NIGHT THOUGHTS AND AN INTERLUDE
1-4. There is a charming lightness of touch and quickness of movement
in the story she tells, and it is all the more interesting for our
having to supply the prosaic connecting links. 'The Unrest of Love' is
an apt title. We can only understand it as a maiden's dream... [ Continue Reading ]
The broad ways are what we should call the squares; wide, open spaces
by the city gates and elsewhere.... [ Continue Reading ]
The 'mother's house' is the women's apartments, into which a strange
man dare not enter.
6-11. It is possible that this is a song of the bridegroom's
companions on the morrow of the wedding, when the throne is set up for
the bridal pair. But more probably it is a kind of interlude, intended
to conv... [ Continue Reading ]
One man asks, 'What is this litter (RV) that is coming out of the
wilderness, the uncultivated grazing land? 'The pillars of smoke are
caused by the burning of sweet perfumes. Frankincense was an aromatic
gum-resin obtained from balsamic plants which grow in Arabia and
Eastern Africa. The powders of... [ Continue Reading ]
King Solomon's palanquin (RV) is made of the costly woods of Lebanon,
cedar and Cyprus.... [ Continue Reading ]
The pillars supporting the canopy are of silver, the arms of gold, the
seat (RV) covered with a costly purple fabric. And, as the Hebrew
words for love and 'ebony' are very similar, the closing part of the
description may originally have run, 'inlaid with ebony from the
daughters of Jerusalem.'... [ Continue Reading ]
The women of the chorus are to fancy themselves meeting the procession
and feasting their eyes with the sight of the king in all his glory.
At a Jewish wedding both bride and groom wear crowns: in Syria, at the
present day, the bride wears one; in Bulgaria she has a crown of
alloyed silver.... [ Continue Reading ]