The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

THE SONG OF SOLOMON
Solomon. We must not be misled by the chapter-
headings in our English Bibles, which of course are
not to be found in the original Hebrew text. From
the first line to the last there is not the slightest hint
in the poem itself that it was intended to be read in
any mystical sense. This is contrary to the analogy
of all allegories. The parable may be difficult to
interpret, but at all events it must suggest that it is
a parable; otherwise it defeats its own object. If the
writer never drops any hint that he has wrapped up
spiritual ideas in the sensuous imagery of his poetry,
what right has he to expect that anybody will find
them there, so long as his poem admits of a perfectly
adequate explanation in a literal sense ? We need not
be so dense as to require the allegorist to say to us in
so many words : " This is a parable." But we may
justly expect him to furnish us with some hint that his
utterance is of such a character. ^Esop's fables carry
their lessons on the surface of them, so that we can
often anticipate the concluding morals that are attached
to them. When Tennyson announced that the Idy/s of
the Kmg constituted an allegory most people were taken
by surprise ; and yet the analogy of The Faerie Queen,and
the lofty ethical ideas with which the poems are
inspired, might have prepared us for the revelation.
But we have no sirpilar indications in the case of the
Song of Solomon. If somebody were to propound a
new theory of The Vicar of Wakefield, which should
turn that exquisite tale into a parable of the Fall,
it would not be ^nough for him to exercise his in-
genuity in pointii% out resemblances between the
eighteenth-century romance and the ancient narrative
of the serpent's doings in the Garden of Eden. Since
he could not shevv that Goldsmith had the slightest