HEBREW LOVE SONGS
From personal observation, Dr. G.H. Dalman collected a large number of modern Syrian songs in his Palästinischer Diwan (Leipzig, 1901). The songs were taken down, and the melodies noted, in widely separated districts. Judea, the Hauran, Lebanon, are all represented. Dr. Dalman prints the Arabic text in "Latin" transliteration, and appends German renderings. Wetzstein's earlier record of similar folk-songs appears in Delitzsch's Commentary on Canticles—Hohelied und Koheleth,—1875 and also in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, v, p. 287. Previous commentators had sometimes held that the Song of Songs was a mere collection of detached and independent fragments, but on the basis of Wetzstein's discoveries, Professor Budde elaborated his theory, that the Song is a Syrian wedding-minstrel's repertory.
This theory will be found developed in Budde's Commentary on Canticles (1898); it is a volume in Marti's Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament. An elaborate and destructive criticism of the repertory theory may be read in Appendix ii of Mr. Andrew Harper's "Song of Solomon" (1902): the book forms a volume in the series of the Cambridge Bible for Schools. Harper's is a very fine work, and not the least of its merits is its exposition of the difficulties which confront the attempt to deny unity of plot and plan to the Biblical song. Harper also expresses a sound view as to the connection between love-poetry and mysticism. "Sensuality and mysticism are twin moods of the mind." The allegorical significance of the Song of Songs goes back to the Targum, an English version of which has been published by Professor H. Gollancz in his "Translations from Hebrew and Aramaic" (1908).
Professor J.P. Mahaffy's view on the Idylls of Theocritus may be read in his "History of Greek Literature," ii, p. 170, and in several pages of his "Greek Life and Thought" (see Index, s.v.).
The passage in which Graetz affirms the borrowing of the pastoral scheme by the author of Canticles from Theocritus, is translated from p. 69 of Graetz's Schir ha-Schirim, oder das salomonische Hohelied (Vienna, 1871). Though the present writer differs entirely from the opinion of Graetz on this point, he has no hesitation in describing Graetz's Commentary as a masterpiece of brilliant originality.
The rival theory, that Theocritus borrowed from the Biblical Song, is
supported by Professor D.S. Margoliouth, in his "Lines of Defence of the
Biblical Revelation" (1900), pp. 2-7. He also suggests (p. 7), that
Theocritus borrowed lines 86-87 of Idyll xxiv from Isaiah xi. 6.
The evidence from the scenery of the Song, in favor of the natural and indigenous origin of the setting of the poem, is strikingly illustrated in G.A. Smith's "Historical Geography of the Holy Land" (ed. 1901), pp. 310-311. The quotation from Laurence Oliphant is taken from his "Land of Gilead" (London, 1880).
Egyptian parallels to Canticles occur in the hieroglyphic love-poems published by Maspero in Études égyptiennes, i, pp. 217 et seq., and by Spiegelberg in Aegyptiaca (contained in the Ebers Festschrift, pp. 177 et seq.). Maspero, describing, in 1883, the affinities of Canticles to the old Egyptian love songs, uses almost the same language as G.E. Lessing employed in 1777, in summarizing the similarities between Canticles and Theocritus. It will amuse the reader to see the passages side by side.
[Transcriber's Note: In our print copy these were set in parallel columns.]
MASPERO
Il n'y a personne qui, en lisant la traduction de ces chants, ne soit frappé de la ressemblance qu'ils présentent avec le Cantique des Cantiques. Ce sont les mêmes façons …, les mêmes images …, les mêmes comparaisons.
LESSING
Immo sunt qui maximam similitudinem inter Canticum Canticorum et
Theocriti Idyllia esse statuant … quod iisdem fere videtur esse verbis,
loquendi formulis, similibus, transitu, figuris.
If these resemblances were so very striking, then, as argued in the text of this essay, the Idylls of Theocritus ought to resemble the Egyptian poems. This, however, they utterly fail to do.
For my acquaintance with the modern Greek songs I am indebted to Mr. G.F. Abbott's "Songs of Modern Greece" (Cambridge, 1900). The Levantine character of the melodies to Hebrew Piyyutim based on the Song of Songs is pointed out by Mr. F.L. Cohen, in the "Jewish Encyclopedia," i, p. 294, and iii, p. 47.
The poem of Taubah, and the comments on it, are taken from C.J.L. Lyall's "Translations of Ancient Arabic Poetry, chiefly prae-Islamic" (1885), P. 76.
The Hebrew text of Moses ibn Ezra's poem—cited with reference to the figure of love surviving the grave—may be found in Kaempf's Zehn Makamen (1858), p. 215. A German translation is given, I believe, in the same author's Nichtandalusische Poesie andalusischer Dichter.
Many Hebrew love-poems, in German renderings, are quoted in Dr. A. Sulzbach's essay, Die poetische Litteratur (second section, Die weltliche Poesie), contributed to the third volume of Winter and Wunsche's Jüdische Litteratur (1876). His comments, cited in my essay, occur in that work, p. 160. Amy Levy's renderings of some of Jehudah Halevi's love songs are quoted by Lady Magnus in the first of her "Jewish Portraits." Dr. J. Egers discusses Samuel ha-Nagid's "Stammering Maid" in the Graetz Jubelschrift (1877), pp. 116-126.