Lindsay Falvey, Ph.D.
The Song of Songs [of Solomon] (שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים Šîr haŠîrîm, ᾎσμα ᾎσμάτων Aisma Aismatōn, Cantĭcum Canticōrum) is a poetic courtship that moves from enchantment to consummation. Devoid of religiosity, it has traditionally been understood as metaphor for the relationship of the soul with the Divine – of God with Israel – of Christ with the Church – of Christ with the human soul – or humanistically, as a metaphor for psychological integrity. In his 12th century sermon, ‘On the Title of the Book: The Song of Songs’, St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s meditative reading followed the book of Ecclesiastes, which teaches ‘how to … have done with the false promise of this world’, and the book of Proverbs that enlightens ‘your life and your conduct’. He called these two preliminary books antidotes to the two enemies of the soul – ‘misguided love of the world and an excessive love of self’, and he observed that only ‘the mind disciplined by persevering study’ is made ‘ripe … for nuptial union with the divine partner’. His spiritual marriage between the heavenly Bridegroom and the human bride occurs when the two become one, and that one is the same as God in the mystical world accessed through meditative reading, Lectio Divina. The Song of Songs has inspired more art than we can ever know, in music from Bach’s ‘Sleepers Wake’ to Purcell’s ‘My Beloved Spake’, and in literature from Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’ to Goethe’s ‘Faust’. The Song of Songs is also the favourite book of the title character in one of my favourite books, that of Nobel Laureate Sinclair Lewis – ‘Elmer Gantry’. To me the Song of Songs unites the mystical traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, dispensing with trivial dogmatic and cultural differences in such beautiful metaphor that it is no surprise to find such imagery in these and all other religions, albeit often neglected or even denigrated by institutional religious bodies to ‘protect’ the ignorant. Long noticed similarities of the Song of Songs w
Read this work at the World Public Library (library card needed).