Song of Songs (Cantique des

Cantiques) by Gustave Moreau, 1893

The Song of Songs, also Song of Solomon or Canticles (Hebrew: ‫ִשׁיר ַה ִשּׁ ִירים‬
Šîr Haššîrîm, Greek and Ancient Greek: Ἆισμα Ἀισμάτων, romanized: Âisma
Āismátōn; Latin: Canticum Canticorum), is one of the megillot (scrolls) found in
the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim (or "Writings"), and a
book of the Old Testament.[1]

The Song of Songs is unique within the Hebrew Bible: it shows no interest in
Law or Covenant or the God of Israel, nor does it teach or explore wisdom like
Proverbs or Ecclesiastes (although it does have some affinities to wisdom
literature, as the ascription to Solomon indicates); instead, it celebrates sexual
love, giving "the voices of two lovers, praising each other, yearning for each
other, proffering invitations to enjoy".[2][3] The two are in harmony, each
desiring the other and rejoicing in sexual intimacy; the women of Jerusalem
form a chorus to the lovers, functioning as an audience whose participation in
the lovers' erotic encounters facilitates the participation of the reader.[4]

In modern Judaism the Song is read on the Sabbath during the Passover,
which marks the beginning of the grain harvest as well as commemorating
the Exodus from Egypt.[5] Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the
relationship between God and Israel, Christianity as an allegory of Christ and
his "bride", the Church.[5][6]
Structure

There is widespread consensus that, although the book has no plot, it does
have what can be called a framework, as indicated by the links between its
beginning and end.[7] Beyond this, however, there appears to be little
agreement: attempts to find a chiastic structure have not been compelling,
and attempts to analyse it into units have used differing methods and arrived
at differing results.[8] The following schema, from Kugler & al.[9] must
therefore be taken as indicative, rather than determinative:

Introduction (1:1–6)

Dialogue between the lovers (1:7–2:7)

The woman recalls a visit from her lover (2:8–17)

The woman addresses the daughters of Zion (3:1–5)

Sighting a royal wedding procession (3:6–11)

The man describes his lover's beauty (4:1–5:1)

The woman addresses the daughters of Jerusalem (5:2–6:4)

The man describes his lover, who visits him (6:5–12)

Observers describe the woman's beauty (6:13–8:4)

Appendix (8:5–14)

Summary

The introduction calls the poem "the song of songs", a construction

commonly used in Scriptural Hebrew to show something as the greatest and
most beautiful of its class (as in Holy of Holies).[10] The poem proper begins
with the woman's expression of desire for her lover and her self-description to
the "daughters of Jerusalem": she insists on her sun-born blackness, likening
it to the "tents of Kedar" (nomads) and the "curtains of Solomon". A dialogue
between the lovers follows: the woman asks the man to meet; he replies with
a lightly teasing tone. The two compete in offering flattering compliments
("my beloved is to me as a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En
Gedi", "an apple tree among the trees of the wood", "a lily among brambles",
while the bed they share is like a forest canopy). The section closes with the
woman telling the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up love such as hers
until it is ready.[11]
The woman recalls a visit from her lover in the springtime. She uses imagery
from a shepherd's life, and she says of her lover that "he pastures his flock
among the lilies".[11]

The woman again addresses the daughters of Jerusalem, describing her

fervent and ultimately successful search for her lover through the night-time
streets of the city. When she finds him she takes him almost by force into the
chamber in which her mother conceived her. She reveals that this is a dream,
seen on her "bed at night" and ends by again warning the daughters of
Jerusalem "not to stir up love until it is ready".[11]

The next section reports a royal wedding procession. Solomon is mentioned

by name, and the daughters of Jerusalem are invited to come out and see the
spectacle.[11]

The man describes his beloved: Her hair is like a flock of goats, her teeth like
shorn ewes, and so on from face to breasts. Place-names feature heavily: her
neck is like the Tower of David, her smell like the scent of Lebanon. He
hastens to summon his beloved, saying that he is ravished by even a single
glance. The section becomes a "garden poem", in which he describes her as a
"locked garden" (usually taken to mean that she is chaste). The woman invites
the man to enter the garden and taste the fruits. The man accepts the
invitation, and a third party tells them to eat, drink, "and be drunk with love".[11]

The woman tells the daughters of Jerusalem of another dream. She was in
her chamber when her lover knocked. She was slow to open, and when she
did, he was gone. She searched through the streets again, but this time she
failed to find him and the watchmen, who had helped her before, now beat her.
She asks the daughters of Jerusalem to help her find him, and describes his
physical good looks. Eventually, she admits her lover is in his garden, safe
from harm, and committed to her as she is to him.[11]

The man describes his beloved; the woman describes a rendezvous they have
shared. (The last part is unclear and possibly corrupted.)[11]

The people praise the beauty of the woman. The images are the same as
those used elsewhere in the poem, but with an unusually dense use of place-
names, e.g., pools of Hebron, gate of Bath-rabbim, tower of Damascus, etc.
The man states his intention to enjoy the fruits of the woman's garden. The
woman invites him to a tryst in the fields. She once more warns the daughters
of Jerusalem against waking love until it is ready.
The woman compares love to death and sheol: love is as relentless and
jealous as these two, and cannot be quenched by any force. She summons
her lover, using the language used before: he should come "like a gazelle or a
young stag upon the mountain of spices".[11]

Composition

Illustration for the first verse, a minstrel

playing before Solomon (15th century
Rothschild Mahzor)

The Song offers no clue to its author or to the date, place, or circumstances of
its composition.[12] The superscription states that it is "Solomon's", but even if
this is meant to identify the author, it cannot be read as strictly as a similar
modern statement.[13] The most reliable evidence for its date is its language:
Aramaic gradually replaced Hebrew after the end of the Babylonian exile in
the late 6th century BCE, and the evidence of vocabulary, morphology, idiom
and syntax clearly points to a late date, centuries after King Solomon to whom
it is traditionally attributed.[14] It has parallels with Mesopotamian and
Egyptian love poetry from the first half of the 1st millennium, and with the
pastoral idylls of Theocritus, a Greek poet who wrote in the first half of the 3rd
century BCE;[15][16][17] as a result of these conflicting signs, speculation ranges
from the 10th to the 2nd centuries BCE,[12] with the language supporting a
date around the 3rd century.[18]

Debate continues on the unity or disunity of the Song. Those who see it as an
anthology or collection point to the abrupt shifts of scene, speaker, subject
matter and mood, and the lack of obvious structure or narrative. Those who
hold it to be a single poem point out that it has no internal signs of composite
origins, and view the repetitions and similarities among its parts as evidence
of unity. Some claim to find a conscious artistic design underlying it, but there
is no agreement among them on what this might be. The question therefore
remains unresolved.[19]

The setting in which the poem arose is also debated.[20] Some academics
posit a ritual origin in the celebration of the sacred marriage of the god
Tammuz and the goddess Ishtar.[21] Whether this is so or not, the poem
seems to be rooted in some kind of festive performance.[20] External evidence
supports the idea that the Song was originally recited by different singers
representing the different characters, accompanied by mime.[22]

Canonisation and interpretation

Judaism

A page of rashi's interpretation of the

megillot, National Library of Israel

The Song was accepted into the Jewish canon of scripture in the 2nd century
CE, after a period of controversy in the 1st century. It was accepted as
canonical because of its supposed authorship by Solomon and based on an
allegorical reading where the subject-matter was taken to be not sexual desire
but God's love for Israel.[23] For instance, the famed first and second century
Rabbi Akiva forbade the use of the Song of Songs in popular celebrations. He
reportedly said, "He who sings the Song of Songs in wine taverns, treating it
as if it were a vulgar song, forfeits his share in the world to come".[24]
However, Rabbi Akiva famously defended the canonicity of the Song of Songs,
reportedly saying when the question came up of whether it should be
considered a defiling work, "God forbid! [...] For all of eternity in its entirety is
not as worthy as the day on which Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all
the Writings are holy, but Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies."[25]
It is one of the overtly mystical Biblical texts for the Kabbalah, which gave
esoteric interpretation on all the Hebrew Bible. Following the dissemination of
the Zohar in the 13th century, Jewish mysticism took on a metaphorically
anthropomorphic erotic element, and Song of Songs is an example of this. In
Zoharic Kabbalah, God is represented by a system of ten sephirot emanations,
each symbolizing a different attribute of God, comprising both male and
female. The Shechina (indwelling Divine presence) was identified with the
feminine sephira Malchut, the vessel of Kingship. This symbolizes the Jewish
people, and in the body, the female form, identified with the woman in Song of
Songs. Her beloved was identified with the male sephira Tiferet, the "Holy One
Blessed be He", central principle in the beneficent Heavenly flow of Divine
emotion. In the body, this represents the male torso, uniting through the
sephira Yesod of the male sign of the covenant organ of procreation.

Through beneficent deeds and Jewish observance, the Jewish people restore
cosmic harmony in the Divine realm, healing the exile of the Shechina with
God's transcendence, revealing the essential Unity of God. This elevation of
the World is aroused from Above on the Sabbath, a foretaste of the redeemed
purpose of Creation. The text thus became a description, depending on the
aspect, of the creation of the world, the passage of Shabbat, the covenant
with Israel, and the coming of the Messianic age. "Lecha Dodi", a 16th-century
liturgical song with strong Kabbalistic symbolism, contains many passages,
including its opening two words, taken directly from Song of Songs.

In modern Judaism, certain verses from the Song are read on Shabbat eve or
at Passover, which marks the beginning of the grain harvest as well as
commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, to symbolize the love between the
Jewish People and their God. Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the
relationship between God and Israel.[5]

Christianity

The Shulamite by Albert Joseph

Moore (1864)

The literal subject of the Song of Songs is love and sexual longing between a
man and a woman, and it has little (or nothing) to say about the relationship
of God and man; in order to find such a meaning it was necessary to resort to
allegory, treating the love that the Song celebrates as an analogy for the love
between God and Church.[26] The Christian church's interpretation of the Song
as evidence of God's love for his people, both collectively and individually,
began with Origen. Over the centuries the emphases of interpretation shifted,
first reading the Song as a depiction of the love between Christ and Church,
the 11th century adding a moral element, and the 12th century understanding
of the Bride as the Virgin Mary, with each new reading absorbing rather than
simply replacing earlier ones, so that the commentary became ever more
complex.[27] These theological themes are not in the poem, but derive from a
theological reading; nevertheless, what is notable about this approach is the
way it leads to conclusions not found in the overtly theological books of the
Bible.[28] Those books reveal an abiding imbalance in the relationship between
God and man, ranging from slight to enormous; but reading Songs as a
theological metaphor produces quite a different outcome, one in which the
two partners are equals, bound in a committed relationship.[28]

Critical Theory

In modern times the poem has attracted the attention of feminist biblical
critics, with Phyllis Trible's foundational "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical
Interpretation" treating it as an exemplary text and the Feminist Companion to
the Bible series edited by Athalya Brenner and Carole Fontaine devoting to it
two volumes (1993, 2000).[29][30]

Musical settings

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 Egon Tschirch: Song of Solomon (picture
cycle 1923)

Excerpts from the book have inspired composers to vocal and instrumental
compositions, including:

Canticum Canticorum by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: 29 five-part a

cappella pieces in fourth volume of motets. (1584)

"Chi e costei," a setting of Song of Songs 6:10 in Il Primo libro delle musiche a
1-2 voci e basso continuo (1618) by Francesca Caccini

Symphoniae sacrae I (1629) by Heinrich Schütz

Dieterich Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri: Cantata VI, Vulnerasti Cor Meum.
(1680)

J. S. Bach's Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, while mainly based on
the Parable of the Ten Virgins, also uses words and imagery from the Song of
Songs.[31]

Flos Campi by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a suite for solo viola, small chorus
and small orchestra (1925), each movement headed by a verse from the book

C'est un jardin secret... for solo viola (1976) by Tristan Murail

Nightstone (1979) for voice and piano by Arnold Rosner

Song of Soloman (1989) by Steve Kilbey

A'l Mishkavi Baleylot for soprano and harp (1992) and Spring Calls for soprano
and ensemble (2006) by Lior Navok

John Zorn's "Shir Ha-Shirim" premiered in February 2008.[32] The piece is

inspired by Song of Songs and is performed by an amplified quintet of female
 singers with female and male narrators performing the "Song of Solomon". A
performance at the Guggenheim Museum in November 2008 featured
choreography for paired dancers from the Khmer Arts Ensemble by Sophiline
Cheam Shapiro.[33] In 2013 a new version featuring the five singers without
the two narrators premièred in NYC at Alice Tully Hall and at the Jerusalem
Sacred Music Festival and released on the album Shir Hashirim.

David Lang's "Just (after Song of Songs)" (2014) was premiered in 2014 by
Trio Mediaeval and Garth Knox Saltarello Trio. The piece is featured in the film
"Youth" by Paolo Sorrentino.

Song of Solomon (2017) classical wedding suite composition for orchestra,

organ and two voices by Chris M. Allport

Alex Weiser's Shir Hashirim (2017) draws its inspiration from the text and
cantillation of the Song of Songs.[34]

Ádám Balázs Czinege's Shir Hashirim (2017) [35]

Several passages from the Song of Songs were set to music in contemporary
Israel - [1] [2] [3]

In popular culture

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Marc Chagall's "Song of Songs", a five-painting cycle, is housed in the Marc

Chagall Museum in Nice.

Egon Tschirch's (de) "Song of Solomon", a 1923 expressionist nineteen-

picture cycle, was rediscovered in 2015.

In Carl Theodor Dreyer's Day of Wrath, a film about sexual repression in a

puritanical Protestant family, the first few verses of Song of Songs chapter 2
are read aloud by the daughter Anne, but soon after her father forbids her to
continue. The chapter's verse paraphrases Anne's own amorous adventures
and desires.[36]

Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison's 1977 novel is entitled Song of

Solomon.

The chorus of Stephen Duffy's 1985 song "Kiss Me" was based on the
comparison of wine to love in Song of Songs.

In Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel American Gods, the Queen of Sheba, who appears
as an ageless (but not invincible) character, whispers lines from the Song of
 Songs as she is murdered in Los Angeles.

"The Song of Solomon" by British singer Kate Bush on her 1993 album, The
Red Shoes, is largely based on the Song of Songs.

Rose of Sharon (an epithet in the Song) is a major character in John

Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

Lillian Hellman's 1939 play The Little Foxes (and the 1941 film adaptation)
gets its title from Song 2:15: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the
vines: for our vines have tender grapes."[37]

Catherine L. Morris' 2009 collection The Song of Songs: A Love Poem

Illustrated presents a series of paintings that visualize the book.[38]

Post-hardcore band mewithoutYou named their second album Catch for Us

the Foxes

Madeleine L'Engle's novel Many Waters is named after a phrase in the Song;
and two seraphim quote it to soothe the protagonists, at a moment of
distress.

The 2014 film The Song is based on the Song of Songs[39]

In the 2005 film Keeping Mum, Grace (Maggie Smith) instructs the vicar
(Rowan Atkinson) that the Song of Solomon "is about sex".

The song is mentioned repeatedly in Sholem Aleichem's Jewish Children[40]

In Elizabeth Smart's novel of prose poetry By Grand Central Station I Sat Down
and Wept, several lines of the Song are spoken by the protagonist while she
undergoes police questioning about her relationship with her companion, poet
George Barker.

The Song of Solomon played a central theme in the readings and sermon at
the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Subject of the Song I Hate Heaven by The Residents, which is featured in their
bible inspired album Wormwood.

In The Woman in the Window (1944), the character played by Edward G.

Robinson reads The Song of Songs prior to his romantic entanglement with
Joan Bennett.

Eliza Gilkyson's "Rose of Sharon" on her album "Your town tonight" is based on
her reading of Song of Songs in a hotel room Gideon Bible, as explained in her
intro to the song.

See also
 Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q106, 4Q107, 4Q108, 6Q6, fragments including portions of
the Song of Songs.

Hortus conclusus

Notes

1. Garrett 1993, p. 348.

2. Garrett 1993, p. 366.

3. Alter 2011, p. 232.

4. Exum 2011, p. 248.

5. Sweeney 2011, p. unpaginated.

6. Norris 2003, p. 1.

7. Assis 2009, pp. 11, 16.

8. Assis 2009, pp. 16–18.

9. Kugler & Hartin 2009, p. 220.

10. Keel 1994, p. 38.

11. Kugler & Hartin 2009, pp. 220–22.

12. Exum 2012, p. 247.

13. Keel 1994, p. 39.

14. Bloch & Bloch 1995, p. 23.

15. Bloch & Bloch 1995, p. 25.

16. Exum 2012, p. 248.

17. Keel 1994, p. 5.

18. Hunt 2008, p. 5.

19. Exum 2005, p. 3334.

20. Loprieno 2005, p. 126.

21. Price 2005, p. 251.

22. Astell 1995, p. 162.

23. Loprieno 2005, p. 107.

24. Phipps 1979, p. 85.

25. Schiffman 1998, pp. 119–20 .

26. Norris.

27. Matter.

28. Kugler & Hartin.

29. Pardes 2017, p. 134.

30. Brenner & Fontaine 2000, p. passim.

31. Herz, Gerhard (1972). Bach: Cantata No. 140. WW Norton & Co.

32. Allan, J. (February 22, 2008), "Live – John Zorn Abron Arts Centre" , Amplifier
Magazine (review)

33. Smith, S (November 27, 2008), "An Unlikely Pairing on Common Ground" , The
New York Times.

34. "Cantata Profana Performs Gustav Mahler's Das Lied Von Der Erde – Concert
Program" (PDF). YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. YIVO. Retrieved 12 May
2018.

35. "Shir hashirim" .

36. Bordwell, David (July 1992). The Films of Carl Theodor Dreyer . ISBN 978-0-
520-04450-0.

37. ben David, Solomon, "Song" , KJV, The Bible, Bible gateway, 2:15.

38. The Song of Songs: A Love Poem Illustrated, New Classic Books, 2009,
ISBN 978-1600200021.

39. "THE SONG Movie – The Story – Coming Soon to Digital HD + DVD" .
Thesongmovie.com. Retrieved 20 January 2018.

40. Librivox. "LibriVox" . Librivox.org. Retrieved 20 January 2018.

References

Alter, Robert (2011). The Art of Biblical Poetry . Basic Books. ISBN 978-
0465028191.

Assis, Elie (2009). Flashes of Fire: A Literary Analysis of the Song of Songs . T
& T Clark. ISBN 9780567027641.

Astell, Ann W. (1995). The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages . Cornell
University Press. ISBN 0801482674.
Barr, James, "Obituary: Harold Henry Rowley", Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies, University of London, 33:2 (1970), pp. 372–373.

Ausloos, Hans & Lemmelijn, Bénédicte, Praising God or Singing of Love? From
Theological into Erotic Allegorisation in the Interpretation of Canticles, in Acta
Theologica 30 (2010) 1–18.

Bloch, Ariel; Bloch, Chana (1995). The Song of Songs: A New Translation, With
an Introduction and Commentary . Random House. ISBN 9780520213302.

Brenner, Athalya; Fontaine, Carole (2000). A Feminist Companion to Song of

Songs . A&C Black. ISBN 9781841270524.

Burton, Joan B. (2005). "Themes of female desire and female self-assertion in

the Song of Songs and Hellenistic poetry" . In Hagedorn, Anselm C. (ed.).
Perspectives on the Song of Songs. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110176322.

Exum, J. Cheryl (2012). "Song of Songs" . In Newsom, Carol Ann; Lapsley,

Jacqueline E. (eds.). Women's Bible Commentary. Westminster John Knox
Press. ISBN 9780664237073.

Freehof, Solomon B., "The Song of Songs: A General Suggestion", The Jewish
Quarterly Review, New Series, 39:4 (April 1949), pp. 397–402.

Garrett, Duane (1993). Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs . B&H

Publishing Group. ISBN 9780805401141.

Hunt, Patrick (2008). Poetry in the Song of Songs: A Literary Analysis . Peter
Lang. ISBN 9781433104657.

Keel, Othmar (1994). The Song of Songs: A Continental Commentary .

Fortress Press. ISBN 9780800695071.

Kugler, Robert A.; Hartin, Patrick (2009), The Old Testament between theology
and history: a critical survey , Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
ISBN 9780802846365.

Loprieno, Antonio (2005). "Searching for a common background: Egyptian

love poetry and the Biblical Song of Songs" . In Hagedorn, Anselm C. (ed.).
Perspectives on the Song of Songs. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110176322.

Martineau, Russell, "The Song of Songs Again", The American Journal of

Philology, 16:4 (1895), pp. 435–443.

Matter, E. Anne (2011). The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western
Medieval Christianity . University of Pennsylvania Press.
ISBN 9780812200560.
 Norris, Richard Alfred (2003). The Song of Songs: Interpreted by Early Christian
and Medieval Commentators . Eerdmans. ISBN 9780802825797.

Pardes, Ilana, Agnon's Moonstruck Lovers: The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture,
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013.

Pardes, Ilana (2017). "Toni Morrisom's Shulamites". In Sherwood, Yvonne

(ed.). The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field . Oxford University Press.
ISBN 9780191034183.

Phipps, William E. (1974), "The Plight of the Song of Songs", Journal of the
American Academy of Religion, 42:1 (March 1974), pp. 82–100.

Price, Robert M. (2005). "A Christian Goddess?" . The Da Vinci Fraud: Why the
Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781615923878.

Rogerson, John W. (2003). "Song of Songs" . In Dunn, James D. G.; Rogerson,

John William (eds.). Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Eerdmans.
ISBN 9780802837110.

Rowley, H. H. (1939), "The Meaning of 'The Shulamite'", The American

Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 56:1 (January 1939), pp. 84–91.

Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1996). A History of the Hebrew Language . Cambridge

University Press. ISBN 9780521556347.

Schiffman, Lawrence H., ed. (1998), Texts and Traditions, Ktav, Hoboken.

Sweeney, Marvin A. (2011). Tanak: A Theological and Critical Introduction to the

Jewish Bible . Fortress Press. ISBN 9781451414356.

External links

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Jewish translations and commentary

Shir Hashirim – Song of Songs (Judaica Press) translation (with Rashi's
commentary) at Chabad.org
Song of Songs in the Jewish Encyclopedia

The original Hebrew version, vowelized, with side-by-side English translation

by Mamre Institute (Mechon Mamre)

"The Song of Solomon" designed by Tamar Messer from the World Digital
Library
Christian translations and commentary
Sermons on the Song of Songs , by St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Online Bible at GospelHall.org

Song of Songs at Bible Gateway (various versions)

Song of Songs in the Catholic Encyclopedia

Song of Songs (Greek, Latin and English versions) the newadvent.org

Solomon's Song of Songs . Bible Study Tools.

Summary Interpretation of the Song of Solomon by H. Speckard

Song of Solomon public domain audiobook at LibriVox – Various versions

Introductions
Introduction to the Song of Songs a Forward Movement publication
Song of Songs in Hebrew
Song of Songs – YouTube video chanted in a Moroccan Cantillation (20:44)

Song of Songs – YouTube video of Shir Hashirim read in Hebrew according

to an Ashkenazic nigun (32:11)

Song of Songs
Hebrew poetry

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Job Ruth

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