NIGHT THOUGHTS AND AN INTERLUDE 1-4. There is a charming lightness of touch and quickness of movement in the story she tells, and it is all the more interesting for our having to supply the prosaic connecting links. 'The Unrest of Love' is an apt title. We can only understand it as a maiden's dream... [ Continue Reading ]
The broad ways are what we should call the squares; wide, open spaces by the city gates and elsewhere.... [ Continue Reading ]
The 'mother's house' is the women's apartments, into which a strange man dare not enter. 6-11. It is possible that this is a song of the bridegroom's companions on the morrow of the wedding, when the throne is set up for the bridal pair. But more probably it is a kind of interlude, intended to conv... [ Continue Reading ]
One man asks, 'What is this litter (RV) that is coming out of the wilderness, the uncultivated grazing land? 'The pillars of smoke are caused by the burning of sweet perfumes. Frankincense was an aromatic gum-resin obtained from balsamic plants which grow in Arabia and Eastern Africa. The powders of... [ Continue Reading ]
King Solomon's palanquin (RV) is made of the costly woods of Lebanon, cedar and Cyprus.... [ Continue Reading ]
The pillars supporting the canopy are of silver, the arms of gold, the seat (RV) covered with a costly purple fabric. And, as the Hebrew words for love and 'ebony' are very similar, the closing part of the description may originally have run, 'inlaid with ebony from the daughters of Jerusalem.'... [ Continue Reading ]
The women of the chorus are to fancy themselves meeting the procession and feasting their eyes with the sight of the king in all his glory. At a Jewish wedding both bride and groom wear crowns: in Syria, at the present day, the bride wears one; in Bulgaria she has a crown of alloyed silver.... [ Continue Reading ]