Solomon And Solomonic Literature Part 8

To whom hast thou uttered words?

And whose spirit came forth from thee?

This chapter of Job (xxvi.) is closely related to Proverbs viii. and ix., both in thought and phraseology: the Rephaim, or phantoms, the "pillars," the ordering of earth and clouds, the boundary on the deep; and there is an allusion to "the confines of Light and Darkness," which point to the domains of Wisdom and Dame Folly. Job and the proverbialist surely got these ideas from the same source, and also the word nishma, translated "spirit," which throughout the Old Testament is ruach, save in the two texts indicated. But there is no text in the Bible where ruach, spirit, or soul, is a.s.sociated with light like the nishma of the proverb, and in Job nishma evidently means a superhuman spirit. Now there is a Chaldean word, nisma, which in the Persian Bundahis appears as nismo, and is translated by West, "living soul." The ordinary word for soul in the Parsi scriptures seems to be rban, and West regards the two words as meaning the same thing, the breath, or soul, basing this on the following pa.s.sage of the Bundahis, representing the separation of the first mortal into the first human pair, Mashya and Mashyoi:

"And the waists of both were brought close, and so connected together that it was not clear which is the male and which the female, and which is the one whose living soul (nismo) of Aharmazd (G.o.d) is not away (lacking). As it is said thus: 'Which is created before, the soul (nismo) or the body? And Aharmazd said that the soul is created before, and the body after, for him who was created; it is given unto the body to produce activity, and the body is created only for activity; hence the conclusion is this, that the soul (rban) is created before and the body after. And both of them changed from the shape of a plant into the shape of man, and the breath (nismo) went spiritually into them, which is the soul (rban)." [18]

With all deference to the learned translator, I cannot think his exegesis here quite satisfactory. In the first sentence nismo is the breath of G.o.d; and although in the second the same word is used for the human soul, the writer seems to have aimed in the last sentence at a distinction: the divine breath or spirit (nismo) creates a soul (rban), to receive which the plant is transformed into a body fitted for the "activity" of an imbreathed soul. West twice translates nismo "living soul," but rban only "soul." Does not this indicate Ahura Mazda as the source of divine life, as in Genesis ii. 7, where Jahveh-Elohim breathes into man, who becomes a "living soul,"--a being within the domain of the G.o.d of life, not subject to the G.o.d of death? Is it not his rban that is the image of nismo? (Cf. Genesis ix. 5, 6.)

Turning now to the Avesta, we find the famous Favardin Yast, a collection of litanies and ascriptions to the Fravashis. "The Fravashi," says Darmesteter, "is the inner power in every being that maintains it and makes it grow and subsist. Originally the Fravashis were the same as the Pitris of the Hindus or the Manes of the Latins, that is to say, the everlasting and deified souls of the dead; but in course of time they gained a wider domain, and not only men, but G.o.ds and even physical objects, like the sky and the earth, had each a Fravashi." "The Fravashi was independent of the circ.u.mstances of life or death, an immortal part of the individual which existed before man and outlived him."

In Yast xxii. 39, 40, it is said: "O Maker, how do the souls of the dead, the Fravashis of the holy Ones, manifest themselves?" Ahura Mazda answered: "They manifest themselves from goodness of spirit and excellence of mind."

Favardin Yast, 9: "Through their brightness and glory, O Zarathrustra, I maintain the wide earth," etc. 12: "Had not the awful Fravashis of the faithful given help unto me, those animals and men of mine, of which there are such excellent kinds, would not subsist; strength would belong to the fiend."

In other verses these Fravashis (the word means "protectors") help the children unborn, nourish health, develop the wise. The imagery relating to them is largely related to the stars, of which many are guardians. These are probably the origin of the Solomonic similitude of reason, "The spirit (nishma) of man is the lamp of----?"

With all of these correspondences between the Solomonic proverbs, nothing is more remarkable than their originality, so far as any ancient scriptures are concerned. While they are totally different from the Psalms, in showing man as a citizen of the world, relying on himself and those around him for happiness, and exalting nothing above human virtue and intelligence, without any religious fervor or wrath, the proverbialist is equally far from the ethical superst.i.tions of Zoroastrian religion, which abounds in fict.i.tious "merits" and anathematises fict.i.tious immoralities. It is as if some sublime Eastern pedlar and banker of ethical and poetic gems, who had come in contact with Oriental literatures, had separated from their liturgies and prophecies the nuggets of gold and the precious stones, polishing, resetting, and exciting others to do the like. At the same time many of the sentences are the expressions of an original mind, a man of letters, neither Eastern nor Oriental, and these may be labelled with the line of the Persian poet Faizi: "Take Faizi's Diwan to bear witness to the wonderful speeches of a freethinker who belongs to a thousand sects."

CHAPTER IX.

THE SONG OF SONGS.

The praise of the virtuous woman, at the close of the Proverbs, is given a Jahvist turn by verse 30: "Favour is deceitful and beauty vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." But the Solomonists also had their ideas of the virtuous woman, and of beauty, these being beautifully expressed in a series of dramatic idylls ent.i.tled The Song of Songs. To this latter, in the original t.i.tle, is added, "which is Solomon's"; and it confirms what has been said concerning the superst.i.tious awe of everything proceeding from Solomon, and the dread of insulting the Holy Spirit of Wisdom supernaturally lodged in him, that we find in the Bible these pa.s.sionate love songs. And indeed Solomon must have been superlatively wise to have written poems in which his greatness is slightly ridiculed. That of course would be by no means incredible in a man of genuine wisdom--on the contrary would be characteristic--if other conditions were met by the tradition of his authorship.

At the outset, however, we are confronted by the question whether the Song of Songs has any general coherency or dramatic character at all. Several modern critics of learning, among them Prof. Karl Budde and the late Edward Reuss, find the book a collection of unconnected lyrics, and Professor Cornill of Konigsberg has added the great weight of his name to that opinion (Einleitung in das Alte Testament. 1891). Unfortunately Professor Cornill's treatment is brief, and not accompanied by a complete a.n.a.lysis of the book. He favors as a principle Reuss's division of Canticles into separate idylls, and thinks most readers import into this collection of songs an imaginary system and significance. This is certainly true of the "allegorical"

purport, aim, and religious ideas ascribed to the book, but Professor Cornill's reference to Herder seems to leave the door open for further treatment of the Song of Songs from a purely literary standpoint. He praises Herder's discernment in describing the book as a string of pearls, but pa.s.ses without criticism or denial Herder's further view that there are indications of editorial modifications of some of the lyrics. For what purpose? Herder also pointed out that various individualities and conditions are represented. This indeed appears undeniable: here are prince and shepherd, the tender mother, the cruel brothers, the rough watchman, the dancer, the bride and bridegroom. The dramatis personae are certainly present: but is there any drama?

Admitting that there was no ancient Hebrew theatre, the question remains whether among the later h.e.l.lenic Jews the old songs were not arranged, and new ones added, in some kind of Singspiele or vaudeville. There seems to be a chorus. It is hardly consistent with the general artistic quality of the compilation that the lady should say "I am swarthy but comely," or "I am a lily of the valley"

(a gorgeous flower). Surely the compliments are e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the chorus. And may we not ascribe to a chorus the questions, "Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness?" etc. (iii. 6-10.) "What is thy beloved more than another beloved"? (v. 9.) "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved"? (viii. 5).

As in the modern vaudeville songs are often introduced without any special relation to the play, so we find in Canticles some songs that might be transposed from one chapter to another without marring the work, but is this the case with all of them? The song in the first chapter, for instance, in which the damsel, brought by the King into his palace, tells the ladies of the home she left, and of maltreatment by her brothers, who took her from her own vineyard and made her work in theirs, where she was sunburnt,--this could not be placed effectively at the end of the book, nor the triumphant line, "My vineyard, which is mine own, is before me,"

be set at the beginning. This is but one of several instances that might be quoted. Even pearls may be strung with definite purpose, as in a rosary, and how perfectly set is the great rose,--the hymn to Love in the final chapter! Or to remember Professor Cornill's word Scenenwechsel, along with his affirmation that the love of human lovers is the burden of the "unrivalled" book, there are some sequences and contrasts which do convey an impression of dissolving views, and occasionally reveal a connexion between separate tableaux. For example the same words (which I conjecture to be those of a chorus) are used to introduce Solomon in pompous palanquin with grand escort, that are presently used to greet the united lovers.

"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke?" (iii. 6.)

"Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness Leaning on her beloved?" (viii. 5.)

These are five chapters apart, yet surely they may be supposed connected without Hineininterpretation. Any single contrast of this kind might be supposed a mere coincidence, but there are two others drawn between the swarthy maiden and the monarch. The tableau of Solomon in his splendor dissolves into another of his Queen Mother crowning him on the day of his espousal: that of Shulamith leaning on her beloved dissolves into another of her mother pledging her to her lover in espousals under an apple tree. And then we find (viii. 11, 12) Solomon's distant vineyards tended by many hirelings contrasted with Shulamith's own little vineyard tended by herself.

The theory that the book is a collection of bridal songs, and that the mention of Solomon is due to an eastern custom of designating the bridegroom and bride as Solomon and Queen Shulamith, during their honeymoon, does not seem consistent with the fact that in several allusions to Solomon his royal state is slighted, whereas only compliments would be paid to a bridegroom. Moreover the two--Shulamith and Solomon--are not as persons named together. It will, I think, appear as we proceed that the Shelomoh (Solomon) of Canticles represents a conventionalisation of the monarch, with some traits not found in any other book in the Bible. A verse near the close, presently considered, suggests that the bride and bridegroom are at that one point metaphorically pictured as a Solomon and Solomona, indicating one feature of the Wise Man's conventionalization.

Renan a.s.signed Canticles the date B. C. 992-952, mainly because in it Tirza is coupled with Jerusalem. Tirza was a capital only during those years, and at any later period was too insignificant a town to be spoken of as in the Song vi. 4:

"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem, Dazzling as bannered ranks."

But the late Russell Martineau, a thorough and unbia.s.sed scholar, points out in the work phrases from Greek authors of the third century B. C., and a.s.signs a date not earlier than 247-222. [19]

But may it not be that the Alexandrian of the third century built on some earlier foundation, as Shakespeare adapted the "Pound of Flesh"

and the "Three Caskets" (Merchant of Venice) from tales traceable as far back as early Buddhist literature? or as Marlowe and Goethe used the mediaeval legend of Faustus?

The several songs can hardly be a.s.signed to one and the same century. The coupling of Tirza and Jerusalem points to a remote past for that particular lyric, and is it credible that any Jew after Josiah's time could have written the figleafless songs so minutely descriptive of Shulamith's physical charms? Could any Jewish writer of the third century before our era have written iv. 1-7 or vii. 1-9, regarding no name or place as too sacred to be pressed into his hyperboles of rapture at every detail of the maiden's form, and have done this in perfect innocency, without a blush? Or if such a poet could have existed in the later Jahvist times, would his songs have found their place in the Jewish canon? As it was the book was admitted only with a provision that no Jew under thirty years of age should read it. That it was included at all was due to the occult pious meanings read into it by rabbins, while it is tolerably certain that the realistic flesh-painting would have been expunged but for sanctions of antiquity similar to those which now protect so many old cla.s.sics from expurgation by the Vice Societies. These songs, sensuous without sensuality, with their Oriental accent, seem ancient enough to have been brought by Solomon from Ophir.

On the other hand a critical reader can hardly ascribe the whole book to the Solomonic period. The exquisite exaltation of Love, as a human pa.s.sion (viii. 6, 7), brings us into the refined atmosphere amid which Eros was developed, and it is immediately followed by a song that hardly rises above doggerel (viii. 8, 9). This is an interruption of the poem that looks as if suggested by the line that follows it (first line of verse 10) and meant to be comic. It impresses me as a very late interpolation, and by a hand inferior to the Alexandrian artist who in style has so well matched the more ancient pieces in his literary mosaic. Herder finds the collection as a whole Solomonic, and makes the striking suggestion that its author at a more mature age would take the tone of Ecclesiasticus.

Considered simply as a literary production, the composition makes on my own mind the impression of a romance conveyed in idylls, each presenting a picturesque situation or a scene, the general theme and motif being that of the great Solomonic Psalm.

This psalm (xlv.), quoted and discussed in chapter III., brings before us a beautiful maiden brought from a distant region to the court, but not quite happy: she is entreated to forget her people and enjoy the dignities and luxuries offered by her lord, the King. This psalm is remarkable in its intimations of a freedom of sentiment accorded to the ladies wooed by Solomon, and the same spirit pervades Canticles. Its chief refrain is that love must not be coerced or awakened until it please. This magnanimity might naturally connect the name of Solomon with old songs of love and courtship such as those utilised and multiplied in this book, whose composition might be naturally ent.i.tled "A Song (made) of Songs which are Solomon's."

The heroine, whose name is Shulamith,--(feminine of Shelomoh, Solomon) [20]--is an only daughter, cherished by her apparently widowed mother but maltreated by her brothers. Incensed against her, they compel Shulamith to keep their vineyards to the neglect of her own. She becomes sunburnt, "swarthy," but is very "attractive," and is brought by Solomon to his palace, where she delights the ladies by her beauty and dances. In what I suppose to be one of the ancient Solomonic Songs embodied in the work it is said:

"There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, And maidens without number: Beyond compare is my dove, my unsoiled; She is the only one of her mother, The cherished one of her that bare her: The daughters saw her and called her blessed, Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her." [21]

Thus far the motif seems to be that of a Cinderella oppressed by brothers but exalted by the most magnificent of princes. But here the plot changes. The magnificence of Solomon cannot allure from her shepherd lover this "lily of the valley." Her lover visits her in the palace, where her now relenting brothers (vi. 12) seem to appear (though this is doubtful) and witness her triumphs; and all are in raptures at her dancing and her amply displayed charms--all unless one (perhaps the lover) who, according to a doubtful interpretation, complains that they should gaze at her as at dancers in the camps (vi. 13). [22]

Although Russell Martineau maintained, against most other commentators, that Solomon is only a part of the scene, and not among the dramatis personae, the King certainly seems to be occasionally present, as in the following dialogue, where I give the probable, though of course conjectural, names. The dancer has approached the King while at table.

Solomon--

"I have compared thee, O my love, To my steed in Pharaoh's chariot.

Thy cheeks are comely with plaits of hair, Thy neck with strings of jewels.

We will make thee plaits of gold With studs of silver."

Shulamith, who, on leaving the King, meets her jealous lover--

"While the King sat at his table My spikenard sent forth its odor.

My beloved is unto me as a bag of myrrh That lieth between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, My beloved is unto me as a cl.u.s.ter of henna-flowers In the vineyards of En-gedi."

Shepherd Lover--

"Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair; Thine eyes are as doves, Behold thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant: Also our couch is green.

The beams of our house are of cedar, And our rafters are of fir."