Song of Solomon

A hundred and seventeen verses of love poetry, in which two lovers speak to and about each other and God is never mentioned — the only book in the Bible of which both halves of that sentence are true. It has no plot to follow, no argument to trace and no moral drawn at the end; what it has is desire, described at length and without embarrassment, in a voice that is more often the woman's than the man's. She speaks the majority of its lines, she initiates, she searches the streets at night, and the book's closest thing to a thesis is spoken by her: love is strong as death, and cannot be bought. How to READ it has been disputed for two thousand years — as poetry about human love, as an allegory of God and Israel, as a figure of Christ and the church, or as a drama with a rival suitor — and the disagreement is not a detail, it changes what every line is about. This bundle explains the imagery and names the readings without settling between them. What is not in dispute is the poetry itself: gardens, spices, vineyards, and a refrain, three times repeated, warning the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken love before it is ready.

Themes

• Mutual belonging — The line that comes closest to a refrain of ownership is spoken by her and it runs both ways: my beloved is mine, and I am his (2:16; 6:3; 7:10). By the third time the order has shifted to his desire for her — the same claim, from the other side.
• Do not awaken love — Three times she turns from the poem to the daughters of Jerusalem with the same charge (2:7; 3:5; 8:4): do not stir up love until it pleases. A book this frank about desire is also the one that says twice over that desire has a right time.
• The garden — Her body, her person and the place they meet are all a garden — locked, then opened, then entered at her invitation (4:12-5:1). The Song is full of Eden's vocabulary without ever mentioning Eden.
• Seeking and not finding — Twice she goes out at night to look for him, and the second search ends with the city watchmen beating her (3:1-4; 5:6-7). The Song is not a description of untroubled love; absence and risk are half of it.
• Praise of the body — Three long descriptive poems — 4:1-7, 5:10-16, 7:1-9 — catalogue the beloved from head to foot, or foot to head. Ancient Near Eastern love poetry has a name for the form, and it compares to what is strong, ordered and abundant rather than to what is merely pretty.
• Love is strong as death — The one place the Song stops singing and states a conclusion (8:6-7): love is as strong as death, its flashes are flashes of fire, many waters cannot quench it, and anyone offering to buy it would be laughed at.
• The vineyard — Hers, and Solomon's. She was made to keep the vineyards and did not keep her own (1:6); at the end she has one vineyard that is hers to give, and Solomon can keep his thousand (8:11-12).

Outline

• 1. Draw me after you — The title, and an opening exchange full of longing — she is dark from working in the sun, she asks where he pastures his flock, and they praise each other on a green couch.
• 2. Arise, my love, and come away — A lily among thorns, a banner over a banquet hall, and the spring song: the winter is past, the flowers appear, come away. It ends with the first charge not to awaken love.
• 3. By night on my bed — A search through the city streets that finds him, and then a wedding procession — Solomon's carriage with sixty guards, seen coming up from the wilderness in a cloud of incense.
• 4. A garden locked — The first descriptive poem, head to breast, and then the garden: locked, sealed, planted with every spice — and her answer, inviting the wind to blow through it.
• 5. I sought him but couldn't find him — He comes to the door at night; she hesitates; he is gone. The search that follows ends in violence, and she answers the daughters of Jerusalem with a portrait of him in gold and ivory.
• 6. My beloved is mine — Where has he gone? To his garden. Praise resumes — as awesome as an army with banners — and the crowd calls the Shulammite back so they can look at her.
• 7. His desire is toward me — The third descriptive poem, this one from the feet upward, and her invitation: let us go out to the fields and the vineyards, and there I will give you my love.
• 8. Love is strong as death — The Song's summit and its close — a seal on the heart, waters that cannot quench love, a brother's plan for a little sister, her own vineyard kept, and one last call to come away.

Chapters

• Song of Solomon 1 — The book opens in the middle of a longing, with no introduction of the speakers and no situation explained — the first word out of her mouth is a wish to be kissed. What follows establishes the Song's two habits at once: she speaks first and most, and the praise runs both directions.
• Song of Solomon 2 — The chapter's centre is a spring song — winter past, rain gone, figs ripening, one bird singing — used as an argument: the season has changed, so come away. Around it sit the Song's first faintness with love and its first charge to the daughters of Jerusalem not to wake love before its time.
• Song of Solomon 3 — Two scenes that could not be less alike: a woman alone in the streets at night looking for someone who is not where he should be, and a royal procession coming up out of the desert in a cloud of incense with sixty armed men around it. The Song puts them back to back and explains neither.
• Song of Solomon 4 — The book's first descriptive poem, working downward from her eyes, and then a second movement that turns her into a landscape — a locked garden, a sealed spring, an orchard of imported spices. The last word of the chapter is hers, and it unlocks everything the poem has just described.
• Song of Solomon 5 — The Song's darkest poem sits immediately after its most abundant one. He knocks at night; she is undressed and in bed and hesitates for the length of two lines; by the time she opens the door he is gone. What follows is a search that ends with the city watchmen beating her — and then, asked why this man in particular, she answers with a portrait in gold, ivory and marble.
• Song of Solomon 6 — The chorus offers to help her search and gets an answer that suggests she knew where he was all along — he is in his garden. The praise that follows is the Song's most formidable, comparing her to two cities and twice to an army under banners, and the chapter ends with a crowd calling her back so they can look at her, and someone objecting.
• Song of Solomon 7 — The third and last descriptive poem, and the only one that starts at the feet and works up — ending with a king held captive by hair. Then she takes the poem back and turns it into a plan: let us go out to the fields, spend the night in the villages, and see whether the vines have budded.
• Song of Solomon 8 — The Song ends by saying out loud what it has been showing for seven chapters — love is as strong as death, its flame cannot be drowned, and no amount of money could buy it — and then, having reached its summit, it does not stop there. It closes with a family arguing about a younger sister, a vineyard accounted for, and one more call to come away.

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