The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-06-02
The Song of Songs.

A scholarly article, by Ellice Hopkins,
in the April Century, discusses the Can't
clcs from the point of view now dominant
in Biblical criticism, view different, in
certain particulars, from that given in
Professor W. Robertson Smiths article,
':Canticle," in the new edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. The writer
says in part
Most of us, suppose, have, from time
to time, perused 'the Song of Songs, which
is Solomons," as it stands in the authorized
version, with a perplexed feeling as to
what it all means. Perhaps, if we were
honest enough, we should confess also to
some feeling of violated good taste and
delicacy. Should we have turned in our
perpleXity to an orthodox commentator,
these feelings womld scarcely have been
relieved by finding language of a confessedly
erotic character and of doubtful propriety
some of it addressed by voluptuous
king to an inmate of his harem-trans-
ferred entire to the mouth of Christ as his
language in addressing his Church.
1t has, however, been reserved for
modern Hebraists to restore this lovely
little epithalamium to its proper place, and,
scraping away the accumulated whitewash
and plaster of agcs,-the mistranslatiOns
and Misunderstanding Of centuries,-to
reveal it as it is, an exquisite little shrine
of the affections, embedded i'll the very
heart of our Bibles, ahush with passionate
color, but pure and chaste and enduring
as sculptured marble.
The plot or argument OF the poem Is
this: King Solomon, on one of his numer-
GUS pleasure excursions, accompanied, as
usual, by his court, is passing through the
north of his kingdom, "a land rich in vine
yards, and fair pastoral beauty when they
perceive, in neighboring nut-garden, q
beautiful girl, singing and dancing to her
self in the joy Of the spring. She has
come down to the garden to look at the
tender opening buds, and in the gladness
of her own opening life and the happiness
of first love she has thrown aside her veil,
and is singing with the birds and dancing
with the dancing lights. They watch her
lost in admiration, when, suddenly per-
ceiving she is observed, she makes a shy
movement of flight, arrested for moment
by the entreating voices with which they
call her back. The king, at once deeply
enamored of the beautiful stranger, leaves
orders that she shall be transferred to his
harem, her dress denoting that she was un-
married and unpEghted On inquiry it is
found that the maiden-the Sulammite, as
she is called throughout the poem, from
her native village, Sulem-is the only
daughter of her mother. Her father is
dead, and her step-brothers, the sons of
former marriage exercise his authority in
his stead They treat her with great harsh
ness and make her the keeper Of one Of
their vineyards. There she meets with IA
young shepherd and keeper of gardens like
herself, on whom she pOurs out her ''for-
gotten heart, "a love which he returns,
but without, as yet, having gained the con-
sent of the brothers to their betrothal.
They, on the contrary, very much prefer
the advantageous offers of the king, and
she is at once transferred to the harem at
Jerusalem.
There the great king woos the simple
village maiden, and she has to endure every
seduction that wealth and luxury and rank
can bring to bear upon her. But she re-
mains faithful to her shepherd-lover, pre-
ferring true love to worldly advancement.
Finding her obdurate, the king at last re-
solves to pay her the highest honor of all.
He resolves to marry her and make her
one of his queens; but with no better re-
suit. His advances are always stopped by
her fainting away with the despairing cry
on her lips: "My beloved is mine, and [
am his Till at length, since the worship
of Jehovah puts bounds to even the pas
sions of king and forbids the use of vio-
lence, he suffers her to depart to her shep-
herd-lover The poem ends in the gardens
of the north, with the reunion of the low
ers and their approaching marriage, and
with the great unveiled utterance and key
note of the poem, 'ELove is as strong as
death and ''many waters" (eyen the deep
waters of trial through which the Sulam=
mite had passed) "cannot drown it." fol-
lowed by little mirthful song of triumph
on her part, and mocking allusion to the
failure of the great king to bribe her from
her faithfulness.
With regard to the approximate age of
the poem, the data are more satisfactory.
The poem itself is sufficient to prove that
it was not written by Solomon. The great
king would certainly not have satirized
himself so severel y.
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