Page:The Song of Songs (1857).djvu/176

 How sweet is thy love above wine! And the fragrance of thy perfumes above all the spices! 11 Thy lips, O my betrothed, distil honey: Honey and milk are under thy tongue, And the odour of thy garments is as the smell of Lebanon. 12 A closed garden art thou, my sister, my betrothed, A closed garden, a sealed fountain.

the lover tells his loved one why the sight of her is so animating and emboldening, For the comparison of love with wine, see i. 2, 3. The Sept., which is followed by the Syriac, Vulg., Arabic, and Luther, has here again [HE: dad.eyk/o], thy breasts; but see i. 2. The Sept. has also [GR: o)smê\ i(ma/tiôn sou], [HE: v^erEyHa S\im^eltaOyik/^e], for [HE: v^erEyHa S/^emonayik/^e], evidently taken from the following verse.

11. Thy lips, O my betrothed, &c. Every word which falls from her lips is like a drop from the honeycomb. This comparison is used in other parts of Scripture, and by the Greeks and Romans. Thus Prov. v. 3:—

"The harlot's lips distil honey, And her palate is smoother than oil."

Theocrit. Idyl. xx. 26:—

[GR: to\ sto/ma kai\ pakta=s glukerô/teron; e)k stoma/tôn de\ e)\r)r(ee/ moi fôna\ glukerôte/ra ê)/ me/li kê/rô.]

"More sweet my lips than milk in luscious rills, Lips, whence pure honey, as I speak, distils."

Also Idyl. i. 146, 8, 82; Homer, Iliad, i. 249; Hor. Epist. i. 19, 44. That we are to understand by distilling honey, "lovely words," and not ''saliva oris osculantis'', is evident from Prov. xvi. 24, where pleasant words are compared to a honeycomb, and the passage already quoted, just as slanderous words are represented as poisons, Ps. cxl. 3.

And the odour of thy garments, &c. The Orientals were in the habit of perfuming their clothes with aromatics. Thus we are told that the garments of Jacob emitted a pleasant smell, Gen. xxviii. 27; Ps. xlv. 9; Rosenmüller, Orient. i. 122. In consequence of the odoriferous trees which abounded on it, Lebanon became proverbial for fragrance. Hence the prophet Hosea (xiv. 7), describing the prosperous state of repenting Israel, says [HE: v^erEyHa lvO k.al^ebanvOn/], and his odour shall be as that of Lebanon. This passage is sufficient to show the error of the Vulg. in rendering [HE: k.^erEyHa l^ebonvOn/] by sicut odor thuris, as if it were [HE: k.^erEyHa l^ebvOnoh]. The perfumed attire which the Shulamite had on, and which the shepherd here praises, is evidently not the humble clothes which she had brought with her, but some splendid apparel recently given to her by the king.

12. A closed garden, &c. The trees of Lebanon, referred to at the end of the last verse, suggested this beautiful metaphor of a garden, under which the shepherd describes the unsullied purity and chastity of the Shulamite. Gardens in the East were generally hedged or walled in, to prevent the intrusion of strangers (Isa. v. 5; Joseph. De Bell. Jud. vii.). From this arose the epithet, "closed garden," for a virtuous woman, shut up against every attempt to alienate her affections. The contrary figure is used in viii. 9; there accessibility is described as "a door," i.e. open to seduction.

A sealed fountain, &c. Another metaphor to express the same idea. The scarcity of water in arid countries renders fountains very valuable. To secure them against the encroachment of strangers, the proprietors formerly fastened their fountains with some ligament, and the impression of a seal upon clay, which would quickly harden in the sun, that would soon dissolve wax. This mode of rendering pits safe is found in Dan. vi. 18; Matt. xxvii. 66. A fountain sealed in this manner indicated that it was private property. Hence its metaphorical use, to represent chastity as an inac