The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

V. 1-viii.] LOVE UNQUENCHABLE 3t
to serve as a sort of refrain. Thus it comes in with
admirable fitness to balance the other refrain to which
reference has been made earlier/ In the first refrain
the daughters of Jerusalem are besought not to attempt
to awaken the Shulammite's love for Solomon ; this
is well balanced by the refrain in which she declares
the constancy of the mutual love that exists between
herself and the shepherd.
Now Solomon reappears on the scene, and resumes
his laudation of the Shulammite's beauty.^ But there
is a marked change in his manner. This most recent
capture is quite unlike the sort of girls with whom
his harem was stocked from time to time. He had
no reverence for any of them ; they all considered them-
selves to be highly honoured by his favour, all adored
him v/ith slavish admiration, like that expressed by
one of them in the first line of the poem. But he is
positively afraid of the Shulammite. She is " terrible
as an army with banners." He cannot bear to look
at her eyes ; he begs her to turn them away from him,
for they have overcome him. What is the meaning
of this new attitude on the part of the mighty monarch ?
There is something awful in the simple peasant girl.
The purity, the constancy, the cold scorn with which
she regards the king, are as humiliating as they are
novel in his experience. Yet it is well for him that
he is susceptible to their influence. He is greatly
injured and corrupted by the manners of a luxurious
oriental court. But he is not a seared profligate. The
vision of goodness startles him ; then there is a better
nature in him, and its slumbering powers are partly
roused by this unexpected apparition.
' Page 20. - vi. 4-7.