The beautiful lyrics about heterosexual sensuality, desire, and love in the Song of Songs beg to be identified with and embraced. Yet as we read and reread, we become aware of small but persistent nuances that raise issues of gender and class and that cloud the general, seemingly idyllic picture that pervades much of the Song (Song 3:1-4 and Song 5:2-8 are the exceptions).
In theater as well as in fiction, the characters with the most lines are usually the more dominant. In the Song, female voices make up more than 60 percent of the text; their voices are bolder, more playful, more outspoken, serious, and artistic than the voices attributed to males. A woman’s voice opens Song 1:2 and concludes Song 8:14. The poem seems to imply gender equality, even female gender superiority.
This impression of female ascendancy is buttressed by one of the most poignant and comprehensive love “credos” to be voiced by a female: “Let me be a seal upon your heart, like the seal upon your hand. For love is fierce as death, passion is mighty as Sheol.” (Song 8:6-7, NJPS)
It is significant because of its fierceness and depth of emotion. It shocks us in its pain and exuberance, strength and weakness, in the hyperbolic radicalism that uses corporeal allusions as well as primal metaphors and symbols.
So, you may say, this is in keeping with the rest of this love lyric. Its female speakers are bold and physical and in general, are allowed to be so.