How inappropriate were this allusion if it had been placed in the mouth of any one else but an Egyptian. To give the passage any other interpretation is virtually accusing Solomon of grosser ignorance than my reverence will allow me to attribute to him.
Professor Stowe and President Mahan, and others, agree in giving the following translation to another verse in the first chapter of the song,
“Ere I was aware
My soul was as the war-chariot
Of my noble people.”
The whole poem, without doubt, is nothing more than a brilliant out-burst of Solomon’s love for his bride.
Homer, the prince of epic poets, speaks of the Ethiopians, and presents them at the feast of the gods. These men of sun-burnt faces, as their name implies, he calls the excellent Ethiopians.
A distinguished scholar,[A] speaking of this passage in the Grecian’s renowned poem, in the presence of an American pedant, the young upstart seriously inquired if the Ethiopians were black? “Most assuredly,” answered the scholar. “Well,” said the young republican, “had I been at that feast, and negroes had been placed at the table, I would have left it.” “Had you been living at that time, returned the other, you would have been saved the trouble of leaving the table, for the gods would not have invited you.”
Such a man in such a banquet would have been as much out of place as an ass would be in a concert of sacred music.
The interior of Ethiopia has not been explored by modern adventurers. The antiquarian has made his way into almost every dominion where relics of former greatness have promised to reward him for his toil. But this country, as though she had concealed some precious treasure, meets the traveller on the outskirts of her dominions, with pestilence and death. Yet, in the Highlands which have been traversed, many unequivocal traces of former civilization have been discovered. Very lately, British enterprize has made some important researches in that region of Country, all of which go to prove that Homer did not misplace his regards for them, when he associated them with the Gods.