i1ossuet (1693) and Lowth thought that Can ticles might have been written for a royal wed ding, and divided it into sections corresponding to the days of the feast. Henan (1869) made the important suggestion that it may he the libretto of a simple play performed privately at some rural wedding, where the singers took the parts of Solomon's guards, ladies of Jeru salem, and others. To this view he was led the accounts of Schefer of such performances seen by him at Damietta and in Syria. Similar observations made by Wetzstein in the neighbor hood of Damascus caused this scholar to think that Canticles is not a dream, but a collection of wedding songs. intended to set a standard of decency and good taste for wedding poets to follow. Certain features of the Syrian wedding, such as the bridal couple playing king and queen. the sword-dance of the bride, and the aysf or song in praise of the bride, particularly im pressed him (1873). Wetzstein's view was ac cepted by Stade (1887), and particularly elabo rated by Budde (1894-98). Siegfried (1898). and Cheyne (1899), who strongly emphasize that the poems throughout describe wedded love. This theory, though more probable than the earlier views, is not wholly free from objection. It Is difficult to see how a natural exegesis can find wedded love described in scenes that present the husband es hypothesi, as knocking at his wile's window and being refused admittance on the ground that she is not dressed, or the heroine as roaming through the streets of the city at midnight in search of him, or expressing a wish that he were her brother that she might kiss him without being reproved. The necessity of resorting to dreams is again suspieionti, Aceording to the theory of 'Herder (1778), ac cepted Eichho•n. Goethe, De \Vette, Dipke. Magnus, Diestel, and others, Canticles is simply an anthology of lyrical forms describing the love of man and woman in all its different stages of development. This would be a most plausible theory were it not for the incidental dialogue, the references to King Solomon and the Simla mite, and the thrown upon wedding customs in Syria by the observations of Schefer and Wetz stein.
A wholly satisfactory hypothesis must recog nize the element of truth in each of these theo ries. There is, indeed, in Canticles a use of metaphor amounting at times to allegory. He who thinks that by gardens, fountains, trees, fruits, and wine these objects in nature are al ways meant, will not understand the songs. There is frequently an unmistakable double entendrc.
The love of the King and of the Shulamite Is unquestionably of the same character. Yet there are beyond a question rustic lovers in the poem. However great the distance between Can ticles and the Greek and Hindu drama, these country folk playing king and queen, bodyguard and harem in the wedding-week, seem to present a song-play that may be at the same time a reflection of Greek influence in the Decapolis and the abortive attempt at creating a native drama. But there is no movement of the action. no plot. no unity. As already Richard Simon (162S) and after him Herder recognized, the songs are clear ly of different provenience. They do not all describe the love of a married couple. There are curious survivals shimmering through the poem of earlier forms of domestic life, polyandry, poly gamy, promiscuity, and of sexual aberrations such as the basium Florentinum, pointed out by J. D. Michaelis in his Or. und Excg. Bibliothck (1774), page 169 ff.
It is now generally acknowledged that Solo mon cannot have been the author of Canticles. The language itself, with its Neo-Hebraisms, Ara maisms, and Persian and (reek loan-words, indi cates with sutfieient clearness that the hook is one of the latest in the Hebrew canon. Graetz regarded the author as dependent upon Theoc ritus (Third Century u.c.). Cheyne also thinks of the reign of one of the earlier Ptolemies. Siegfried is willing to go into the Second Cen tury. Winckler has suggested that the book was written by a Jew in Damascus in the period of the Nabattean kings. There is indeed much that points to the trans-Jordanic region, and particu larly to the Decapolis. It is of no small sig nificance that it is among the Greek lyric poets of the Decapolis that we find the first. impas sioned expression of a sense of beauty in nature. The reign of Aretas III. or Aretas IV. (c. 85 63 B.c.) is, perhaps. the most probable date. To gether with a strong emphasis upon the divine rights of passion, the supreme value of pure attachment between man and woman, it is the keen sense of beauty in nature that will always give to Canticles a distinguished place in ancient Hebrew literature. Consult: Herder. Des Lied der Lieder (Berlin, 18751 ; Ewald, Di-liter des alien Bundes (Crittingen, 18:39 : Del itzsch, llarslitd and Kohcleth 1875) Reran, LP (-antique des centiques (Paris, ISO) ; fiiegfried. Predigrr und Hoheslicd (Leipzig. 1898); and Black, Eneycloinrdia Biblica (Leip zig, 1899).