[In the following essay, Soulen focuses on the function and effect of imagistic, descriptive passages, or wasfs, in chapters 4 and 7 of the Song of Songs.]

In order to justify another look at the Song of Songs one need not resort to the kind of hyperbole recently employed by the Catholic scholar A. Feuillet [in "Einige scheinbare Widerspriuche des Hohenliedes," Biblische Zeitschrift, 1964]: "Es gibt kein erregenderes Problem als das des Hohenliedes." An earlier remark of his [from "La formule d'appartenance mutuelle (II, 16) et les interpretations divergentes du Cantique des Cantiques," Revue Biblique, 1961] would suffice: "L'exegese du Cantique des Cantiques ne cesse de faire l'objet des plus vives controverses." One of these controversies centers around the proper interpretation of its imagery, particularly the images of certain curiously interesting songs found in chs. 4-7. These poems are recognized as examples of a particular genre of erotic love poetry differing from other poems in the Song of Songs anthology in that they describe in detailed and fanciful fashion the features of the female and male physique, the latter being less frequent. Since the similarity between these poems in the Song of Songs and modern Arabic poetry was first discovered in the last century, they have been commonly referred to by the technical Arabic term, wasf signifying "description." The imagery of the biblical wasf (occurring only in the Song of Songs) is of hermeneutic interest to us because (1) their interpretation demands and hence clearly illustrates hermeneutic principles active in the process of interpretation, and (2) new hermeneutic principles for interpreting this imagery suggest themselves from current discussions concerning the nature of language and poetic imagination.

Our discussion will deal primarily with the imagery of the descriptive poems in chs. 4 and 7 with the hope of discovering the function and purpose of the images they contain. Certain tangential and often belabored questions will not be considered. We are siding with those who find in the Song of Songs a collection of loosely connected love poems revealing no architectonic design whether to serve the purposes of allegory, pure drama, or cultic myth and ritual. Whether the Song as a whole or the wasfs individually are the product of folk poetry or the technical genius of a stylist is for the most part immaterial.

The question at hand simply put is: What do the images of these wasfs seek to accomplish, singly or collectively? To what end is this type of poetic imagination? Is it to aid perception, that is, to give the auditor a visual representation of his beloved's attributes by drawing forth visual parallels to the contour or color of her physical characteristics (hair, nose, neck, etc.)? If this be the case, one must be careful to note that the subject matter conveyed is the physical appearance of the maiden herself. Further, if this is the intent, then the weight of the metaphor lies on the cognitive process of perception and thereby tests the hearer's skill of abstraction and comparison. The hermeneutic principle involved in this method of interpretation is that of the biblical literalist or realist, as it comes to life, for example, in the work of Lercy Waterman [The Song of Songs].

Waterman's thoroughgoing rejection of interpretations which spiritualized or allegorized the Song left him with a hermeneutic of realism that contorted the object of comparison (the maiden) into grotesque and comic proportions: a girl with a neck like a tower is a Brobdingnagian; her teeth, like sheep herded together, are jumbled; and, her hair, like a small flock of goats on a sprawling mountain side, is patchy and bizzare. From the perspective of realism Waterman was forced by his own logic to conclude that the purpose of the Song was to humiliate Solomon by depicting him as one rebuffed by a humble if not downright ugly girl from the north. The aim of the images then was to create in the imagination real but in this case ridiculous parallels to a ridiculous physical appearance.

M. H. Segal applies the same principle [in "Song of Songs," Vetus Testamentum, 1962] but omits any seriousness of intention. He sees the songs as abounding in playfulness and gentle raillery:

Only as playful banter can be rationally explained the grotesque description by the lover to the damsel of her neck as 'like the tower of David built for an armoury', of her nose 'as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus', and of her head like Mount Carmel and similar comical comparisons of her other limbs.

Realism as an interpretive principle also underlies the approach of B. S. J. Isserlin. Building on an earlier suggestion by A. M. Honeyman that [the] word תויפלח in 4⁴ should be translated "coursed masonry," Isserlin interprets the passage (that the damsel's neck is like the tower of David) to refer to the real appearance of the young girl's necklace. A parallel is said to exist between the strings of beads and the strata or courses of masonry which, when topped with warriors' shields, reminds the onlooker of a multi-stringed necklace topped with a string of round beads. Isserlin calls attention to a necklace of this type on a famous sculpture from Arsos in Cyprus which is dated around the 6th century B.C. He then argues that this is the period in which this poem was written. That the verse says nothing of a necklace or that the image of the tower is also applied to the nose and breast are facts overlooked by his interpretive principle at work, viz., the perspective of realism.

The recent commentary by Gillis Gerleman [in Das Hohelied] seeks to transcend the realist's limitations. He notes that the poems are the products of emotion, a joyous capitulation to the senses. They do not examine the beloved critically; they simply feast on what is seen. Objects are viewed fancifully, not concretely. The striking figures, he suggests, are not used to make more tangible a mental impression, but are designed to increase the song's effect upon the hearer's mind and emotions. He adds further, "Here there is very little to do with outline and contour. Everything pertains to movements and dynamic events."

Unfortunately, Gerleman does not make use of his own insights as consistently as is here suggested he should. Enamoured with what he believes are parallels from ancient Egyptian art, Gerleman resorts to the perspective of realism when interpreting the imagery of the wasfs in question. The figures of Egyptian sculpture and bas relief, he suggests, are really the objects in the poet's mind and therefore can be used to explain the imagery of the descriptive songs. The maiden's eyes are as doves because the contour of sculpted eyes is like that of a dove; the navel is like a "round vessel" which, though unlike real life, is an accurate (realistic) description of the navel as seen in Egyptian statuary; so also the hair of certain sculpted figures, with their geometric design of vertical and diagonal lines, etched deeply in stone to represent long strands and curls, is like wandering (?) goats on a mountain slope. In 4' and 65 where the same comparison to goats is used, Gerleman finds the tertium comparationis to be in their color (black) rather than in the pattern of the flock. But when the figure changes to a king caught in a maiden's hair Egyptian art is again in mind, viz., the ornamental figures which were occasionally used to bedeck a woman's coiffure. "This much seems certain to me in any case," writes Gerleman, "metaphorical or not—the image owes its existence to art."

Approached in this way, however, the very purpose of the wasf is altered. The poems no longer have as their subject matter the writer's beloved or even how he feels about her; instead it has in mind certain stylized art forms of Egypt! The hearer or reader of the poem is confronted with imagery which must call to mind characteristics not intrinsic to the objects themselves but to other and less well-known quantities neither mentioned nor obvious, viz., Egyptian ornamental art and sculpture. Yet, still more is expected of the hearer, for he is invited to draw parallels between the pictorial image and Egyptian art (not first of all the maiden or the suitor), not for the beauty of the art itself, but (presumably) because the subjects of the art were divine or imperial personages and who for that reason enhanced the particular artistic forms involved. This oblique and metaphorical reference to Egyptian art is then intended to glamorize the beloved, not the art itself—a semantic trick effective only with the cultured few. In spite of his own insights into the function of the imagery of the songs, Gerleman's interpretation in these instances is driven by a hermeneutic of realism, perhaps due to his interest in Egyptian culture and motivated by a desire to correlate that knowledge with his studies in the Song of Songs, even though it contradicts his stated understanding of the nature and purpose of the imagery employed. Since knowledge of Egyptian art would be prerequisite to understanding the poems as he conceives them, his hermeneutic also forces him to the conclusion that the poems were aristocratic in origin and not popular poetry (Volksdichtung)—a conclusion necessary from his assumptions, but one which, less widely accepted, further weakens his case.

Gerleman's method again raises the question of the appropriate hermeneutic principle for understanding the poetic imagery of the wasf It is suggested here that Gerleman is hermeneutically correct in so far as he sees the purpose of the wasf as presentational rather than representational. Its purpose is not to provide a parallel to visual appearance or, as we shall see, primarily to describe feminine or masculine qualities metaphorically. The tertium comparationis must be seen instead in the feelings and sense experiences of the poet himself who then uses a vivid and familiar imagery to present to his hearers knowledge of those feelings in the form of art.

An interpretation of the wasf which starts with this perspective but ends up with a hermeneutic reminiscent of rationalistic idealism is that of Thorleif Boman (Hebrew Thought compared with Greek). The ancient Hebrew poet, Boman begins, was characteristically disinterested in the appearances of persons and things; his concern was with his impression of their qualities. Thus, the connection between a tower and a woman's neck (as elsewhere her nose and breast) lies within their dynamic quality. A tower rising above its surroundings and a woman holding high (haughty) her neck are alike in that both strike the onlooker with awe and meekness by giving the impression of unapproachableness and inaccessibility. This initial phenomenological interest in the images, however, gives way to a total concern for the qualities themselves. To Boman the wasf is a "simple riddle, easy to solve," since it simply seeks to describe the dominant qualities of the object in mind. Boman divides the images of the Song of Songs into the three principal groupings of the bride's qualities: her inaccessibility, pride, purity, and virginity (represented by images such as the tower and fortress); her power of attraction and charm (images of flowers, palm trees, colors, and jewels); and her feminine voluptuousness and bodily vigor (images of edible animals and grains).

Boman's analysis, suggestive and convincing though it is in general, is weakened, not by an inconsistent principle of interpretation as with Gerleman, but by the overapplication of a given principle, viz., that images refer metaphorically to qualities and not to appearances. Thus, to maintain his principle of interpretation he alters those extended images which convey contradictory qualities by identifying the contradicting image as an insertion. For example, according to Boman the quality of impregnability conveyed by the word "battlement" in 89 is contradicted by the modifying phrase "of silver." This latter phrase is then omitted by Boman for material (and metric) reasons as an insertion. But, contrariwise, in his consideration of 510-16 precious substances (including gold which like silver is soft) are now interpreted as images indicative of "superior physical endowment." Thus, Boman's practice of attributing qualities to images is purely arbitrary and reverses the usual role of metaphor. In 89 the object of comparison (the maiden) defines the metaphor rather than the metaphor illuminating the qualities of the maiden, and this is even more the case of 510-16 where the presumption of youthful vigor and strength in the lad is used to determine what the metaphor means.

The danger to which Boman all but permits himself to succumb is to make the "simple riddle, easy to solve" into an analytic poem which needs a cognitive key of equivalents. Thus the discussion shifts from the impressions given by the qualities to the qualities themselves. Of course these aspects are but two parts of a whole: something (a quality) must be present to give an impression, and both are of concern in the wasf. But on which rests the tertium comparationis? What is being conveyed? The quality possessed or the impression given? One is abstract, the other existential. Boman's analysis encourages the reduction of images and metaphors to mere statements: "My beloved is pure, innocent, healthy, etc." But poetic imagination intends more than that! Poetry is not just a declaratory statement the long way around. The image in its poetic mode is, as Ezra Pound has said, "an emotional and intellectual complex in an instant of time."

What is suggested here then is that that interpretation is most correct which sees the imagery of the wasf as a means of arousing emotions consonant with those experienced by the suitor as he beholds the fullness of his beloved's attributes (or so the maiden as she speaks of her beloved in 510-16). Just as the sensual experiences of love, beauty, and joy are vivid but ineffable, so the description which centers in and seeks to convey these very subjective feelings must for that reason be unanalytical and imprecise. The writer is not concerned that his hearers be able to retell in descriptive language the particular qualities or appearance of the woman described; he is much more interested that they share his joy, awe, and delight. The poet is aware of an emotional congruity between his experience of his beloved's manifold beauty and his experience of the common wonders of life. With this in mind he sets out to convey his discovery in lyrical imagery by creating in his hearers an emotion congruent with his own in the presence of his beloved. It should be obvious that comparisons of the female body to jewels, bowls of wine, heaps of wheat, and so on, are not intended to aid a mental image of the maiden's appearance or merely to draw parallels to her qualities; they, and others like them, seek to overwhelm and delight the hearer, just as the suitor is overwhelmed and delighted in her presence. Likewise, the point of comparison between the maiden's hair and a flock of goats on the slopes of Gilead has nothing to do with Egyptian sculpture, color, motion, or with the quality of either the hair or the flock; it lies simply in the emotional congruity existing between two beautiful yet otherwise disparate sights. "Bowls of wine," "hills of myrrh," "mountains of frankincense," "heaps of wheat"—just as milk, honey, oil, and fruit elsewhere in the poems—titillate the senses, not the capacity to reason. Each in its own way triggers the imagination, each is a Pavlovian bell. Metaphorical hyperbole (heap, mountain, hill, all-bearing twins, etc.) is the language of joy—the impression the author receives at the sight of his beloved. This is not to suggest that all of the metaphors and similes "mean" precisely the same thing. "Meaning" here can refer only to what the images "effect" or "set in motion." Most images appeal to sight, but some to taste, some to fragrance, and, as poetry, all to hearing. But because each, true to metaphor, reaches out beyond itself and invites participation, it is an event of language. In other words, it is something which "happens" to the hearer. From his own prior understanding of the bounty and goodness of creation—of sight, of fragrance, and of savor—the hearer participates in the varied and erotic experiences of the suitor, though at second hand: through art.

In short, a wasf is not a thought problem "easily solved"; it is a celebration of the joys of life and love and at the same time an invitation to share that joy. Only from this perspective is the intent of the poet preserved and the object of love not made grotesque and ludicrous.