Saturday, October 26, 2024

Song of Songs 1, Lover, Take Me Away!

 
The Old Testament has, among its varied wisdom and poetic writings a beautiful erotic poem, describing the romantic love between a man and a woman. It is called "Solomon's Song of Songs."

Song of Songs 1:1, Title
Solomon's Song of Songs

The repetition in "Song of Songs" means the best song, the number one song.

Song of Songs 1:2-3, She: Kisses sweeter than wine
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth--
 for your love is more delightful than wine.

Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; 
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the maidens love you!  

Alter says that the Hebrew word yiš·šā·qê·nî , translated "Let him kiss me" is a play on a Hebrew word yashqeini, apparently a word for wine. Alter also says the "your love" could easily mean "your loving", that is, the act of love. Davidson agrees, suggesting the translation, "your love-making." 

Our love poems will revel in all five senses (Alter); here already there is touch, smell and taste.

Song of Songs 1:4a, She: Let him take me away!
Take me away with you--
let us hurry! 
Let the king bring me into his chambers. 

Although there have been attempts to make the woman be a concubine of Solomon, surely the term "king" is a term of endearment, used by the woman for her man. The woman addresses her lover as "king" and asks her king to take her to his bedroom!

Long ago, when we were engaged, Jan and I read Watership Down by Douglas Adams. We loved the complex story of a warren of rabbits, where the males were called "Buck" and the females, "Doe." We began to use those words as terms of endearment; she was my doe; I was her buck.

Song of Songs 1:4b, Friends: We praise your love!
We rejoice and delight in you; 
we will praise your love more than wine. 
How right they are to adore you!

It is hard to tell, from the original Hebrew, who is speaking. Most commentators see three speakers, the man, the woman, and a third collection, women who are an audience, or who are friends. This third group might serve as audience or narrators. Later they are addressed as "daughters of Jerusalem." Here these women, the third party, respond with a chorus of joy and praise. 

The NIV separates the last line as being said by the woman. It is clear that the next passage is the woman's voice.

Song of Songs 1:5-6a, Dark as the tents of Kedar
Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, 
dark like the tents of Kedar, 
like the tent curtains of Solomon.
Do not stare at me because I am dark, 
because I am darkened by the sun. 

The woman, tanned by working in the sun, compares her skin to the tents of Kedar and the tent curtains of Solomon. The allusion to Solomon's royal curtains, which were dark, possibly purple, is a hint that darkness can be elegant and beautiful. The woman, though apparently a peasant, suggests that her lover think of her like the royal curtains of Solomon.

The first Hebrew word of this passage, with root shachor, means "black" or "dark". By describing herself like the dark tents of Kedar, the woman puns with the word qadar, another word for "dark."

Song of Songs 1:6b, She: My angry brothers
My mother's sons were angry with me 
and made me take care of the vineyards; 
my own vineyard I have neglected. 

The girl's brothers are unhappy with her. They (possibly in charge of the family after the death of their father?) are protective and want her to stay and work in the vineyards.  Yet she has neglected her own vineyard.

As Alter says, throughout the book there is play between an outer (literal) world and an inner, metaphorical world, where the the body is described in natural terms. (Robert Davidson agrees.) That play appears here, at the delicate suggestion that the girl's brothers want to protect her body and yet she has neglected it. Scholars debate the implications here -- is her "vineyard" neglected because she has been too busy working in the family vineyards, too distracted to take care of herself? Or is her vineyard neglected because she has already allowed her lover to slip past her brothers and enjoy the vineyard she offers him? Our narrator leaves this to one's imagination and is probably deliberately unclear. The writer is a poet, playing with words and, like any good poet, deliberately challenging the reader.

Song of Songs 1:7, Where do you graze?
Tell me, you whom I love, 
where you graze your flock 
and where you rest your sheep at midday. 

Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends?

Throughout this Song, the woman speaks more than the man.  In the first line she declares her love for him and her desire to follow him. Alter says that the Hebrew first person pronoun in "whom I love" is nap̄·šî, "an intensive alternative to the first-person pronoun." This is the reason some English translations (eg. KJV) write "whom my soul loves." The woman is saying, strongly, "I, myself, deeply all of me, love you."

The woman's lover is a shepherd and she wants to follow him to his fields. Is that safe?

The word here translated "veiled woman" has root atah, meaning "to wrap, to cover." Alter doesn't like that translation, arguing that the transitive verb requires an object and the Hebrew does not supply it. The NIV makes the verb reflexive (she has covered herself) while the KJV translates it as "turneth aside." Alter argues that a switch of two Hebrew consonants would lead to a translation "go straying" (after the flocks of friends.) In that interpretation, the woman is worried that she will mistake the sheep tracks for those of the wrong shepherds.

Song of Songs 1:8-11, Follow my sheep
If you do not know, most beautiful of women, 
follow the tracks of the sheep 
and graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds.

The man (or possibly the third group, the audience) says, "Look for the tracks of my sheep. Bring your herd along." This suggests that the lovers are both shepherds.

Song of Songs 1:8-11, Beautiful, like a young mare
I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh.  

Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, 
your neck with strings of jewels.  
We will make you earrings of gold, studded with silver.

The man compares his lover to a young mare (among the horses of Pharaoh?) and then describes her beautiful face and jewelry. 

The line about a mare belonging to Pharaoh has long been a subject of debate. Alter suggests two interpretations. In one, as we see elsewhere in the Old Testament, Egypt was reknown for its horses. (Indeed, the kings were not to seek out the horses of Pharaoh! See I Kings 10:28, Deuteronomy 17:16-17.) With this in mind, the man is saying, "If you were a horse, you would be outstanding even among the chariots of Pharaoh!"  A second alternative, suggested by a number of commentators (but quite speculative) harks back to a supposed event in an Egyptian battle in which one army was routed when the other released mares in heat into the mix, distracting the enemy stallions. If the poet has that in mind, the man is saying that his lover is distracting him, like a mare in heat. All of this is guesswork, but of course, shepherds would be aware of the effect of a female in heat.

Song of Songs 1:12-14, The woman speaks
While the king was at his table, 
my perfume spread its fragrance. 

My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.
My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi.

A sachet of myrrh would have provided a perfume for the woman; she fantasizes about having her lover between her breasts, replacing the sachet. In typical Hebrew parallelism, the second line reflects the first; henna blossoms, grown near the oasis of En Gedi, would have provided a perfume. In the dry dusty ANE, where running water did not exist, a woman might bathe rarely, adding perfume to make herself attractive. (This is described clearly in the courts of Babylon in Esther 2:12. For a negative example, we see the seductress of Proverbs 7:16-18 doing something similar.) Even 2500 years ago, perfume and jewelry were part of a woman's fashion.

Throughout these poems, the lovers appear to be common people. She is tanned from working in the sun; he is described as a shepherd. Yet they playfully describe each other as royalty, happy with their own banquets of love.

Song of Songs 1:15, Eyes like doves
How beautiful you are, my darling! 
Oh, how beautiful! 
Your eyes are doves.

The man tells his "darling" (rayah, literally "my [female] friend") that she is beautiful and that her eyes "are doves." (Does this mean they are soft? gray?)

Song of Songs 1:16, And a handsome lover
How handsome you are, my lover! 
Oh, how charming! 

The woman responds, describing her lover as handsome. Translators are guided here by the male and female endings, recognizing verse 15 as describing a woman while verse 16 describes a man.

Song of Songs 1:16-17, A verdant bed amongst cedars
And our bed is verdant.
The beams of our house are cedars;
our rafters are firs.

The poem puts the couple deep into the woods, with green leaves for a bower, a house of tall cedars, a canopy of firs. The Hebrew word eres means "bed" or "couch"; the couple have found a private romantic glade to enjoy each other.

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