Charles Ellicott Commentary Song of Solomon 5

I am come into my garden. —This continues the same figure, and under it describes once more the complete union of the wedded pair. The only difficulty lies in the invitation, Eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved (the marginal reading is and be drunken with loves). Some suppose an invitation to an actual marriage feast; and if sung as an epithalamium, the song might have this double intention. But the marginal reading, “be drunken with loves,” suggests the right interpretation.

The poet, as has already been said (see note on Song of Solomon 2:7), loves to invoke the sympathy of others with his joys, and the following lines of Shelley reproduce the very feeling of this passage. Here, as throughout the poem, it is the “new strong wine of love,” and not the fruit of the grape, which is desired and drunk.

“You are the wine, whose drunkenness is all
We can desire, O Love! and happy souls,
Before from your vine the leaves of autumn fall,
Catch you and feed, from your overflowing bowls,
Thousands who thirst for your ambrosial dew.”

Prince Athanase.

I sleep. —This begins the old story under an image already employed (Song of Solomon 3:1). Here it is greatly amplified and elaborated.

The poet pictures his lady dreaming of him, and when he seems to visit her, anxious to admit him. But, as is so common in dreams, at first she cannot. The realities which had hindered their union reappear in the fancies of sleep.

Then, when the seeming hindrance is withdrawn, she finds him gone and, as before, searches for him in vain. This gives opportunity to introduce the description of the charms of the lost lover, and so the end of the piece, the union of the pair, is delayed to Song of Solomon 6:3.

My head is filled with dew. —Anacreon, iii.10 is often compared to this.

“‘Fear not,’ said he, with piteous din,
‘Pray open the door and let me in.
A poor unsheltered boy am I,
For help who knows not where to fly:
Lost in the dark, and with the dews,
All cold and wet, that midnight brews.’”

(Compare also Propertius I.16-23; Ovid, Amores II.19-21.)

Coat. —Heb. cutoneth=cetoneth; Gr. χίτων, tunic.

By the hole — that is, through (Hebrew min), as in Song of Solomon 2:9. The hole is the aperture made in the door above the lock for the insertion of the hand with the key. The ancient lock was probably like the one currently used in Palestine.

This lock consists of a hollow bolt or bar, which passes through a staple fixed to the door and into the door-post. In the staple are a number of movable pins, which drop into corresponding holes in the bolt when it is pushed home, and the door is then locked. To unlock it, the key is slid into the hollow bolt, and the movable pins are pushed back by other pins in it, corresponding in size and form. These pins fill up the holes and so enable the bolt to be withdrawn.

It is said that, instead of a proper key, the arm can be inserted into the hollow bolt and the pins pushed up by the hand, if provided with some soft material (like lard or wax) to fill up the holes and keep the pins from falling back again until the bolt is withdrawn. This method offers one explanation of Song of Solomon 5:5. Coming to the door and having no key, the lover is supposed to use some myrrh, brought as a present, when trying to open the door, and, not succeeding, to go away.

The term sweet smelling (in the margin: passing, or running about) refers to the myrrh that drops from the tree naturally, before any incision is made in the bark, and is considered specially fine.

Others explain Song of Solomon 5:5 by comparison with the pagan custom alluded to in Lucretius iv. 1173:

“At lacrimans exclusus amator limina sæpe
Floribus et sertis operit posteisque superbos
Unguet amaricino, et foribus miser oscula figit.”

(Compare to Tibullus 1:2-14.) Perhaps Proverbs 7:17 makes the comparison allowable, but the first explanation is preferable.

When he spoke. —We can suppose an exclamation of disappointment uttered by the lover as he goes away, which catches the ear of the heroine as she wakes.