Song of Solomon - Grace Notes

SONG OF SOLOMON Page 9By C. F. Keil and F. Delitzscha Grace Notes study‘I was a wall, and have found peace before hiseyes’ (Song 8:10).” The same critic also finds inseveral passages an apparent contrarietybetween Solomon and the shepherd. “Observe,”says he, “e.g., 1:12, 13, where the shepherd—whom Shulamith calls her spikenard, andcompares to a bunch of flowers on her breast—is placed over against the king, who sits on hisdivan; or 7:9f. where, suddenly interrupting theking, she diverts the words which he speaksconcerning herself to her beloved; or 8:7,where, leaning on the arm of her beloved, sheexpresses her disregard for riches, with whichSolomon had sought to purchase her love.” Butspikenard is not the figure of the shepherd, notat all the figure of a man; and she who ispraised as a “prince’s daughter” (Song 7:2)cannot say (Song 6:12) that, enticed bycuriosity to see the royal train, she was takenprisoner, and now finds herself, against herwill, among the daughters of Jerusalem; and hewhom she addresses (Song 8:12) can be noother than he with whom she now finds herselfin her parents’ home. The course of theexposition will show that the shepherd who isdistinguished from Solomon is nothing elsethan a shadow cast by the person of Solomon.The Song is a dramatic pastoral. The ancientssaw in it a carmen bucolicum mimicum.Laurentius Peträus, in his Heb.-DanishParaphrase (1640), calls it carmen bucolicum,); George Wachter (1722),an “opera divided into scenic parts.” It acquiresthe character of a pastoral poem from this, thatShulamith is a shepherdess, that she thinks ofSolomon as a shepherd, and that Solomoncondescends to occupy the sphere of life and ofthought of the shepherdess. It is not properlyan idyll, nor yet properly a drama. Not an idyll,because the life-image which such a miniaturedrawn from life—such, e.g., as the Adon. ofTheocritus presents to us—unfolds itself withina brief time without interruption; in the Song,on the other hand, not merely are the placesand persons interchanged, but also the times.The whole, however, does not fall into littledetached pictures; but there runs through thiswreath of figures a love-relation, whichembodies itself externally and internally beforeour eyes, and attains the end of its desire, andshows itself on the summit of this end as onethat is not merely sensuous, but moral. TheSong is certainly not a theatrical piece: theseparate pieces would necessarily have beenlonger if the poet had had in view the changesof theatrical scenery. But at all events thetheatre is not a Semitic institution, but is ofIndo-Persian Greek origin. Jewish poetryattempted the drama only after it began inAlexandrinism to emulate Greece. Grätz’ (1871)polemic against the dramatists is so farjustified. But yet we see, as in the Book of Job,so in the Song, the drama in process offormation from the lyric and narrative form ofpoetry, as it has developed among the Greeksfrom the lyric, and among the Indians from theepic. In the Book of Job the colloquies are allnarrative. In the Song this is never the case; forthe one expression, “answered my beloved, andsaid to me” (Song 2:10), is not to be comparedwith, “and Job answered and said:” the formerexpression indicates a monologue. And in the“Daughters of Jerusalem” (Song 1:5, etc.) wehave already something like the chorus of theGreek drama. The ancient Greek MSS bearinvoluntary testimony to this dramaticcharacter of the Song. There are several of themwhich prefix to the separate addresses thenames of the persons speaking, as ἡ ύ φὴ ὁυ φί ς. And the Aethiopic translation makesfive separate pieces, probably, as the Cod. Sinait.shows, after the example of the LXX, whichappear as divisions into Acts.The whole falls into the following six Acts:—(1.) The mutual affection of the lovers, 1:2–2:7, with the conclusion, “I adjure you, yedaughters of Jerusalem.”(2.) The mutual seeking and finding of thelovers, 2:8–3:5, with the conclusion, “Iadjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem.”(3.) The fetching of the bride, and themarriage, 3:6–5:1, beginning with, “Who isthis … ?” and ending with, “Drink and bedrunken, beloved.”(4.) Love scorned, but won again, 5:2–6:9.