Three Thousand y 3 Ago 
 
 GOODWIN 
 
vA 
 
 * 
 
 K 
 
 
LOVERS THREE THOUSAND 
 YEARS AGO 
 
LOVERS 
 
 THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO 
 
 AS INDICATED BY 
 
 THE SONG OF SOLOMON 
 
 REV. T A. GOODWIN, D. D. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 1895 
 
copyright by 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 
 chicago, ill., 1895. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE author of this little book does not claim to have just dis- 
 covered that the Song of Solomon is a love-story in verse. 
 That was suggested by Bible-scholars many years ago, and it has 
 been very generally accepted by the scholarship of to-day. But in 
 all the literature upon the subject, whether in the form of mono- 
 graphs, or of articles in magazines, or reviews, or encyclopaedias, 
 there is not found a single presentation of it in a form which would 
 allow it to be read in its real character. These discussions are all 
 in the form of critical expositions of the text, so that in most of 
 them the text appears only in fragments. The plan of this book is 
 to eliminate all textual criticism and to restore the text to the form 
 which made the poem a treasure with the ancient Hebrews, and 
 which, when thus read, will make it as dear to every true lover to- 
 day as it was when first read and recited three thousand years ago. 
 
 £ 
 * 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Historical Import of the Poem i 
 
 The Character of the Poem n 
 
 The Song of Songs 21 
 
THE HISTORICAL IMPORT OF THE 
 POEM. 
 
 r I a O THE common reader of the Bible, and little less 
 ■*■ to the careful Bible student, the book known as 
 the Song of Solomon is a perpetual enigma. Not seem- 
 ing to meet any of the supposed purposes for which 
 the Bible was written, many good men, including 
 many whose business it is to teach Bible truth, seldom 
 if ever read it as they read other Scriptures, and not a 
 few hold that its incorporation into the sacred canon 
 is somebody's blunder. It is not difficult to account 
 for this, when we call to mind the once prevailing 
 opinion of what the Bible is and what it is for. Being 
 found in that collection of histories and prophecies 
 and songs, which by the way of pre-eminence we call 
 the Bible, and which is held sacred by devout and 
 learned Christians and Hebrews as the repository of 
 correct doctrine and of safe rules of conduct ; and 
 seeming to contain nothing that may be regarded as 
 either doctrinal or didactic, Bible students as well as 
 the common Bible reader have been put to their wits' 
 end to find a place for it. 
 
2 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 During the Middle Ages the dogma of the plenary 
 inspiration of the Scriptures was promulgated with 
 such pertinacity, that long after the Bible became the 
 property of the common people this figment held a 
 place in their thoughts. Even as late as the days of 
 King James this was the case to such an extent that the 
 translators whom he had chosen to prepare an author- 
 ised version so rendered Paul's language to Timothy 
 as to read, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
 God." This practically settled the question with the 
 common reader, so that the Song of Solomon and the 
 Book of Ruth were placed on a level with the proph- 
 ecies of Isaiah and Daniel and the writings of Moses 
 and of David, as being designed to teach doctrine or to 
 administer reproof, or to instruct in right living. 
 
 All down the ages following, individual scholars 
 protested against this rendering, but their protests 
 went unheeded, as unworthy of acceptance in the face 
 of the opinion of the learned commission of the king, 
 who, in the popular thought, were little if any less in- 
 spired than the sacred writers themselves. This com- 
 pelled Bible scholars to adapt the "Song" to the 
 general purpose of inspired Scripture, so that it might 
 be profitable in some way "for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, and for instruction in righteousness." 
 
 One can hardly review with complacency the many 
 schemes of Bible teachers to bring this book into line 
 with Isaiah and Daniel and the Psalms, so that with 
 them and other inspired books it may refer to the Mes- 
 
THE HISTORICAL IMPORT OF THE POEM. 3 
 
 siah, and may instruct the Church in things spiritual. 
 By some it has been regarded as an allegory, by oth- 
 ers a parable, whose hidden meaning might be guessed 
 at, if not comprehended. In keeping with this thought 
 almost from the first edition of the authorised version, 
 the editors of the several editions have seemed to vie 
 with each other in ingenious suggestions as to the sig- 
 nification of this or that sentence or paragraph ; and 
 preachers, from the unlearned rustic, in ministering to 
 his uneducated and emotional flock, to the profound 
 doctor of divinity in his city pulpit, preaching to men 
 of culture, have found spiritual "instruction" in such 
 passages as " I have put off my coat, how can I put it 
 on?" "Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep." "The 
 head upon thee is like Carmel." "We have a little 
 sister and she hath no breasts." 
 
 The sermons may all have been good enough and 
 may have conveyed important lessons to the hearers, 
 but they might have been " founded " as well upon 
 some passage in Milton or Shakespeare or Dante as 
 upon these. Not the least objectionable use of this 
 Song, or parts of it, is that made by hymn-writers. 
 Who can enumerate the hymns that find their chief 
 attraction in poetic changes upon the Rose of Sharon, 
 the Lily of the Valley, the Turtle Dove, the One Alto- 
 gether Lovely, or some other similar phrase in this 
 book? If all the hymns which are inspired by some 
 passage from the Song of Solomon were expurgated 
 from some collections of hymns there would be little 
 
4 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 left worth singing. Many of them are beautiful, but 
 their beauty does not consist in the thought of the text 
 as it stands in its proper meaning. 
 
 It is positively ludicrous, if the following exposi- 
 tion of the Song be the correct one, to read the head- 
 ings of the chapters and the running titles in our com- 
 mon family Bibles, which are intended to give a clue 
 to the meaning of the text. They run thus: "The 
 Church's love for Christ," "She confesseth her de- 
 formity," "Christ directs her to the Shepherd's tent, 
 and showeth His love to her," "Having a taste of 
 Christ's love, is sick of love," and so on, calling the 
 lover's passionate description of his affianced, "Christ 
 showing the graces of the Church, and His love towards 
 her," though elsewhere they have the Church confess- 
 ing her deformity. 
 
 It is plain that any intelligent exposition of this 
 book, or, for that matter, of any part of the sacred 
 Scriptures, must be along the line which repudiates 
 the figment of Plenary Inspiration, at whose doors 
 most, if not all, the obscurity which envelops this 
 Song of Solomon lies, as well as do many indefensi- 
 ble dogmas, which have the same paternity. Not only 
 does the Bible nowhere make such a claim for itself, 
 but the structure of the book as a whole, and of its 
 contents taken separately, are evidences against the 
 assumption. 
 
 The advent of the revised version, the product of 
 a ripe scholarship that cannot be gainsaid, has greatly 
 
THE HISTORICAL IMPORT OF THE POEM. 5 
 
 aided in the proper understanding of this Song, as well 
 as of many other parts of our sacred Scriptures. There 
 is a far-reaching difference between "All Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God," as the authorised ver- 
 sion has it, and "Every Scripture, inspired of God," 
 as it appears in the revised version. The scope of 
 this treatise does not require the elaboration of this 
 difference. It is sufficient for its purpose to state that 
 the plain inference is that Paul and the Jews of his 
 period, and of course the Christians also, held that 
 some portions of the sacred writings, as they then pos- 
 sessed them, were not so inspired as to be specially 
 printable for doctrine or for reproof, or for instruction 
 in righteousness. 
 
 The assumption that Solomon was himself the 
 author of the Song has very little to sustain it. That 
 it is called the Song of Solomon, or the Song of Songs, 
 which is Solomon's, proves nothing. He could not 
 have written it, unless the remorse which possessed 
 him towards the close of his misspent life, and which 
 led him to pronounce that life a failure, implied more 
 than remorse usually does. The author was not even 
 a friend of Solomon's. The whole poem is a scathing 
 rebuke to all his social and domestic methods. It is 
 quite as likely to be the product of some man or wo- 
 man a hundred years or more later than Solomon's 
 time, and more likely to be that of a woman than of a 
 man, judging from the tender pathos of many portions 
 of the poem which very few men could exhibit. The 
 
6 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 author, whether male or female, whether living near 
 Solomon's time or much later, gave birth to this un- 
 dying poem and then died leaving nothing else worth 
 preserving, not even a name. 
 
 It was probably founded upon some fact in the life 
 of that lecherous king, which had been transmitted 
 through generations by authentic history or by tradi- 
 tion or both, out of which the gifted poet built this 
 most admirable production as Longfellow built his 
 Miles Standish out of the traditions and history of the 
 early pilgrim fathers. Its being called the Song of 
 Solomon no more proves or even suggests that Solo- 
 mon was its author than will the Song of Hiawatha 
 prove or suggest three thousand years hence that Hia- 
 watha was the author of the poem which this genera- 
 tion knows was written by another. 
 
 Neither is it difficult to account for its place in the 
 sacred canon. Books in those days were few and only 
 those that struck the popular heart had the distinc- 
 tion of a reproduction through the expensive process 
 of being copied by hand ; hence few ever reached the 
 second edition, much less a general circulation through 
 multiplied copies, so as to be preserved through suc- 
 ceeding ages. 
 
 When Ezra and Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem 
 after the long captivity in Babylon their first duty was 
 of course to provide for immediate physical wants ; 
 hence they addressed themselves heroically to the re- 
 building of the temple and the reconstruction of the 
 
THE HISTORICAL IMPORT OF THE POEM. J 
 
 walls of Jerusalem. When this had been done they 
 found another work of not less piety and patriotism, 
 though so much less ostentatious as hardly to find 
 mention in the annals of the Hebrew people. When 
 they and those who followed them looked around they 
 found that most of the literature of their nation had 
 been "lost by reason of the war." To recover this as 
 much as possible seems to have been a chief aim of 
 Nehemiah, hence he set about "founding a library, 
 gathering together the acts of the kings and the writ- 
 ings of the prophets, and of David and the epistles of 
 the kings" (2 Mace, 2, 13). 
 
 It needed not to be specifically mentioned by the 
 historian of that period that this lover of the litera- 
 ture of the fathers included other songs than the songs 
 of David, for others are included in the collection of 
 pious songs called the Psalms. In their quest they 
 fouad among other books this poem, and it, too, was 
 incorporated into the national library, and thus it was 
 preserved through the succeeding ages, and thus it 
 has come down to us. 
 
 It had then been preserved through probably not 
 less than four hundred years in manuscript alone, and 
 had probably been recited during all those years of 
 tribulation, in which, according to the prophet, the 
 nation had been "scattered and peeled and meeted 
 out and trodden down." From the Assyrian captivity 
 ten of the tribes never returned sufficiently organised 
 to retain their tribeship. Finding this book thus pre- 
 
 v 
 
8 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 served they gave it a place in their collection and thus 
 it became a part of the Sacred Writings. And no won- 
 der. It had vindicated its right to immortality. When 
 read or recited as the Hebrew people read and recited 
 it, before it had been allegorised out of all significance, 
 it could not fail to interest every true heart. It de- 
 lineates the triumph of true love over all the allure- 
 ments of wealth and lust in such a manner as to strike 
 all pure men and women as above praise. 
 
 It was never claimed by those compilers or for 
 them by others until long after the coming of Christ 
 that all these books were inspired in the sense inspira- 
 tion is used in modern theological discourse. It was 
 only a collection of history and prophecy and song. It 
 was the beginning of a public library which was by no 
 means completed during the lives of its founders, but 
 was continued through succeeding generations by the 
 Great Synagogue. At no time was it claimed for this 
 collection as a whole that it had such divine sanction 
 that whatever it contained should have the authority 
 of a "Thus saith the Lord." 
 
 In the time of the Maccabees this library was to be 
 "read with favor and attention " (Prologue to Eccle- 
 siasticus), and we have no record that as a whole at 
 any time down to and including the times of Christ it 
 had any other sacredness than that veneration which 
 is due to any collection of ancient writings. Hence 
 the significance of Paul's distinction in his letter to 
 Timothy, between the Scriptures which were given by 
 
THE HISTORICAL IMPORT OF THE POEM. g 
 
 inspiration and those that make no claim to that origin, 
 when speaking of what is profitable for doctrines and 
 reproof and instruction which is in righteousness. 
 
 It matters nothing one way or the other that neither 
 Christ nor any of his disciples ever quoted from this 
 book, so far as the meagre records of their sayings 
 show; for many other books of Ezra's canon are in the 
 same category and some of these books are of much 
 historic importance. It is much more significant as 
 relating to the question cf inspiration that they quoted 
 from books then in common use, no copy of which has 
 come down to us, among our Sacred Writings. No book 
 is extant which details the contention between Moses 
 and Jannes and Jambres, nor have we any part of the 
 Prophecy of Enoch from which Jude quoted as some- 
 thing with which the people of his time were familiar. 
 It is even more significant in relation to the plenary 
 inspiration of the sacred writings of apostolic times 
 that when Christ opened the understanding of his two 
 disciples who met him on their way to Emmaus, that 
 they might understand the Scriptures that he quoted 
 only from "the law of Moses and the Prophets and 
 the Psalms." 
 
 That such a book should be placed in the "Library" 
 of Ezra and Nehemiah and be preserved in it through 
 succeeding centuries is no wonder. Neither is it any 
 wonder that centuries later, when the Christian fathers 
 were compiling their collection "to set forth in order 
 the things which we believe," this thrilling book should 
 
IO LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 be retained, though not conspicuously adapted to doc- 
 trine, or reproof, or instruction. The Bible as a light 
 to human feet along every pathway of life would be 
 incomplete without it. We have the personification 
 of faith in the story of Abraham ; of patience, in the 
 story of Job ; of filial love, in the story of Ruth ; of en- 
 durance, in the story of Moses ; and here we have a 
 photograph of ardent conjugal love, the most holy 
 sentiment of humanity, in the story of a humble shep- 
 herdess and her equally humble and faithful lover ; a 
 constant rebuke to that pietism which teaches that 
 ardent conjugal love is only a sensual passion which 
 must be foresworn or tethered if one would attain the 
 highest type of moral character — a most detestable 
 heresy. 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 
 
 r I A HE true place in literature for this Song of Songs 
 ■*" is that of a Love Story in verse. To call it a drama 
 is hardly to classify it intelligibly to popular thought, 
 yet it partakes of most of the elements of a drama, and 
 is more of a drama than anything else. It certainly 
 belongs to the drama family. If it were allowable to 
 build a word out of recognised material at hand, I 
 would call it a drama-et. While it lacks the scenic 
 touches which are necessary to adapt it to the stage, 
 yet when read or rendered even in the less pretentious 
 form of a dialogue it is necessary to change time and 
 place and the dramatis persona, in order to catch its 
 significance. 
 
 In the following rendering I have followed in the 
 main the text of the revised version as bringing out 
 more nearly the meaning of the original, and because 
 the metrical arrangement is more suggestive of poetry. 
 But in comparing even this with the original the Bible 
 student feels at every step, as he feels a thousand 
 times elsewhere in such a comparison, that the revi- 
 sers were too much handicapped by a well-meant 
 
12 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 agreement at the start, to retain the phraseology of 
 the authorised version wherever possible without too 
 much injury to the sense of the original. Here as else- 
 where they have confessedly often failed to give the 
 best possible rendering, perpetuating thereby not a 
 few incorrect notions if not also in some cases some 
 doubtful doctrines. 
 
 While therefore scholars readily recognise many 
 changes for the better in the rendering of this Song by 
 the revisers, they also detect not a few instances where 
 the meaning might have been greatly improved by a 
 departure from the old phraseology. Take, for ex- 
 ample, Chapter 7, verse 2, in the Song. It is not a 
 matter of delicacy merely which induces me to substi- 
 tute the word waist for the word navel, and the word 
 body for the word belly. There is nothing in the navel 
 alone to suggest a round goblet full of wine, while, by 
 the aid of a little poetic fancy, the waist may suggest 
 it. Neither is there anything in the belly alone, as 
 that word is now used by all English speaking peo- 
 ples, to suggest a heap of wheat encircled with lilies, 
 while a well-formed body, as that word is now used to 
 include the central and principal parts of the human 
 frame, may easily suggest the figure used. These 
 several words in the original mean what the transla- 
 tors have given as their English equivalents, but they 
 mean also waist and body respectively. I am sure that 
 the reader will appreciate the change. 
 
 Again, the Hebrew text can never be translated 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. I 3 
 
 into our language literally so as to be intelligible. For 
 that matter no dead language can, and very few living 
 languages; hence in all translations explanatory words 
 are frequently used of necessity. In the following 
 rendering I have availed myself of this necessary pre- 
 rogative, supplying adverbs and prepositions and other 
 words that seem necessary to bring out the meaning 
 of the original by making the text correspond with the 
 idiom of the English language. For example at Chap- 
 ter 2, verse 6, the heroine is made to say both in the 
 old and in the new versions : " His left hand is under 
 my head and his right hand doth embrace me. " There 
 is no verb in the original from which our is can be ob- 
 tained and the tense of the verb to be supplied can as 
 well be in the future as in the present; besides, it avoids 
 a false statement not justifiable even by poetic licence, 
 for as a matter of fact no left hand was under her head 
 nor was any right hand embracing her. But even this 
 change of tense still leaves the meaning obscure, or 
 rather leaves the sentence meaningless. The shep- 
 herdess is protesting against the caresses of the lecher- 
 ous Solomon and saying of her shepherd lover: "Only 
 his left hand shall sustain my head and only his right 
 hand shall embrace me;" meaning that none but her 
 virtuous Shulammite shepherd shall be allowed the 
 liberties of a lover ; hence, in addition to changing 
 the tense I have supplied the necessary adverb. 
 
 In all cases I have omitted such distinctive marks 
 as italics and quotations. The curious reader may 
 
14 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 easily compare the text here given with the text of the 
 revised version if he wishes to see how far and wherein 
 I have departed from it ; while the scholarly reader 
 may compare it with the original Hebrew if he wishes 
 to see what liberties I have taken in order to bring out 
 the meaning of the poem. I have also wholly ignored 
 the artificial chaptering and versing of the text. In 
 no other way can the connexion be preserved which 
 is necessary to a right understanding of the book. 
 
 It will be observed that I have not followed the 
 suggestions of those who would dignify the poem by 
 making it a drama and introducing acts and scenes ac- 
 cordingly. To so construe it involves too many diffi- 
 culties. One of these is so great that no two of those 
 who have attempted to divide it into acts have ever 
 agreed where one act ends and another begins, neither 
 can they agree as to the dramatis persona. I have sim- 
 ply sought to restore it to its original form as nearly as 
 that can be ascertained after the lapse of so many cen- 
 turies, as it was read or recited by the common people, 
 three thousand years ago, whether they were captives 
 by the rivers of Babylon or of Assyria, or were slaves 
 on the banks of their own Jordan, with only such 
 equipments as might be improvised for the occasion, 
 by slaves and captives. Classifying it with the unpre- 
 tentious dialogue places it within the reach of the com- 
 mon people, who could read or recite it without the 
 expensive paraphernalia of the theatre. 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 1 5 
 
 The scene opens in the gorgeous country seat of 
 the wealthy and dissipated King Solomon, where were 
 houses and vineyards and orchards and gardens, with 
 much silver and gold and cattle and men servants and 
 women servants and all the peculiar wealth of kings, 
 including many women and much wine. It was early 
 in the reign of that famous monarch. His harem at 
 that time had only sixty women who posed as wives, 
 and only eighty who were classed as concubines, what- 
 ever the difference between them may have been. La- 
 ter these were increased to seven hundred wives and 
 three hundred concubines. It was in the process of 
 multiplying these wives that the incidents of the story 
 belong. 
 
 The heroine of the story is a beautiful sun-burnt 
 maiden, who had been brought from her country-home 
 in Northern Palestine to this accumulation of splendors. 
 To assume, as some do, that she had been captured 
 by a band of brigands and taken by force to the king's 
 harem, is to do violence to every known law of human 
 nature. Unwilling captives would soon transform a 
 harem into a hell from which the would-be lord would 
 flee for dear life. Not one of the possible pleasures 
 of such an accumulation of the means of sensual en- 
 joyments could be found there. Solomon was too 
 wise even in his most abandoned moods to do such 
 violence to every law of lust. The harem was not a 
 prison for unwilling captives, to be obtained or re- 
 tained by force, but a place with such attractions as 
 
l6 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 to make it a desirable home as compared with the or- 
 dinary home-life of the women of Palestine at that 
 time. We must not form our estimate of the lot of a 
 second or a second-hundredth wife of that period by 
 our views of polygamy to-day. Frequent and devas- 
 tating wars made the disparity in numbers between 
 males and females very great, and the honor of moth- 
 erhood removed from a multiplicity of wives most of 
 what now makes polygamy abhorrent. 
 
 The harem was replenished through the agency of 
 procurers, whose business it was to travel through the 
 country and induce handsome women to become in- 
 mates. Human nature is not so changed in these 
 three thousand years that we need suppose that the 
 methods of these procurers were essentially different 
 from the methods of men and women of their class to- 
 day. Possibly in no case was their purpose fully dis- 
 closed at the first. The hard lot of women, especially 
 in the rural districts, made it easy then, as it is too 
 easy now, for a plausible man or woman to persuade 
 young women to exchange their country surroundings 
 and hard work for the easier lot of an inmate of a 
 king's palace. Once there, under whatever induce- 
 ment, they were put into the hands of governesses, 
 whose duty it was to gain their consent to yield to the 
 lust of the king, either as a wife or concubine. Light 
 domestic duties and luxurious living were combined 
 until the consent was obtained ; the king himself 
 taking no prominent part in these preparatory pro- 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 1 7 
 
 ceedings, probably knowing nothing of the novitiate 
 until her consent had been obtained to become his 
 wife. 
 
 Our heroine was a rustic girl whose hard life was 
 not most agreeable. In her earlier girlhood she had 
 been detailed to the duty of guarding the family flock. 
 This had brought her into the company of neighboring 
 shepherds, among whom was a handsome young man, 
 between whom and her there had grown a strong mu- 
 tual attachment. She had two half-brothers who were 
 displeased with this love-affair. Nothing else proving 
 effectual, in order to break it off, they transferred their 
 sister from the flocks to the vineyard, subjecting her 
 to exposure to the hot sun and to the harder work of 
 dressing the vines. While in rebellion against this 
 oppression, she was visited by one or more of the pro- 
 curers for Solomon's harem. It was not difficult, un- 
 der the circumstances, to persuade her that in the 
 palace of the king she would find better treatment 
 and more satisfactory remuneration than she was re- 
 ceiving as a vine-dresser. How long she had been in 
 her new home when the story begins, need not mat- 
 ter ; it had been long enough for those who had her 
 in charge to venture to unfold to her the ultimate 
 purpose for which she had been brought into the 
 king's family. 
 
 The next most important person, the hero of the 
 story, is the Shulammite shepherd, the devoted lover 
 of the brave young woman, who so persistently re- 
 
1 8 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 fused to abandon him, and to exchange his love for 
 what was proposed to her as a wife of the lecherous 
 king. 
 
 The next most important characters are a trio of 
 middle-aged women, from among the wives of the 
 king, the governesses to whose charge she had been 
 committed, who are called in the poem "Daughters of 
 Jerusalem," or "Daughters of Zion." This young 
 shepherdess was from the tribe of Issachar. Her home 
 was far away. The country of her birth was fertile, 
 and abounded in vineyards and flocks, but her people 
 were humble, though thrifty; hence the splendor of 
 the city-life, and especially of the king's palace, could 
 but have a charm for them, which made them regard 
 the woman who wore a part of these splendors as 
 entitled to such distinction as is implied in those 
 titles. 
 
 We may readily suppose that in ordinary cases the 
 task of these women was not a difficult one. There 
 was so little in the humdrum of domestic life in the 
 country to satisfy the laudable aspirations of a spirited 
 woman and so many attractions in the surroundings of 
 the court that it must have been an easy task usually, 
 under the loose notions of that period concerning the 
 sacredness of marriage, to gain the consent of the new- 
 comer to the conditions of her remaining ; hence the 
 stubborn and persistent resistance of this Shulammite 
 shepherdess was a surprise to them. 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THE POEM. 1 9 
 
 This is all beautifully set forth in the poem as well 
 as is the honorable womanly course of the trio towards 
 her when they comprehend her situation. 
 
 The progress of inauguration into this new life was 
 a simple one. The new victim, who had been allured 
 to the palace under the impression that she was to 
 have some honorable and remunerative employment 
 about the extensive establishment, was clothed in bet- 
 ter raiment, and fed on better food, and regaled on 
 more and better wine than she had been accustomed 
 to, until her governesses had gained her consent to 
 forever abandon her country home and the associa- 
 tions and lover of her childhood, for the pomp and 
 splendors of a queen. The luxuriant appointments of 
 the palace ; its baths, its tables, and its wardrobes 
 usually did the work ; hence it is untenable to assume, 
 as some do, that Solomon himself at any time ad- 
 dresses the maiden in words of adulation or entreaty, 
 or addresses her at all. 
 
 Solomon himself plays but a passive and merely a 
 coincidental part in the poem. He is made to be per- 
 sonally unconscious of what is going on in his own be- 
 half in the palace. He appears in the distance in a 
 royal pageant, but not in any sense for the purpose of 
 settling the question under discussion by the women 
 and the maiden, though the women readily seize upon 
 the event to supplement their own arguments. He 
 was carried in his splendid car of state, accompanied 
 by one of his queens, and was greeted with loud plaud- 
 
20 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 its. What effect this had upon the shepherdess ap- 
 pears in the poem. 
 
 The half-brothers of the shepherdess play a sorry 
 part in the affair, both at the beginning and at the end- 
 ing, and the neighbors turn out to congratulate the 
 lovers on the successful issue of the struggle when 
 they return to the scenes of their earlier courtship. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 
 
 / T A HE poem begins abruptly. The women, her keep- 
 -*■ ers, had just feasted her at the family table of 
 the King's household. Wine had constituted a con- 
 spicuous part of the bill of fare, and the women had 
 praised the luxuries which the King's family enjoyed, 
 contrasting it with the simple fare of a vine-dresser 
 among the hills of Issachar ; assuring her that all this 
 was at the service of a wife of the King. The purpose 
 for which she had been enticed from her country home 
 and from the shepherd youth whom she loved, was 
 now for the first time broached to her. It was not to 
 be a domestic in the King's palace, but to become one 
 of his wives, already numbering sixty. At this she 
 promptly rebelled. She would never consent to the 
 lustful embraces of one whom she could not love, 
 though he be a king, and informing the women she 
 had a lover among the shepherds of Shulam she breaks 
 out : 
 
 " Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." 
 
 Then turning to the lover himself who in the dia- 
 logue is made to be opportunely present she says : 
 
22 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 ' ' For thy love is better than wine. 
 Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance, 
 Thy name is as ointment poured forth, 
 Therefore do maidens love thee. 
 Draw me after thee, let us run ! 
 The King hath brought me into his harem, 
 We will greatly rejoice in thee, 
 We will esteem thy caress more than wine, 
 Rightly do the maidens love thee." 
 
 Addressing the women she continues : 
 
 " I am black but I am comely, 
 O, ye daughters of Jerusalem ; 
 Like the tents of Kedar, 
 Like the pavilions of Solomon. 
 Despise me not because I am swarthy, 
 Because the sun hath scorched me, 
 My half-brothers were incensed against me, 
 They made me keeper of the vineyards, 
 Mine own vineyard I have not kept." 
 
 Again addressing the lover, she says : 
 
 ' ' Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, 
 Where thou feedest thy flock, where thou makest it to rest at 
 
 noon, 
 For why should I be as a woman veiled, 
 Beside the flocks of thy companions ? " 
 
 ' The answer of the women to this frantic outburst 
 of love and fidelity is a compliment to the woman- 
 heart that had survived all the blandishments of the 
 royal household. It at once awakened recollections 
 of earlier days when the voice and society of some 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 23 
 
 rustic lover was all the world to them, but from whom 
 they had been allured by the displays of ease and lux- 
 ury in the King's palace, and whose love they had 
 bartered away for the dubious honors and the unsatis- 
 fying pleasures of the King's court and the King's 
 chamber. Moved to sympathy by her appeals to them 
 and to her lover ; and in their woman-hearts wishing 
 she might escape the fate that had befallen themselves, 
 they reply : 
 
 ' ' If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women ! 
 Get thee again to the footsteps of thy flock, 
 And feed thy kids beside the shepherd's tent." 
 
 The shepherd now addresses his lover, returning 
 the personal compliment she had so handsomely paid 
 him : 
 
 " I have compared thee, O, my love ! 
 To a steed in Pharaoh's chariots. 
 Thy cheeks are comely with plaits of hair, 
 Thy neck with strings of jewels." 
 
 The women, to neutralise the effect of this compli- 
 ment to her beauty interpose, saying , 
 
 "We will make thee plaits of gold, 
 With studs of silver, if thou become a queen." 
 
 The shepherdess, addressing the women, pays her 
 lover this beautiful compliment : 
 
 ' ' While the King sat at his table, 
 My spikenard sent forth its fragrance. 
 But my beloved is unto me as a bundle of myrrh, 
 
24 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 That lieth between my breasts ; 
 
 My beloved is unto me as a cluster of campbire, 
 
 From the vineyards of Engedi." 
 
 The following playful interchange of compliments 
 between the two lovers cannot be excelled in any love 
 story, nor often in real life. It is both delicate and 
 extravagant. He begins : 
 
 ' ' Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair, 
 Thine eyes are as doves' eyes." 
 
 To this she replies : 
 
 ' ' Behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea, very pleasant, 
 Also our couch is green." 
 
 In answer to this allusion to the place of their out- 
 door courtships he refers to the cedars and firs under 
 which they sat : 
 
 ' ' The beams of our house are cedars, 
 And our rafters are firs." 
 
 There is a spice of humor in her self-praise : 
 
 " I am a rose of Sharon, 
 A lily of the valley." 
 
 But he is equal to the occasion and turns her self- 
 compliment to good account by accepting it with em- 
 phasis : 
 
 "As a lily among the thorns, 
 So is my beloved among the daughters." 
 
 Turning to the women the shepherdess continues 
 to compliment her lover and avow her fidelity to him : 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 25 
 
 " As an apple-tree among the trees of the forest, 
 So is my beloved among the sons. 
 I sat under his shadow with great delight, 
 And his fruit was sweet to my taste. 
 He brought me to his wine-house, 
 And his banner over me was love. 
 Stay me with grapes, comfort me with apples, 
 For I am sick of love. 
 Only his left hand shall sustain my head, 
 And only his right hand shall embrace me. 
 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, 
 By the roes and by the hinds of the field, 
 That you stir not up nor awaken love, 
 Until it please." 
 
 This appeal to the women to not attempt to force 
 love is both pathetic and philosophic. Love finds its 
 own time and object without the intermeddling of 
 others. The shepherdess continues abstractedly: 
 
 ' ' The voice of my beloved ! behold he cometh, 
 Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, 
 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart. 
 Behold ! he standeth behind our wall, 
 He cometh in at the window, 
 He peepeth through the lattice. 
 My beloved spake and said unto me : 
 Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away, 
 For lo ! the winter is past, 
 The rain is over and gone ; 
 The flowers appear upon the earth, 
 The time of the singing of birds has come 
 And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. 
 The fig-tree ripens her figs 
 
26 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 And the vines are in blossom ; 
 They give forth their fragrance." 
 
 Turning to the shepherd again, she says : 
 
 "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away, 
 
 my dove ! thou art in the clefts of the rocks, in the covert 
 
 of the steep place ; 
 Let me see thy face, let me hear thy voice, 
 For charming is thy voice and thy features are lovely. 
 Take us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, 
 For our vineyards are in blossom." 
 
 Turning to address the women, she continues : 
 
 ' ' My beloved is mine and I am his, 
 He feedeth his flocks among the lilies 
 Until the day be cool and the shadows flee away." 
 
 Again addressing the shepherd, she says : 
 
 "Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart 
 Upon the mountains of Bether." 
 
 She relates a dream : 
 "By night, on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loveth, 
 
 1 sought him but I found him not, 
 
 I said I will rise now and go about the city, 
 
 In the streets and in the broad ways, 
 
 I will seek him whom my soul loveth : 
 
 I sought him in my dream but I found him not. 
 
 The watchmen that go about the city found me ; 
 
 I said to them, saw ye him whom my soul loveth ? 
 
 I was but a little passed from them 
 
 When I found him whom my soul loveth ; 
 
 I caught him and would not let him go 
 
 Until he had brought me to my mother's house, 
 
 Into the chamber of her that gave me birth." 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 27 
 
 Again, turning to the women she charges them not 
 to attempt to force love. 
 
 "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, 
 By the roes and the hinds of the field, 
 That ye stir not up nor awaken love 
 Until it please." 
 
 At this point a royal cortege is seen in the distance. 
 It had no necessary connexion with the work of recon- 
 ciling this pure country girl to the proposed new con- 
 ditions, but it offered a new argument, as they sup- 
 posed ; hence they called attention to it and especially 
 to the fact that one of the queens was a partaker with 
 the King of all its magnificence. As it was only one 
 of the frequent parades of the King they sought to ex- 
 cite her womanly love of display by the assurance that 
 a like honor awaited her if she would consent to be- 
 come a queen also. One of the women calls attention 
 to it by asking : 
 
 ' ' Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness like pillars 
 of smoke ? 
 Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, 
 With all the powders of the merchant ?" 
 
 A second woman : 
 
 " Behold it is the litter of Solomon ; 
 Three-score mighty men are about it, 
 Of the mighty men of Israel. 
 They all handle the sword and are expert in war, 
 Every man hath his sword on his thigh, 
 Because of fear in the night." 
 
28 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 The third woman takes it up : 
 
 ' ' King Solomon made himself a car of state 
 Of the wood of Lebanon. 
 He made the posts thereof of silver, 
 The bottoms thereof of gold, the seat thereof of purple. 
 In the midst thereof sits a sparkling beauty 
 From the daughters of Jerusalem." 
 
 The shepherdess's answer to all this is one of the 
 finest touches in the whole poem. Reduced to plain 
 prose it is equivalent to saying : if such splendors have 
 attractions for you, you are welcome to them all, for 
 they do not move me : 
 
 ' * Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon 
 With the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the 
 
 day of his espousals ; 
 And in the day of the gladness of his heart." 
 
 The following rhapsody of the shepherd lover has 
 no rival in any language for hyperbole. Compared 
 with it Shakespeare's most famous, 
 
 "But you, O you, 
 So perfect and so peerless are created 
 Of every creature's best," 
 
 seems quite tame. It is such touches of nature that 
 preserved this poem through those centuries of war 
 and captivity and which ultimately gave it a place in 
 the sacred literature of the restored Hebrews, and still 
 later, a place among the sacred books of Christians ; 
 and now, after three thousand years many a gray- 
 headed sire will read it and recall the time in his own 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 2g 
 
 experience when, as far as he was able, he indited just 
 such a sonnet to a pair of dove's eyes and scarlet lips, 
 and a pretty neck with teeth and temples to match. 
 
 " Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair, 
 Thine eyes are as dove's eyes behind thy veil, 
 Thy hair is as a flock of goats 
 That lie along the side of Gilead ; 
 Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep newly shorn, 
 Which come up from the washing, 
 Whereof every one of them hath twins, 
 And not one of them is bereaved. 
 Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet 
 And thy mouth is comely ; 
 Thy cheek is like a side of a pomegranate 
 Behind thy veil. 
 
 Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for an armory, 
 Wherein there hang a thousand bucklers 
 And all the shields of mighty men. 
 Thy two breasts are like two twin fawns of a roe 
 Which feed among the lilies." 
 
 The shepherdess, pretending with true womanly 
 affectation to desire no more of such adulation, seeks 
 to interrupt him by saying : 
 
 "Until the day be cool and the shadows lengthen, 
 I will get me to the mountain of myrrh 
 And to the hill of frankincense." 
 
 But he was not to be silenced. The interruption 
 only intensified his speech. Beginning at the same 
 beginning as before he becomes much more violent : 
 
 ' ' Thou art fair my love, 
 And there is no spot in thee. 
 
30 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, 
 
 With me from Lebanon. 
 
 Look upon me from the top of Amena, 
 
 From the top of Senir and Hermon, 
 
 From the depths of the lion's den, 
 
 From the mountains of leopards. 
 
 Thou hast ravished ray heart, my sister, my spouse, 
 
 Thou hast ravished my heart with one glance of thine eyes, 
 
 With one of the ringlets that encircle thy neck. 
 
 How pleasant is thy love, my sister, my spouse ; 
 
 How much better is thine embrace than wine ! 
 
 And the odor of thy perfumes than all manner of spices. 
 
 Thy lips, O my spouse, distil odors as the honey-comb, 
 
 Honey and milk are concealed under thy tongue, 
 
 And the fragrance of thy garments is like the fragrance of 
 
 Lebanon, 
 A garden enclosed, is my sister, my spouse, 
 A spring shut up, a fountain sealed ; 
 A paradise, where the pomegranate blossoms, together with 
 
 precious fruits, 
 Camphire with spikenard plants, 
 Spikenard and saffron, 
 Calamus and cinnamon with all manner of sweet-smelling 
 
 plants, 
 Myrrh and aloes with all the chief spices. 
 Thou art a fountain of gardens, 
 A well of living waters, 
 And flowing streams from Lebanon. 
 
 Awake, O north wind and come thou south, 
 Blow upon my garden that the fragrance thereof may flow 
 out ! " 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 31 
 
 The shepherdess answers : 
 
 "Let my beloved come into his garden, 
 And eat his precious fruits." 
 
 The shepherd : 
 
 ' ' I have come into my garden, my sister, my spouse, 
 I have gathered my myrrh and my spices, 
 I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey 
 I have drunk my wine with my milk. 
 
 Eat, O friends, 
 
 Drink, yea, drink abundantly." 
 
 The shepherdess, that she may the more impress 
 her keepers, the women, that it was cruel to separate 
 her from her devoted lover, relates another recent 
 dream : 
 
 ' ' I was asleep, but my heart was awake, 
 
 It was the voice of my beloved. As he knocked, 
 
 He said, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my per- 
 fect one ; 
 
 For my head is covered with dew, 
 
 My locks with the drops of the night. 
 
 To tease him I said, I have put off my coat, how shall I put 
 it on? 
 
 I have washed my feet, why should I soil them ? 
 
 At this my beloved withdrew his hand from the latch, 
 
 And my bosom quivered thereat. 
 
 I then rose up to open to my beloved, 
 
 And my hands dropped with myrrh, 
 
 And my fingers with liquid myrrh 
 
 Overflowed upon the handle of the lock. 
 
32 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 When I opened to my beloved, 
 
 Behold my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone. 
 
 (When I spake to him I was bereft of reason.) 
 
 I sought him, but I could not find him ; 
 
 I called, but he gave me no answer ; 
 
 I dreamed the watchmen that go about the city found me 
 
 They smote me, they wounded me, 
 
 And the keepers on the wall took away my veil : 
 
 I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my 
 
 beloved, 
 His mouth is most sweet, yea, his person is altogether lovely. 
 That you tell him I am dying of love." 
 
 Again the enthusiasm of the young shepherdess 
 aroused the sympathy of the women, who had not for- 
 gotten experiences in their own earlier lives not greatly 
 unlike this, hence, instead of longer persisting in at- 
 tempts to persuade their ward to consent to become 
 such as they were, they offer assistance to her, or, at 
 least, they wish to know more about the young man 
 she had left behind ; hence they ask : 
 
 "What is thy beloved more than another beloved, 
 O thou fairest among women ? 
 What is thy beloved more than another beloved, 
 That thou shouldst so adjure us ? " 
 
 This gave the shepherdess occasion to describe him 
 as she viewed him, and, unless love was blind, he was 
 worthy her love : 
 
 4 My beloved is white and ruddy, 
 The fairest among ten thousand, 
 His head is as the most fine gold, 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 33 
 
 His locks are curling and black as a raven, 
 
 His eyes are as doves' eyes, reflecting in the water-brooks, 
 
 Washing in milk and sitting in full streams, 
 
 His cheeks are as a bed of balsam, as towers of perfumes, 
 
 His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh, 
 
 His hands are as rings of gold set with beryl, 
 
 His reins are as ivory work overlaid with sapphires, 
 
 His legs are as pillars of marble set on pedestals of gold, 
 
 His appearance is as Lebanon, beautiful as the cedars, 
 
 Such is my beloved, such is my friend, 
 O daughters of Jerusalem." 
 
 This enthusiastic description of the absent lover 
 only increased the interest which the women felt in 
 their ward, and they wish to hear more about him 
 hence they ask ; 
 
 ' ' Whither is thy beloved gone, 
 
 thou fairest among women ? 
 Whither is thy beloved turned aside, 
 That we may seek him with thee ? " 
 
 The shepherdess : 
 
 ' ' My beloved has gone down to his garden to the beds of 
 balsam, 
 To feed his flocks in the garden and to gather lilies. 
 
 1 am my beloved's and he is mine, 
 
 My beloved who feedeth his flocks among the lilies." 
 
 The shepherd again praises the beauty of his spouse, 
 repeating, as would be natural, much that he had said 
 before : 
 
 " Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, 
 Charming as Jerusalem, 
 
34 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 Terrible as an army in battle. 
 Turn away thine eyes from me, 
 For they have overcome me. 
 Thy hair is like a flock of goats 
 Lying along the side of Gilead. 
 Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep 
 Which have just been washed, 
 Whereof every one hath twins, 
 And none is bereaved among them. 
 Thy cheek is as a slice of pomegranate 
 Behind thy veil." 
 
 To show the great wrong there would be in press- 
 ing one so dear to him into a harem already crowded, 
 he says : 
 
 " There are in the household of Solomon already three-score 
 
 queens, and four-score concubines, 
 And young maidens without number. 
 My dove, my perfect one, is but one ; 
 She is the only one of her mother ; 
 She is the choice one of her that gave her birth. 
 The young saw her and called her blessed, 
 The queens and the concubines saw her and they praised 
 
 her saying : 
 Who is she that looketh forth like the morning 
 Fair as the moon, 
 Clear as the sun, 
 Terrible as an army in battle ? " 
 
 The shepherdess here narrates a reverie : 
 
 " In fancy I went down to the garden of nuts, 
 To see the green plants of the valley; 
 To see whether the vine budded, 
 And the pomegranates were in flower. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 35 
 
 Before I was aware, my desire set me 
 Among the chariots of my people." 
 
 The interest of the women in the absent lover was 
 so aroused that they desire to see him, hence they say: 
 
 "Return, O Shulammite shepherd, 
 Return, return, that we may see thee." 
 
 The shepherdess rebukes their idle curiosity by 
 saying : 
 
 ' ' Why wish ye to look upon the Shulammite, 
 As upon the dance of angels at Mahanaim ? " 
 
 The scene of the following is in the ladies' toilette. 
 The women, notwithstanding the sympathy they had 
 expressed for the unwilling victim of their scheme, de- 
 termined to make one more effort to overcome her ob- 
 jections. This time they resort to flattery by praising 
 her personal beauty. She had just come from the 
 bath and had put on only her slippers, when they be- 
 gan, hoping to so arouse her vanity that she would at 
 once discard her country lover : 
 
 ' ' How beautiful are thy feet in sandals, O prince's daughter ! 
 Thy round thighs are like ornaments, 
 The work of the hand of a cunning workman. 
 Thy waist is like a round goblet, 
 Wherein aromatic wine is abundant. 
 Thy body is like a heap of wheat, 
 Encircled with lilies. 
 Thy two breasts are like two fawns 
 That are twins of a roe. 
 Thy neck is like a tower of ivory. 
 
36 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 Thine eyes are like the pools of Heshbon by the gate of 
 
 Bathrabbim ; 
 Thy nose is like the side of the tower of Lebanon, 
 Which looketh towards Damascus ; 
 Thine head upon thee is like Carrael, 
 And the locks of thine head are like threads of purple ; 
 The King will be held captive in the tresses thereof. 
 How fair and how charming art thou, 
 
 love, for delights ! 
 
 Thy stature is like a palm-tree, 
 
 And thy breasts are like to clusters of grapes." 
 
 The shepherd interposes with his claim to all these 
 charms : 
 
 ' ' I said I will climb up into my palm-tree, 
 
 1 will take hold of the branches thereof ; 
 
 Thy breasts shall be to me as clusters of grapes, 
 And the odor of thy breath like apples ; 
 And thy mouth as the best of wine, 
 That goeth down sweetly for my beloved, 
 Causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak." 
 
 The shepherdess answers the appeal of the women, 
 and she consents to the proposition of the lover, thus 
 settling the question by saying : 
 
 " I am my beloved's, 
 
 And his desire is towards me. ' ' 
 Thereupon the lover proposes that they leave the 
 palace and go forth : 
 
 "Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, 
 Let us lodge in the villages, 
 Let us get up early and go to the vines. 
 Let us see whether the vine-stalks have budded, 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 37 
 
 And the tender grapes appear. 
 
 Whether the pomegranate be in flower ; 
 
 There will I give thee my caress. 
 
 The mandrakes give forth fragrance, 
 
 And at our gates are all manner of fruits, both new and old 
 
 Which I have laid up for thee, O beloved !" /7fifl 
 
 The shepherdess, feeling hampered by the conven- 
 tionalities of the times, which did not allow her to em- 
 brace her lover in public, yet tolerated the osculation 
 and caressing of a brother, replies : 
 
 " O that thou wert as my brother, 
 Who nursed at the breast of my mother, 
 So that when I should meet thee without I could embrace 
 
 thee, 
 And none would despise me therefor! 
 I would lead thee and bring thee into my mother's house, 
 Where thou mightest instruct me, 
 And I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine, 
 Of the sweet wine of my pomegranates." 
 
 Turning to the women, she says : 
 
 " Only his left hand shall sustain my head, 
 And only his right hand shall embrace me. 
 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, 
 That ye stir not up nor awaken love, until it please." 
 
 The women at last consent to her leaving the pal- 
 ace in company with her shepherd lover, who escorted 
 her to the home of her mother. The neighbors seeing 
 them returning, ask : 
 
 "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, 
 Leaning upon her beloved ?" 
 
38 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 Before reaching the house they stop a moment un- 
 der the apple-tree, which had often listened to their 
 mutual avowals of love. Once there, seated upon the 
 rustic seat they had so often occupied, he recalls other 
 meetings at that sacred spot, and says : 
 
 ' ' Under this apple-tree I first aroused thy love. " 
 
 Then, pointing to the house beyond the garden, he 
 
 says : 
 
 "In yonder house thy mother conceived thee, 
 There she was in travail and there she gave thee birth ; 
 Now set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a bracelet upon 
 
 thine arm, 
 For love is strong as death ; 
 Jealousy is cruel as the grave, 
 Its flames are flames of fire, 
 Its arrows the fire of Jehovah. 
 Great waters cannot quench love, 
 And rivers cannot overwhelm it." 
 
 Then, delicately alluding to the late experience of 
 his faithful lover in resisting the blandishments of the 
 King's palace, he adds : 
 
 "If a man would offer all his substance for love 
 He would only reap confusion." 
 
 The two half-brothers now appear. They had lost 
 none of their opposition to this love-affair. At first 
 they had sought to break it off by taking their sister 
 from the care of the sheep, which afforded too many 
 opportunities for the lovers to meet each other, and 
 putting her to the harder work of dressing the family 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 39 
 
 vineyard. This failing, they had connived at, if they 
 had not suggested and promoted, the scheme of get- 
 ting her into Solomon's harem. For their sister to be 
 a wife of the King, though only one of many, was much 
 preferable, in their minds, to her being the wife of a 
 humble shepherd, even if some personal grudge against 
 their young neighbor had not something to do in the 
 case. But in this they were again baffled, and they 
 find her once more in the family home, more devoted 
 than ever to her rustic lover. Their last hope now is 
 to belittle their sister, and to postpone, if not to en- 
 tirely prevent, the marriage, by alleging that she was 
 too young, and by insinuating other and grave impedi- 
 ments. They derisively ask what shall be the wedding 
 presents in the case of a marriage, as well as insinuate 
 unfitness for wifehood. They say: 
 
 ' ' We have a little sister, 
 And she hath no breasts ; 
 What shall we do for our sister 
 In the day when she shall be spoken for ? 
 If she be a wall, 
 
 We will build upon her a turret of silver ; 
 If she be a door, 
 We will inclose her with boards of cedar." 
 
 Her answer is both womanly and defiant. Recog- 
 nising that she is in no sense under obligations to them 
 for what she is, and what she hopes to be soon, the 
 bride of one who will be to her a wall of defence, she 
 says : 
 
40 LOVERS THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 
 
 " I have been a wall, 
 And my breasts have been towers, 
 
 Hence I was in ray lover's eyes as a woman that finds peace- 
 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon ; 
 He let out the vineyard to keepers, 
 Every one to bring, as rent, a thousand of silver. 
 My vineyard is in front of me. 
 Thou, O Solomon, may have the thousand, 
 And thy keepers may have two hundred." 
 
 The shepherd : 
 
 ' ' Thou that dwellest in the gardens, 
 The companions are listening to thy voice, 
 Cause me to hear it." 
 
 The shepherdess : 
 
 " Make haste, my beloved, 
 And be thou like to a roe or a young hart 
 Upon the mountain of spices." 
 
 Ordinary love stories end in the marriage of the 
 chief characters. This does not, but it is easy to see 
 that such , constancy on the part of each, under such 
 inducements to unfaithfulness, can end no otherwise 
 after reaching the point where the poem leaves them. 
 Though when read as an allegory, this poem is utterly 
 meaningless ; yet when read as a love story in verse, 
 no pure man or woman can rise from its reading with- 
 out having been benefited. It touches at many points 
 the experience of true lovers in all the ages, and hence 
 its immortality. 
 
THE SONG OF SONGS. 41 
 
 Inevitably, a poem of so great antiquity, abounding 
 in Orientalisms, must contain many historic, geo- 
 graphic, and social allusions, which it is difficult, if 
 not impossible, to understand to-day. All parts of 
 the old Hebrew Scriptures are in the same category. 
 What if we cannot understand what was meant in its 
 time by "the dance of angels at Mahanaim," or why 
 it was interesting to be looked upon from the lion's 
 den or the mountains of leopards ? It is sheer folly to 
 seek a meaning for these in allegory or parable. But, 
 given the instinctive drawings of a virtuous youth and 
 a virtuous maiden of congenial tastes, we have the key 
 to this inimitable poem. Though therefore we may 
 not understand all its allusions, when we read it as a 
 poem intended to set forth a victory of faithful love in 
 the form of a dialogue, which may easily be acted by 
 amateurs, we are compelled to concede its right to a 
 place in our sacred collection of the books which con- 
 stitute our Bible. It can never cease to be of interest 
 to all pure minds. No better lesson is taught in any 
 Bible story, nor ever can be, while the maximum of 
 human happiness is found only in households where 
 true love reigns supreme ; and not the least lesson it 
 teaches is the unchanging elements of love — the same 
 three thousand years ago as now. 
 
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