It is interestins: to note the manner in which Budde supposes it possible that the book assumed its present disordered form. It was originally, as we have been told, a collection of wedding Bongs. This collection came, of course in manuscript form. into the hands of a later writer, torn into single leaves and
• We shall Bee afterwards that, on » rnrr*>cf, view of the Book tit Canticles, these TerBes [6^''] show themselvei to be unques- tionably orifinaL
damaged. He supposed that he had before him not a collection of songs, but a literary unity, of whose contents and aim be had, however, 'only an obscure idea.* He attempted a restora- tion of the unintelligible work by putting together as be best could the separate leaves, and trjing to amend the text by additions and supplements of the kind described above. But this is a very strange account of the matter, a real hypothesis of despair. There is one point, above all, to which exception must be taken. By way of supporting his general view of Canticles, Budde insists with much emphasis that the marriage customs, and of course also the peculiar character of the marriage songs, have continued essentially unaltered in Syria and Palestine from early times down to the present day. Nov, how is it conceivable that an author hving in Palestine (for it if there that we are supposed to look for the ' redactor *) as early as the pre-Christian era should either have failed to recognize the contents and aim of songs which had been handed down for the most part nitliout any corruption, or should have had ' only an obscure idea ' of their true character? Might we not assume that this Judxan redactor would have recognized the so-called wa^fs as readily as Wetzstein has done? Here, then, Budde brings us face to face with a serious problem. The extremely mechanical explanation of the origin of the present Song of Songs, which he considers to be 'a satisfaction of all just demands," appears to the present writer to condemn itself. Andy as a matter of fact ^ Budde himself by the diaracteristia he assigns to the redactor points the way again past his own hypothesis to the draynatical view of the Song. His merit thus comes to be, not that of having cut the thread of hfe of the dramatical explanation, but — and it is a service not to be under- valued— of having laid the foundation, by the aid of Wetzstein'a information, for a more correct opinion of the character, and perhaps even of the origin, of the Song of Song-a.
The present writer recognizes, then, the possi- bility tnat older wedding songs (as, for instance, t!ie ivasfs) are worked up in the Song of Songs. Rut this does not exclude the supposition tliat the Song in its present form is of a dramatical nature, and that its author (not a redactor or * reviser') introduced 'movement and action' or 'develop- ment ' into the material of which it is composed. At all events, this view is not set aside by simply pointing to passages in certain parts of the book which are marked by the characteristics of cus- tomary wedding songs, and which were perhaps taken o\er by the author ready made. If an examination of the separate parts of the book and a study of the connexion of the whole tend to show that everywhere, and not merely in the passages attacked by Budde, there is draraaticnl movement and expression, however great or small this maj' be, then the question is decided in favour of the conectness of the dramatical view, whatever may be urged to the contrary. Of course a dra- matic poet who utilizes older material in his work cannot have the full credit of originality allowed him, but a dramatic poem is the result of his work all the same. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the oong of Songs contams foreign matter which did not proceed from the pen of one and the same writer ; on the contrary, there are not wanting indications, both in thought and ex- pression, which point to an identity of authorship for the whole work.*
As to the general view of Canticles that ought to be taken, there can be no doubt, in the judg- ment of the present writer, that it is a poem whose subject is love, or more specifically that it is a carmen nuptiale or wedding song. 'llie crucial question^ however, if whether the poem, viewed as a wholCy sets out from a marriage as an accomjilished fact, — in other words, w/iether its subject is married love, — or whether a rnarriage is the goal at which it aims, in which case it is intended to glorify betrothed love andfdelity. Tiie i)resent writer is convinced that the second nlternative is the correct one, and hopes in what follows to substantiate this.
We have already pointed out (p. 592 f.) how the story which Ewald s interpretation discovers in t)ie Song of Songs might be readily developed in the popular memory and by a poetically inventive disposition from the history of Ahishag of Shunem. Budde, citing a word of Goetlies, reminds us that
• A careful reading of the bcok itself will readily aupplj the necessary evidence of this.
SONG OF SOXGS