The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

iv. I-I2.] CONTRASTS 269
is it to think that such instincts should ever fail among
men, or even that circumstances should ever hinder the
natural performance of the functions to which they
point with imperious urgency. Although the second
passage tells of the violent reversal of the natural
feelings of maternity under the maddening influence
of famine, here we read how starvation has simply
stopped the tender ministry which mothers render to
their infants, with a vague hint at some cruelty on the
part of the Jewish mothers. A comparison with the
supposed conduct of ostriches in leaving their eggs
suggests that this is negative cruelty ; their hearts
being frozen with agony, the wretched mothers lose all
interest in their children. But then there is not food
for them. The calamities of the times have staunched
the mother's milk ; and there is no bread for the older
children.^ It is the extreme reversal of their fortunes
that makes the misery of the children of princely homes
most acute ; even those who do not suffer the pangs
of hunger are flung down to the lowest depths of
wretchedness. The members of the aristocracy have
been accustomed to live luxuriously ; now they wander
about the streets devouring whatever they can pick
up. In the old days of luxury they used to recline on
scarlet couches ; now they have no better bed than the
filthy dunghill.2
The passage concludes with a reflection on the
general character of this dreadful condition of Israel.^
It must be closely connected with the sins of the
people. The drift of the context would lead us to
judge that the poet does not mean to compare the
guilt of Jerusalem with that of Sodom, but rather the
' iv. 4.
- iv. 5.
^ iv. 6.