Song of Solomon 5:2-16

Song of Solomon 5:2 to Song of Solomon 6:3. A Dream

On the hypothesis we have adopted, a night must be supposed to intervene between Song of Solomon 5:1. After the interview with the king and that with her lover night came; and as she slept she dreamed one of those troubled dreams consisting of a series of efforts frustrated, which so often follow on an agitated day. On the following morning she narrates the dream to the ladies of the court. Song of Solomon 5:2-7 relate the dream. In Song of Solomon 5:8 the Shulammite, having just awaked and being still under the influence of her dream, asks the ladies, if they should find her lost lover, to tell him she is sick from love. In Song of Solomon 5:9 they reply, asking with surprise what there is in her lover that moves her in such a fashion. In Song of Solomon 5:10 she gives a description of her lover as he dwells in her brooding imagination, and concludes in triumph, "Thisis my beloved and thisis my friend." In ch. Song of Solomon 6:1, the court ladies ask eagerly whither this model of manly beauty is gone, and to this, in Song of Solomon 5:2, the Shulammite replies vaguely and evasively, and claims her lover for herself alone. Now all this is quite in place if a love-tale is being presented in a series of songs, but in a collection of verses to be sung at weddings in general it is impossible that the bride could be made to speak thus. Such references to pre-nuptial love would be not only unbecoming, but impossible. But in still another way this song is fatal to Budde's popular-song theory. In such a collection of wedding songs there is, of course, no connexion between the various lyrics. Each of them stands by itself, and there is no possibility of action of a dramatic kind on the part of the bride and bridegroom such as we undeniably have here. But Budde meets that by pointing out that Wetzstein reports a case in which a poet of the region where he discovered the wasfwrote a poem for a particular wedding. In that, before a description of the bride's ornaments and person, an account is given of the agricultural processes by which the wealth expended on her trousseauhad been obtained. But, besides the fact that in the case cited as parallel to this, the poem was not a popular song, but a poem prepared for the special occasion, the addition to the wasfthere is a very legitimate extension of the description, and has none of the dramatic element in it. The dramatic element here is very pronounced, and is evidently intended to give unity and movement to the whole poem.