Page:The Song of Songs (1857).djvu/25

 because they had overheard the shepherd inviting her to accompany him into the fields to enjoy together the charms of nature (8-14), on account of which, in their anxiety for her reputation, they changed her employment, told her to be a "keeper of the vineyards," in order to separate her from her beloved (15). She, moreover, relates that they consoled themselves with the assurance that, though separated bodily, indissoluble ties subsisted between them, over which her brothers had no control (16); that she invited him to come again in the evening, when unobserved (17); and that, seeing he did not come, she went in search of him, &c. (ch. iii. 1-4). Having thus evinced her deep attachment for the shepherd, she again concludes by adjuring the court-ladies not to persuade her to transfer her affections to another (5).

This section, therefore, follows the preceding one, to set forth the cause of the brother's severity in having made her a "keeper of the vineyards," and thus gives a further insight into her previous history.

The section (ch. iii. 6, v. i.) relates the second unsuccessful effort of Solomon to gain the Shulamite's affections. The King, determined to gain his purpose, takes the damsel, with great pomp, into the capital (ch. iii. 6-11), in the hope of dazzling her with his great splendour; but he is again disappointed. In the midst of the imposing magnificence, the damsel tells her beloved shepherd, who has followed her thither, and obtained an interview with her, and expressed his delight at seeing her again (ch. iv. 1-5), that she is anxious to quit the palace for her rural home (6). Her beloved, on hearing this, offers his assistance to effect an escape (7, 8), and praises her constancy and charms (9-16); whereupon they both manifest their mutual attachment in so affecting a manner that even some of the court-ladies are moved (ch. iv. 16, v. 1), with whose expression of sympathy the section concludes.

The bearing which this section has upon the whole plan is, in the first place, to develop the progress of the history itself,