Ecclesiastes 12:4

and the doors shall be shut in the streets The picture of the city under the terror of the storm is continued. The gates of all houses are closed. None leave their houses; the noise of the mill ceases. The bird (probably the crane or the swallow) rises in the air with sharp cries (literally, for a cry). Even the "daughters of song" (the birds that sing most sweetly, the nightingale or thrush, or possibly the "singing women" of ch. Ecclesiastes 2:8, whose occupation is gone in a time of terror and dismay) crouch silently, or perhaps, chirp in a low tone. Few will dispute the vividness of the picture. The interpretation of the symbols becomes, however, more difficult than ever. The key is probably to be found in the thought that as we had the decay of bodily organsin the previous verse, so here we have that of bodily functions. The "doors" (the Hebrew is dual as representing what we call "folding doors") are the apertures by which the life of processes of sensation and nutrition from its beginning to its end is carried on, and the failure of those processes in extreme age, or in the prostration of paralysis, is indicated by the "shutting" of the doors. What we may call the dual organs of the body, lips, eyes, ears, alike lose their old energies. The mill (a better rendering than "grinding") is that which contains the "grinders" of Ecclesiastes 12:3, i.e.the mouth, by which that process begins, can no longer do its work of vocal utterance rightly. The words "he shall rise up at the voice of the bird" have for the most part been taken as describing the sleeplessness of age, the old man waking at a sparrow's chirp, but this interpretation is open to the objections (1) that it abruptly introduces the old man as a personal subject in the sentence, while up to this point all has been figurative; and (2) that it makes the clause unmeaning in its relation to the picture of the terror-stricken city, below which we see that of the decay of man's physical framework. Adopting the construction given above, we get that which answers to the "childish treble" of the old man's voice, and find a distinct parallel to it in the elegy of Hezekiah "Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter" (Isaiah 38:14); the querulous moaning which in his case was the accompaniment of disease becoming, with the old or the paralysed, normal and continuous. The "daughters of song" are, according to the common Hebrew idiom, those that sing, birds or women, as the case may be. Here, their being "brought low," i.e.their withdrawal from the stage of life, may symbolise the failure either of the power to sing, or of the power to enjoy the song of others. The words of Barzillai in 2 Samuel 19:35 paint the infirmities of age in nearly the same form, though in less figurative language. "Can thy servant taste what I eat or drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men or singing women?" The interpretations which find in the "daughters of song" either (1) the lips as employed in singing, or (2) the ears as drinking in the sounds of song, though each has found favour with many commentators, have less to commend them, and are open to the charge of introducing a needless and tame repetition of phenomena already described.

With the picture of old age thus far we may compare that, almost cynical in its unsparing minuteness, of Juvenal Sat.x. 200 239. A few of the more striking parallels may be selected as examples:

"Frangendus misero gingiva panis inermi."

"Bread must be broken for the toothless gums."

"Non eadem vini, atque cibi, torpente palato, Gaudia."

"For the dulled palate wine and food have lost Their former savours."

"Adspice partis

Nunc damnum alterius; nam quæ cantante voluptas,

Sit licet eximius citharœdus, sitve Seleucus,

Et quibus auratâ mos est fulgere lacernâ?

Quid refert, magni sedeat quâ parte theatri,

Qui vix cornicines exaudiet, atque tubarum

Concentus."

"Now mark the loss of yet another sense:

What pleasure now is his at voice of song.

How choice soe'er the minstrel, artist famed,

Or those who love to walk in golden robes?

What matters where he sits in all the space

Of the wide theatre, who scarce can hear

The crash of horns and trumpets?"

Or again

"Ille humero, hic lumbis, hic coxâ debilis; ambos

Perdidit ille oculos, et luscis invidet; hujus

Pallida labra cibum accipiunt digitis alienis.

Ipse ad conspectum cœnæ diducere rictum

Suetus, hiat tantùm, ceu pullus hirundinis, ad quem

Ore volat pleno mater jejuna."

"Shoulders, loins, hip, each failing in its strength

Now this man finds, now that, and one shall lose

Both eyes, and envy those that boast but one.…

And he who used, at sight of supper spread,

To grin with wide-oped jaw, now feebly gapes,

Like a young swallow, whom its mother bird

Feeds from her mouth filled, though she fast herself."