in the bosom of human 
 nature attained, in the free and proud conscience of a 
 young Israelite maiden, the highest sphere of morality. 
 Do not criticise, according to the rules of our modern 
 
104 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 proprieties, each sentence of the ingenuous peasant 
 girl ; do not require of her the extreme refinements 
 of a Saint Theresa. She is a simple daughter of 
 naive antiquity. Though her heart was not touched 
 with the flame of seraphic fire, she knew " that love 
 was stronger than death," she felt " the glow of the 
 fire of Jehovah." "T> 
 
 I am not one of those who regard love as the most 
 exalted principle of human morality, and who would 
 have it believed that man is only grand when he 
 yields to that passion. That which makes man 
 noble is duty and right ; in reality, he is only great 
 when he subordinates his passions to a desirable and 
 disinterested end. Still less am I one of those who 
 make much of that selfish and unpoetical love of the 
 east and the south, which has never inspired a high 
 thought, and has contributed in nothing to ameliorate 
 the condition of humanity. But the profound senti- 
 ment which plays so essential a part in the history 
 of the progress of morals ought not to be confounded 
 with that inferior pleasure, the residuum of sensual 
 humanity, which civilisation has vanquished. After 
 duty, love, such as it has been transformed into by 
 the greatest races, has been the mainspring of en- 
 noblement, and the potent lever in elevating the 
 human species to a more perfect ideal. It must not 
 be put in the front rank with the gods ; neither must 
 it bring down to the level of things terrestrial the 
 virtuous sentiment which sheds a ray on the brow 
 
A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 105 
 
 the most tarnished by selfishness, an illusion which 
 has crossed lives the most melancholy, a fugitive 
 moment of poetry which has dragged from their 
 lairs the most vulgar natures. Love increases or 
 diminishes, according as the noble elements of 
 humanity are raised or abased. In base epochs, 
 people do not even know how to love ; and there 
 can be no doubt that if, in default of honour, our 
 leaden age has at least preserved the vigour of the 
 strong passion, it will not be so easily reduced to the 
 pitiful pursuits of riches without consideration, and 
 honours without glory. Amidst bourgeoises engross- 
 ments which have ever been the lot of the greatest 
 number, there is still left scope for great ambition 
 and daring enterprises. A principle secondary to noble- 
 ness, but most efficacious in the case of those to whom 
 duty appears too abstract, love possesses for him, in 
 addition, the incomparable eclat of virtue and genius. 
 The book which, ten centuries before Jesus Christ, 
 demonstrates this to us, though not yet distinguished 
 or delicate, but true and strong, is then, in a sense, a 
 sacred book. Let us place it boldly in the ark in 
 which holy things are guarded ; let the theologian 
 believe that, to save the honour of the old song, it 
 must be travestied, and to those who, for reasons of 
 propriety, would defend this superannuated interpreta- 
 tion, let us recall the response of Niebuhr * to a young 
 
 1 I am indebted for this trait in the life of Niebuhr to M. le Baron 
 de Bunsen. 
 
106 A STUDY OF THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 parson who was grieved at the necessity of admitting 
 into the Biblical canon a song of love. " For me," said 
 the illustrious critic, with animation, "I should think 
 that the Bible was lacking in something if one could 
 not find in it expression for the deepest and strongest 
 sentiments of humanity." 
 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ASCRIBED TO KING SOLOMON. 1 
 
 I. 
 
 Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth ! Thy I, 2 
 caresses are sweeter than wine, when they are mingled 
 with the fragrance of thy exquisite odours; thy 3 
 name is as oil poured out. Hence it is the young 
 maidens love thee. 
 
 Draw me after thee : let us flee. The king has 
 brought me into his harem. 
 
 Our transports and our delights are for thee alone 
 Better far are thy caresses than wine. Right are they 
 in loving thee. 
 
 II. 
 
 I am black, but I am comely, O daughters of 
 Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the pavilions 
 
 1 This title is posterior to the composition of the poem, and implies an 
 attiioution manifestly erroneons. 
 
110 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 of Solomon. Despise me not, because I am a little 
 black, because the sun has scorched me. My 
 mother's sons held me in contempt: they sent me 
 into the fields to keep vineyards. But, alas ! mine 
 own vineyard have I indeed badly kept. 
 
 Ill 
 
 I, 7 Tell me, O thou whom my heart loveth, whither 
 thou leadest thy sheep, where thou makest them re- 
 pose at noon, so that I stray not, as one wandered, 
 around the flocks of thy companions. 
 
 8 If thou knowest not this, thou fairest of women, 
 get thee again to the footsteps of thy flock, and cause 
 thy kids to pasture beside the shepherds' tents. 
 
 IV. 
 
 9 I have likened thee, O my love, to my young 
 cavale (mare), when she is yoked to the chariots sent 
 
 10 me by Pharoah. 1 Thy cheeks are adorned with rows 
 
 11 of pearls, thy neck with strings of corals. We will 
 make thee necklaces of gold, pointed with silver. 
 
 V. 
 
 12 While the king is in his divan, the spikenard 
 wherewith I am scented 2 sent forth its fragrance. 
 
 1 The chariots which Solomon got from Egypt, the horses of which 
 were covered with ornaments resembling necklaces. 
 
 2 That is to say, her lover ; the thought is to her as a perfume. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. Ill 
 
 My beloved is to me as a bundle of myrrh ; he shall I, 13 
 repose betwixt my breasts. My beloved is to me as 14 
 a cluster of camphire, from the vineyards of Engedi. 
 
 Yea, thou are fair, my love; yes, thou art fair. 15 
 Thy eyes are as doves' eyes. 
 
 Yea, thou art fair, my beloved ; yes, thou art charm- 16 
 ing. Our bed is a bed of green. 
 
 The beams of our palace are of cedar, our panels of 17 
 cypress. 
 
 I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys ! n, i 
 
 As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among 2 
 the maidens. 
 
 As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, 1 
 so is my beloved among the youths. I have longed 
 to sit under his shadow, and his fruit is sweet to 
 my taste. 
 
 He brought me into his wine house, and the ban- 4 
 ner 2 he raised over me was love. Stay me with 5 
 grapes, fortify me with fruits, for I am dying of love. 
 
 His left hand sustains my head, and his right 6 
 embraces me. 
 
 I beseech you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the 7 
 gazelles and the hinds of the fields, awake not, awake 
 not my beloved until it pleases her. 
 
 1 That is to say, a tree with fruit among trees which have none. 
 
 2 A flag was hoisted over the wine house, in which the wine was dis- 
 tributed. See Moallaca d'Antara, v. 52, and Lebid, v. 58. Caussin 
 de Perceval, Essay upon the History of the Arabs, I. 11. p. 525. 
 
112 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 VI 
 
 IT, 8 It is the voice of my beloved; behold he cometh 
 
 bounding over the mountains and skipping upon 
 
 9 the hills. My beloved is like to a roe or a hind's 
 
 fawn. Behold him who standeth behind the wall, 
 
 10 who looketh forth of the window, who peepeth 
 through the lattice. He said unto me, "Arise, my 
 love, my fair one, and come away. For behold the 
 
 11 winter is ended, the rain is past, it has gone. The 
 
 12 flowers begin to appear on the earth. The time of 
 the singing [of birds] is at hand. The voice of the 
 turtle has been heard in our fields ; the tender shoots 
 
 13 of the fig tree begin to ripen ; the vine is in bloom 
 and exhales its fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair 
 
 14 one, and come away. My dove, nestled in the clefts 
 of the rock, concealed on the summit of the high places, 
 show me thy countenance, make me to hear thy 
 voice ; for thy voice is sweet, and thy countenance is 
 lovely." 
 
 15 Take us those foxes, the little foxes, that ravage 
 the vines, for our vineyard is in blossom. 
 
 16 My beloved is mine, and I am his ... my 
 beloved, who maketh his flock to feed among the 
 
 17 lilies. 1 At the hour when the day shall cool, and the 
 shadows lengthen, return, my beloved, and be thou 
 
 1 The plains of Sharon are, in certain seasons, covered with lilies, like 
 as are our plains with colchicum in autumn. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 113 
 
 like unto a roe or a hind's fawn upon the defied 
 mountains. 
 
 VII 
 
 On my bed by night, I sought him whom my heart in, i 
 loveth : I sought him and I found him not. ... I said 2 
 to myself: " I will arise ; make the circuit of the city ; 
 pass through the market places and the highways, 
 and seek for him whom my heart loveth." I sought 
 for him and I found him not. The watchmen who 3 
 make the round of the city encountered me. I said to 
 them : " Hast thou seen him whom my heart loveth ? " 
 Hardly had I passed from them when I found him 4 
 whom my heart loveth. I laid hold of him, and would 
 not let him go until I had brought him into my 
 mother's house, into the chamber of her that had given 
 me birth. 
 
 I beseech you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the 5 
 gazelles and the hinds of the fields, awake not, awake 
 not my love until it pleases her. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Who is this that ariseth out of the desert, 1 like a 
 pillar of smoke, giving forth the fragrance of myrrh, 
 
 1 That is to say, " who appeareth on the horizon," Jerusalem for a 
 considerable distance being girdled by deserts. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 of frankincense, and of all the powders of the per- 
 fumers ? 
 
 Ill, 7 Behold the palanquin of Solomon. Threescore 
 valiant men from amongst the valiant of Israel 
 
 8 surround it ; these all bear swords and are practised 
 in war ; each hath his sword upon his hip in order 
 to dispel the terrors of the night. 
 
 9 King Solomon had made for himself a couch of 
 
 10 the wood of Lebanon. The posts were of silver, the 
 pilasters of gold, the curtains of purple. In the centre 
 sparkled a beauty chosen from amongst the daughters 
 of Jerusalem. 1 
 
 11 Go forth, O daughters of Sion, and behold King 
 Solomon, wearing the crown wherewith his mother 
 crowned him 2 on the day of his espousals, the day of 
 the gladness of his heart. 
 
 IX. 
 
 1 Of a truth thou art fair, my love ; yea thou art 
 fair. Thy eyes are as doves' eyes, under the folds of 
 thy veil. Thy hair is like a flock of goats, depending 
 from the sides of Gilead. 
 
 2 Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep newly shorn, 
 which have just been w^ashed, each of which bears 
 
 3 twins, and none is barren. Thy lips are like a thread 
 
 1 Au centre brille une belle choisie entre les filles de Jerusalem. 
 
 2 Bathsheba, mother of Solomon, always exercised much authority 
 over him. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 115 
 
 of purple, and thy mouth is charming. Thy cheek is 
 like the one side of a pomegranate behind thy veil. 
 Thy neck l is like the tower of David, builded to IV, 4 
 serve as an armoury, in which are suspended a thou- 
 sand breastplates, and all the bucklers of the valiant. 
 Thy two breasts are like the two twins of a hind, 5 
 which feed among the lilies. When the day shall 6 
 cool, and the shadows lengthen, I will get me to the 
 mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. 
 
 Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no blemish 7 
 in thee. 
 
 Come with me, come with me, my spouse ! Come 8 
 with me from Lebanon : look upon me from the top 
 of Amana, from the summit of Shenir and Hermon, 
 from the depths of the lions' dens, from the tops of 
 the mountains which the leopards inhabit. Thou hast 9 
 ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast 
 ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one of 
 the ringlets which encircle thy neck. How pleasant ic 
 is thy love, my sister, my spouse. How sweet are thy 
 embraces. They are better than wine, and the odour 
 of thy perfumes than all balsams. Thy lips, my n 
 spouse, distil honey ; honey and milk are concealed 
 under thy tongue, and the odour of thy garments is 
 as the odour of Lebanon. My espoused sister is a 12 
 garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed ; 
 a grove where the pomegranate blossoms together is 
 
 1 Because of the necklets which encircle it, and cause it to resemble a 
 tower decked with armour. 
 
116 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 with the most pleasant fruits, camphire with 
 
 IV 14 spikenard, saffron, calamus, cinnamon, with all 
 
 manner of fragrant trees ; myrrh and aloes, with all 
 
 15 manner of sweet-smelling plants ; a fountain in a 
 garden, a spring of living water, a stream which 
 
 16 descends from Lebanon. Awake, north winds, come, 
 south winds, blow upon my garden, that its fragrance 
 may be diffused. 
 
 Let my beloved enter into his garden, and let him 
 taste of its choicest fruits. 
 
 V, 1 I have entered my garden, my sister, my spouse. I 
 have gathered my myrrh and my balsam : I have 
 eaten my sweets and my honey ; I have drunk my 
 wine and my milk. Eat, O friends, drink, drink 
 abundantly, beloved ! 
 
 2 I sleep, but my heart is awake. . . . It is the 
 voice of my well- beloved I 1 He knocketh, saying, 
 " Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my unde- 
 liled, for my head is all covered with dew, -the locks 
 of my hair are all dropping with the night mists. I 
 
 3 have cast off my coat ; wherefore wouldst thou that 
 
 ] The vision of the beloved is identified in everything which follows 
 with the beloved himself, according to a figure much used by the Arab 
 poets, and called Tliaif al Klialal. See Asiatic Journal, April 1838, 
 p. 378, et seq. (Art. de M. de Slane). 
 
THE SONG OF. SONGS. 117 
 
 I put it on again ? I have washed my feet : wherefore 
 should I defile them ? " My beloved now put his hand V, 4 
 through the lattice, and my bosom quivered thereat. I 
 arose to open to my beloved. My hands were found 5 
 to be dropping with myrrh, my fingers with liquid 
 myrrh, which covered the handle of the lock. 1 I opened 
 to my beloved, but my beloved had vanished, he had 6 
 fled. The sound of his voice had bereft me of reason. 
 I issued forth ; I sought for him and found him not ; 
 I called after him, and he answered me not. The 
 watchmen who go about the city encountered me : 7 
 they smote me ; they bruised me ; the keepers of the 
 wall stripped me of my veil. I beseech you, O 8 
 daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell 
 him that I am dying of love. 
 
 In what is thy beloved better (than another), O 
 thou fairest of women ? In what is thy beloved 9 
 better (than another), that thou dost so charge us ? 
 
 My beloved is white and ruddy ; you would tell him 10 
 amongst a thousand. His head is as fine gold ; the 11 
 locks of his hair are as flexible as palm leaves, and as 
 black as a raven. His eyes are as doves' eyes reflected 12 
 in streams of running water, like pigeons bathing 
 themselves in milk, perched on the rim of a full vase. 
 His cheeks are like a bed of balsam, like unto a bank 13 
 of sweet-smelling plants ; his lips are as lilies gush- 
 
 1 At lacrumans exclusus amator limi/na scepa 
 FLoribus et certes operit, posteisgue superbos. 
 Unjuit amaracino. LUCRECE iv. 1173-5. 
 
118 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 v, 14 ing with myrrh ; his hands are as rings of gold en- 
 amelled with stones of Tharsis ; his reins are as a 
 
 15 masterpiece in ivory, overlaid with sapphires ; his legs 
 are as pillars of marble set on pedestals of gold ; his 
 countenance is as Lebanon, beautiful as the cedars. 
 
 16 From his palate is diffused sweetness ; his person is 
 altogether lovely. Such is my beloved, such is my 
 friend, daughters of Jerusalem. 
 
 71, l Whither is thy beloved gone, O fairest among 
 women ? Whither has he turned aside, that we may 
 seek for him with thee ? 
 
 2 My beloved has descended into his garden ; he has 
 reached the beds of balsam, that he may feed his 
 
 3 flock in the gardens, and gather lilies. I am my 
 beloved's, and my beloved is mine. . . . my be- 
 loved, who maketh his flock to feed among the lilies. 
 
 XL 
 
 4 Thou art beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, 1 charming as 
 
 5 Jerusalem ; yet terrible as an army in battle. Turn 
 thine eyes away from me, for they distress me. Thy 
 hair is as a flock of goats, depending from the sides 
 
 6 of Gilead. Thy teeth are like unto a flock of sheep 
 which have just been washed ; each of them bears 
 
 7 twins, none of them is barren. Thy cheek is as one 
 side of a pomegranate under the folds of thy veil. 
 
 1 A city in the north of Palestine, which, from the time of Jeroboam 
 to that of Omri, was the capital of Israel. 
 
THE SONG OF ^SONGS. 119 
 
 There are threescore queens and fourscore con- VI 8 
 cubines, besides young maidens without number. 
 But the jewel is my dove, my undefiled ; she is 9 
 the only one of her mother, the chosen one of her 
 who gave her birth. The young maidens saw her, 
 and proclaimed her blessed ; the queens and the con- 
 cubines saw her, and praised her. 
 
 Who is this whose countenance is as Aurora, fair 10 
 as the moon, clear as the sun, yet terrible as an army 
 in battle ? 
 
 XII. 
 
 I descended into the garden of nuts, to see the 11 
 herbs of the valley, to see whether the vine had 
 budded, whether the pomegranates were in flower. 
 Oh, fatal step! that this caprice should plunge me 12 
 into the midst of the chariots of a prince's train ! 
 
 In mercy, in mercy, Shulammite, 1 in mercy turn vil, l 
 thou, that we may look on thee. 
 
 Why look at the Shulammite, in preference to a 
 Mahanaim 2 dance ? 
 
 How beautiful are thy feet in thy sandals, O 2 
 prince's daughter. The curves of thy thighs are 
 
 1 That is to say, an inhabitant of Shulam, or Shunen, a city of the 
 tribe of Issachar. 
 
 2 An ancient city celebrated for its bayaderes and for the orgiastic 
 cults which were practised there. 
 
120 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 like that of a necklace, the work of a skilled hand. 
 VII, 3 Thy navel is as a round goblet, full of aromatic wine ; 
 
 4 thy belly is as a heap of wheat encircled with lilies ; 
 thy two breasts are as the two twins of a gazelle; 
 
 5 thy neck is as a tower of ivory ; thy eyes are as 
 the fishpools of Heshbon, near the gate Fille de la 
 foule; x thy nose is erect and proud, like the tower 
 of Lebanon, 2 as seen from the side of Damascus. Thy 
 
 6 head is like Carmel ; thy locks are like threads of 
 
 7 purple ; a king is enchained to their boucles. How 
 fair and how pleasant art thou, O my love, in the 
 
 8 moments of embrace ! Thy stature is like unto a 
 
 9 palm tree, and thy breasts unto grapes. I said, I will 
 go up to the palm tree; I will cluster its branches. 
 Thy breasts are to me as clusters of grapes ; thy 
 
 10 breath as the odour of apples ; thy mouth like the 
 most exquisite wine, which droppeth sweetly and 
 .moistens the lips of the eager lover ! 
 
 11 I am my beloved's, and he is mine, therefore it is 
 that his desire is towards me. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 12 Come, my beloved ; let us go forth into the fields, 
 
 13 let us sleep in the village. Let us arise early to go 
 
 1 Bathrabbim, one of the gates of Heshbon. 
 
 2 One of the towers which David had built in the north of Palestine, 
 to serve as a post of observation against the Syrians. (2 Sam. viii. 6.) 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 121 
 
 to the vines ; let us see whether the vine stocks have 
 budded, whether the shoots have opened, whether 
 the pomegranates are in flower. There I will give 
 thee my caresses. The apple of love l gave forth its ' ^ 
 perfume ; at our gate are heaped up the most beauti- 
 ful fruits; new and old, I have guarded them for . 
 thee, O my beloved. ! that thou wert as my VIII - 1 
 brother, who has sucked the breasts of my mother, 
 so that I could, when I should meet you without, 
 embrace thee, and not be despised therefor ! I would 
 lead you, bring you into my mother's house; there 
 thou wouldst instruct me in everything, and I would 
 cause thee to drink of spiced wine, the juice of my 
 pomegranates. 
 
 His left hand sustains my head, and his right 
 embraces me. 
 
 I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, awake 
 not, awake not my well-beloved until it pleases 
 her. 
 
 XIV, 
 
 Who is this that issues from the desert, leaning 
 upon her beloved ? 
 
 I awoke thee under the apple tree. Behold the 
 
 1 Mandrake, or belladonna, to which popular opinion ascribed secret 
 virtues. 
 
122 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 house in which thy mother conceived thee, in which 
 she gave thee birth. 
 
 VIII, 6 Set me now as a seal upon thy heart, as a bracelet 
 about thy arm, for love is strong as death ; passion 
 inflexible as hell. 1 Its brands are the brands of fire 
 its arrows the fire of Jehovah. 2 
 
 7 Great waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot 
 extinguish it. If a man would seek to purchase love 
 at the sacrifice of his whole substance, he would only 
 reap confusion. 
 
 XV. 
 
 8 We have a little sister who has no paps. What 
 shall we do with our sister, the day in which she 
 shall be sought after ? 
 
 9 If she be a wall, 3 let us make her towers of silver; 
 if she be a door, 4 let us make her panels of cedar. 
 
 10 I have been a wall ; my breasts have been my 
 towers ; 6 and this is why I have been allowed by 
 
 11 him 6 to depart in peace. Solomon had a vineyard 
 at Baal-Hamon; 7 he let it out to keepers, each of 
 
 1 Which never relaxes its prey. 
 
 2 That is to say, lightning. 
 
 3 An inaccessible virtue. 
 
 4 A less severe virtue. 
 
 5 That is to say, my virtue has been put to the severest test. 
 
 6 Solomon. 
 
 7 A locality in the north of Palestine. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 123 
 
 whom gave him a thousand pieces for his portion. 
 Behold, my vineyard, in front of me! A thousand 
 pieces for thee, Solomon, and two hundred pieces for 
 the keepers of the vineyard. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Thou fair one who dwellest in this garden, com- 
 panions 1 draw near and lend thine ears; make me 
 to understand thy voice. 
 
 Flee, my beloved, and be like unto a roe or to a 
 hind's fawn upon the mountains of spices. 
 
 1 The young men of the village, paranymphs of the lover. 
 
TRANSLATION 
 
 INTO WHICH IS INTRODUCED THE DIVISIONS AND 
 THE SCENIC EXPLANATIONS. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ACT I 
 
 The scene is supposed to represent Solomon in the midst 
 of his seraglio. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 A LADY OF THE HAREM. 
 
 Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth! . . . 
 
 THE LADIES OF THE HAREM, in cJlOTUS. 
 
 Thy caresses are sweeter than wine, when they are mingled 
 with the fragrance of thy exquisite odours ; thy name is as oil 
 poured out. Hence it is the young maidens love thee. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, 
 
 Led in by force, and addressing herself to an absent friend. 
 
 Draw me after thee : let us flee. The king has brought me 
 into his harem. 
 
 THE LADIES OF THE HAREM, to Solomon. 
 
 Our transports and our delights are for thee alone. Better 
 far are thy caresses than wine. Eight are they in loving thee. 
 
128 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 I am black, but I am comely, O daughters of Jerusalem, 
 like the tents of Kedar, like the pavilions of Solomon ! Despise 
 me not because I am a little black ; because the sun hath 
 scorched me. My mother's sons held me in contempt : they 
 sent me into the fields to keep vineyards. But, alas, mine own 
 vineyard have I indeed badly kept. 1 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, 
 
 Tell me, O thou whom my heart loveth, whither thou leadest 
 thy sheep, where thou makest them repose at noon, so. that I" 
 stray not, as one wandered, around the flocks of thy companions. 
 
 A WOMAN OF THE HAREM. 
 
 If thou knowest not this, O thou fairest of women, get thee 
 again to the footsteps of thy flock, and cause thy kids to pasture 
 beside the shepherds' tents. 
 
 SOLOMON. 
 
 1 have likened thee, O my love, to my young filly, when 
 she is yoked to the chariots sent me by Pharaoh. Thy cheeks 
 are adorned with rows of pearls, thy neck with strings of corals. 
 We will make thee necklaces of gold, pointed with silver. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, alone. 
 
 While the king is in his divan, the spikenard wherewith I 
 am scented sent forth its fragrance. My beloved is to me as a 
 bundle of myrrh : he shall repose betwixt my breasts. My 
 
 1 That is to say, my maiden modesty. She makes allusion to the sur- 
 prise of which she has been a victim. (See Act V., Scene II.) 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 129 
 
 beloved /- to me as a cluster of caraphire, from the vineyards of 
 Enged . 
 
 Solomon enters. 
 
 SOLOMON. 
 
 Yea, thou art fair, my love; yes, thou art fair. Thy eyes 
 are as doves' eyes. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, addressing herself to an absent friend. 
 
 Yea, thou art fair, my beloved; yes, thou art charming. 
 Our bed is a bed of green. 1 
 
 SOLOMON. 
 The beams of our palace are of cedar, our panels of cypress. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, singing. 
 
 I am the rose of Sharon, 
 
 The lily of the valleys 1 2 . . . 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, who enters abruptly on the scene. 
 As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the maidens. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my 
 beloved among the youths. I have longed to sit under his shadow 
 and his fruit is sweet to my taste. 
 
 The two lovers are reunited. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 He brought me into his wine house, and the banner he 
 
 1 She recalls the time when she was in the village. 
 
 2 The Shulammite sings this couplet, which, probably, was a part of a 
 popular song, in order to reassure her lover of her fidelity, and to reveal 
 to him her presence. (See above, Act II., Scene II.). 
 
 I 
 
130 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 raised over me was love. (To the chorus.) Stay me with grapes, 
 fortify me with fruits, for I am dying of love. . . . 
 
 She falls in a faint into the arms of her lover, and says, 
 in a low voice : 
 
 His left hand sustains my head, and his right embraces me. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, with the choTUS. 
 
 I beseech you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles 
 and the hinds of the fields, awake not, awake not my beloved 
 until it pleases her. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, alone, and as if in a dream. 
 
 It is the voice of my beloved ; behold he coineth bounding 
 upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills. My beloved 
 is like to a roe or a hind's fawn. Behold him who standeth 
 behind the wall, who looketh forth of the window, who peepeth 
 through the lattice. He said unto me, '"Arise, my love, my fair 
 one, and come away. For behold the winter is ended, the rain 
 is past, it has gone. The flowers begin to appear on the earth. 
 The time of the singing [of birds] is at hand. The voice of the 
 turtle has been heard in our fields ; the tender shoots of the 
 fig tree begin to ripen ; the vine is in bloom, and exhales its 
 fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. My 
 dove, nestled in the clefts of the rock, concealed on the summit 
 of the high places, show me thy countenance, make me to hear 
 thv voice ; for thy voice is sweet, and thy countenance is lovely." 
 
 (She sings.) 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 131 
 
 Take us those foxes, those little foxes 
 
 That ravage the vines ; 
 For our vineyard is in blossom. 1 
 
 My beloved is mine, and I am his . . . my beloved, 
 who maketh his flock to feed among the lilies. . . . At 
 the hour when the day shall cool, and when the shadows 
 lengthen return, my beloved, and be thou like unto a roe or a 
 hind's fawn upon the clef ted mountains. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 On my bed by night, I sought him whom my heart loveth ; 
 I sought him, and I found him not. ... I said to myself : 
 " I will arise ; make the circuit of the city ; pass through the 
 market places and the highways, and seek for him whom my 
 heart loveth." I sought for him and I found him not. The 
 watchmen who make the round of the city encountered me. I 
 said to them : " Hast thou seen him whom my heart loveth ? " 
 Hardly had I passed from them when I found him whom my 
 heart loveth. I laid hold of him, and would not let him go 
 until I had brought him into my mother's house, into the 
 chamber of her that had given me birth. 
 
 The two lovers are reunited ; the shepherdess swoons away 
 in the arms of her lover. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, With the cJlOTUS. 
 
 I beseech you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and 
 the hinds of the fields, awake not, awake not my love until it 
 pleases her. 
 
 1 She sings a spring lyric, which her beloved must recognise. (Com- 
 pare Act I., Scene in., above). 
 
1 32 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 ACT III 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The scene takes place in the streets of Jerusalem. 
 
 CHORUS OF MEN, composed of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 
 
 The cortege of Solomon begins to appear in the distance. 
 
 Who is this that ariseth out of the desert like a pillar of 
 smoke, giving forth the fragrance of myrrh, of frankincense, 
 and of all the powders of the perfumers ? 
 
 The cortege defiles past. 
 
 FIRST CITIZEN. 
 
 Behold the palanquin of Solomon. Threescore valiant men 
 from amongst the valiant of Israel surround it ; these all bear 
 swords, and are practised in war ; each hath his sword upon his 
 hip in order to dispel the terrors of the night. 
 
 SECOND CITIZEN. 
 
 King Solomon made for himself a couch of the wood of 
 Lebanon. The posts were of silver, the pilasters of gold, the 
 curtains of purple. In the centre sparkled a beauty chosen from 
 amongst the daughters of Jerusalem. 
 
 THE CHORUS OF MEN, addressing the women who are supposed 
 to be concealed in their 
 
 Go forth, O daughters of Sion, and behold King Solomon, 
 wearing the crown wherewith his mother crowned him on the 
 day of his espousals, the day of the gladness of his heart, 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 133 
 
 SCENE II. 
 The scene takes place in the harem. 
 
 Of a truth, thou art fair, my love : yea, thou art fair ! 
 Thy eyes are as doves' eyes, under the folds of thy veil. Thy 
 hair is like a flock of goats, depending from the sides of Gilead. 
 Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep, newly shorn, which have 
 just been washed, each of which bears twins, and none is 
 barren. Thy lips are like a thread of purple, and thy mouth 
 is charming. Thy cheek is like the one side of a pomegranate 
 behind thy veil. Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded 
 to serve as an armoury, in which are suspended a thousand 
 breast-plates, and all the bucklers of the valiant. Thy two 
 breasts are like the two twins of a hind, which feed among the 
 lilies. When the day shall cool, and the shadows lengthen, I will 
 get me to the mountains of myrrh and to the hills of frankin- 
 cense. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 The evening. 
 
 SOLOMON. 
 Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no blemish in thee. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, 
 
 Supposed to be at the bottom of the seraglio. 
 
 Come with me, come with me, my spouse ! come with me 
 from Lebanon. 1 Look upon me from the top of Arnana, from 
 the summits of Shenir and Hermon, from the depths of the 
 lions' den, from the top of the mountains which the leopards 
 inhabit. 
 
 (She sees him.} 
 
 Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou 
 hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one of the 
 ringlets which encircle thy neck. How pleasant is thy love 
 
 1 Lebanon, and the imagery which follows, represent, in ambiguous; 
 terms, the inaccessible heights of the palace, and the dangers which 
 menace the chastity of his beloved. 
 
134 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 my sister, my spouse ! How sweet are thy embraces. They 
 are better than wine, and the odour of thy perfumes better 
 than all balsams. Thy lips, my spouse, distil honey ; honey 
 and milk are concealed under thy tongue, and the odour of thy 
 garments is as the odour of Lebanon. My espoused sister is 
 a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed ; ] a 
 grove where the pomegranate blossoms together with the most 
 pleasant fruits ; camphire with spikenard, spikenard, saffron, 
 calamus, cinnamon, with all manner of fragrant trees ; myrrh 
 and aloes, with all manner of sweet-smelling plants ; a fountain 
 in a garden, a spring of living water, a stream which descends 
 from Lebanon. Awake, north winds, come south winds ; blow 
 upon my garden that its fragrance may be diffused. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 Let my beloved enter his garden, and let him taste of its 
 choicest fruits. 
 
 She gives him a kiss. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD. 
 
 I have entered my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have 
 gathered my myrrh and my balsam. I have eaten my sweet 
 and my honey. I have drunk my wine and my milk. (To the 
 Chorus.) Eat, O friends ; drink, drink abundantly, O beloved. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 A SINGLE SCENE. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, alone. 
 
 I sleep, but my heart is awake. . . . It is the voice of 
 my well-beloved ! He knocketh, saying " Open to me, my 
 sister, my love, my dove, my undented, for my head is all 
 covered with dew, the locks of my hair are all dropping with 
 the night mists." " I have cast off my coat, wherefore wouldst 
 thou that I put it on again ? I have washed my feet ; where- 
 
 1 He is reassured of her fidelity. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 135 
 
 fore should I defile them ? " My beloved now put his hand 
 through the lattice, and my bosom quivered thereat. I arose 
 to open to my beloved ; my hands were found to be dropping 
 with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, which covered the 
 handle of the lock. 1 I opened to my beloved, but my beloved 
 had vanished ; he had fled. The sound of his voice had bereft 
 me of reason. I issued forth, I sought for him, and found him 
 not. I called after him, and he answered me not. The watch- 
 men who go about the city encountered me ; they smote me ; 
 they bruised me ; the keepers of the wall stripped me of my 
 veil. (To the chorus of women.} I beseech you, O daughters of 
 Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am dying of 
 love, 
 
 THE CHORUS OF WOMEN. 
 
 In what is thy beloved better (than another), O thou fairest 
 of women ? In what is thy beloved better (than another), 
 that thou dost so charge us ? 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 My beloved is white and ruddy ; you would tell him 
 amongst a thousand. His head is as fine gold ; the locks of 
 his hair are as flexible as palm leaves, and as black as a raven. 
 His eyes are as doves' eyes, reflected in streams of running water, 
 like pigeons bathing themselves in milk, perched on the brim of 
 a full vase. His cheeks are like a bed of balsam, like unto a 
 bank of sweet-smelling plants ; his lips are as lilies gushing of 
 myrrh ; his hands are as rings of gold, enamelled with stones 
 of Tharsis ; his_ reins are as a masterpiece in ivory, overlaid 
 with sapphires ; his legs are as pillars of marble, set on 
 pedestals of gold ; his countenance is as Lebanon, beautiful as 
 the cedars. From his palate is diffused sweetness ; his person 
 is altogether lovely. Such is my beloved, such is my friend, O 
 daughters of Jerusalem. 
 
 THE CHORUS. 
 
 Whither is thy beloved gone, fairest among women? 
 Whither has he turned aside that we may seek him with thee ? 
 
 (The two lovers find one another.) 
 
 1 The shepherd is sxipposed to respond by a frolic to the frolic of his 
 beloved. 
 
136 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 My beloved has descended into his garden ; he has reached 
 the beds of balsam, that he may feed his flock in the gardens, 
 and gather lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. 
 
 . . My beloved, who maketh his flock to feed among the 
 lilies. 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The scene takes place in the harem. 
 SOLOMON. 
 
 Thou art beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, 1 charming as 
 Jerusalem ; yet terrible as an army in battle. Turn thine 
 eyes away from me, for they distress me. Thy hair is as a 
 flock of goats, depending from the sides of Gilead. Thy teeth 
 are like unto a flock of sheep, which have just been washed ; 
 each of them bears twins, none of them is barren. Thy cheek 
 is as a piece of pomegranate under the folds of thy veil. . . . 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, from the outside. 
 
 There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, 
 besides young maidens without number. But the jewel is 
 my dove, my undefiled ; she is the only one of her mother, 
 the chosen one of her who gave her birth. The young saw 
 her, and proclaimed her blessed ; the queens and the concu- 
 bines saw her and praised her. 
 
 1 The Shulammite, faithful to her lover, responds only to the caresses 
 of Solomon with defiant louks. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 137 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 THE CHORUS. 
 
 Who is this whose countenance is as Aurora, fair as the 
 moon, clear as the sun, yet terrible as an army in battle ? ] 
 
 THE SHULAMMITB, aside, and turning her 'back on the ladies 
 of the harem. 
 
 1 descended into the garden of nuts, to see the herbs of the 
 valley, to see whether the vine had budded, whether the pome- 
 granates were in flower. O fatal step ! that this caprice should 
 plunge me into the midst of the chariots of a prince's train ! 2 
 
 THE WOMEN OF THE HAREM. 
 
 In mercy, in mercy, O Shulammite, in mercy turn thou, that 
 we may look on thee. 
 
 A DANSEUSE OF THE HAREM. 
 
 Why look at the Shulammite, in preference to a Mahanaiim 
 dance ? * 3 
 
 (She dances.) 
 
 SOLOMON. 
 
 How beautiful are thy feet in thy sandals, O prince's 
 daughter. The curves of thy thighs are like that of a neck- 
 lace, the work of a skilled hand. Thy navel is as a round 
 goblet, full of aromatic wine ; thy belly is as a heap of wheat 
 encircled with lilies ; thy two breasts are as the two twins of 
 a gazelle ; thy neck is as a tower of ivory ; thy eyes are as the 
 fish pools of Heshbon, near the gate Fille de la foide ; thy nose 
 is erect and proud, like the tower of Lebanon, as seen from 
 the side of Damascus. Thy head is like Carmel ; thy looks are 
 like threads of purple ; a king is enchained to their bouctes. 
 
 . ' The chorus is astonished at the defiant looks of the peasant girl. 
 
 2 She tells of the manner in which she was surprised, during a morn- 
 ing walk by Solomon's servants. 
 
 3 The danseuse is jealous, because of the effect which the beauty of 
 the peasant girl has produced, and seeks to draw the attention of the 
 seraglio away from her. 
 
13S THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 How fair and how pleasant art thou, O my love, in the 
 moments of embrace ! Thy stature is like unto a palm tree, 
 and thy breasts unto grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm 
 tree ; I will cluster its branches. Thy breasts are to me as 
 clusters of grapes ; thy breath as the odour of apples ; thy 
 mouth is like the most exquisite wine, which droppeth sweetly, 
 and moistens the lips of the eager lover! 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, persisting in her isolation. 
 
 I am my beloved's, and he is mine, therefore it is that his 
 desire is towards me. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, running towards her lover. 
 
 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, let us sleep 
 in the village. Let us arise early to go to the vines ; let us see 
 whether the vine stocks have budded, whether the shoots have 
 opened, whether the pomegranates are in flower. There I will 
 give thee my caresses. The apple of love gave forth its per- 
 fume ; at our gate are heaped up the most beautiful fruits ; new 
 and old, I have guarded them for thee, O my beloved ! O I 
 that thou wert as my brother, who has sucked the breasts of 
 my mother, so that I could, when I should meet you without, 
 embrace thee, and not be despised therefor ! I would lead you, 
 bring you into my mother's house ; there thou wouldst instruct 
 me in everything, and I would cause thee to drink of spiced 
 wine, the juice of my pomegranates. 
 
 She swoons, and says in a low voice : 
 His left hand sustains my head, and his right embraces me. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, With the 
 
 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, awake not, awake 
 not my beloved until it pleases her. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 139 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The journey from Jerusalem to the village is supposed 
 to be effected. 
 
 THE CHORUS, at the sight of the Shulammite, being carried away 
 asleep by her lover. 
 
 Who is this that issues from the desert, leaning upon her 
 beloved ? 
 
 The lovers are supposed to have reached the village. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD. 
 
 He disposes his beloved under the apple tree of her mother's 
 house, and awakens her. 
 
 I awoke thee under the apple tree. Behold the house in 
 which thy mother conceived thee, in which she gave thee birth. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 Set me now as a seal upon thy heart, as a bracelet about 
 thy arm, for love is strong as death ; passion inflexible as hell. 
 Its brands are the brands of fire, its arrows the fire of Jehovah. 
 
 A SAGE, who appears to draw a moral from the poem. 
 
 Great waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot extinguish 
 it. If a man would seek to purchase love at the sacrifice of his 
 whole substance, he would only reap confusion. 
 
140 THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 The scene takes place at Shnlam, in a pavilion at the 
 bottom of the garden. 
 
 ONE OF THE BROTHERS OF THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 They do not know of her abduction and her return. 
 
 We have a little sister who has no paps. What shall we do 
 with our sister the day in which she shall be sought after ? 
 
 ANOTHER BROTHER. 
 
 If she be a wall, let us make her towers of silver ; if she be 
 a loor, let us make her panels of cedar. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE, intervening abruptly. 
 
 I have been a wall ; mv breasts have been my towers ; and 
 this is why I have been allowed by him l to depart in peace. 
 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon ; he let it out to 
 keepers, each of whom gave him a thousand pieces for his 
 portion. Behold, my vineyard is in front of me. 2 A thousand 
 pieces for thee, Solomon, and two hundred pieces for the keepers 
 of the vineyard. 3 
 
 THE SHEPHERD, 
 
 At the bottom of the pavilion, where he is waiting with his 
 paranymphes. 
 
 Thou fair one who dwellest in this garden, companions draw 
 near, and lend thine ears ; make me to understand thy voice. 
 
 THE SHULAMMITE. 
 
 Flee, my beloved, and be like unto a roe or to a hind's fawn 
 upon the mountains of spices. 
 
 1 Solomon. 
 
 2 That is to say, I have known by myself how to guard my vineyard. 
 
 3 A piece of irony directed against Solomon and her brothers, who have 
 so badly guarded her. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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