Check it Out: Song of (sexy) Songs
It is a consequence of living in
Canada that someday, somehow,
you will have to suffer through a
long, boring sermon. Not Christian?
Sorry kids, but that'll only get you
off the hook until the next wedding.
Luckily for us, every church is guaranteed
to provide a little black book
full of erotic entertainment. And
what book might that be?
The Bible.
Yeah, don't let your jaw hit the floor, but old-time religion is full of tasty tidbits sure to keep you awake and aroused until the second coming — or at least until you can legitimately slip out the back.
Specifically, "Song of Songs" gives a blow by blow account of smooth-talking King Solomon's seduction of a sweet little Shulamite girl three 3,000 years ago. Now, most people might remember Solomon as the guy who asked God for the gift of wisdom and outwitted the Queen of Sheba. What you might not recall is that he had 300 wives and 700 concubines — and probably limitless libido too, with those stats. Given the emphasis in ancient times on female modesty, "Song of Songs" amounts to a riproaring playboy sweeping a shy wallflower off her feet.
The unknown religious poet wrote this experience as a song in three voices, that of Solomon, the Beloved (i.e. the chick), and a chorus of family well-wishers. I'm slightly bewildered by the well-wishers, since I'm fairly sure my dad would gun down any married man who tried to make off with his daughter, but I guess between polygamy being more commonplace and his father David's reputation as a warlord, that probably wasn't an option at the time.
Despite the small matter of Solomon's 1,000 other women, his approach to this particular woman is written with a delicacy of detail. As in a suspense film, where the stark lighting throws every object into focus, when the music stops so that every sound plays upon your nerves, so the poetry moves slowly here, but with irrevocable purpose. As in a dream sequence, "in sleep, my heart wakes, and my lover's voice knocks at the door: Open unto me, sistersoul, undefiled." (5:2). She's listening in the dark to her lover at the door, lying naked on her bed, having just put off her clothes and washed her feet (5:3). Yet he "put his hand by the hole of the door" and you can see she moves smoothly in spite of herself to the door, fingers sticky "with sweet-smelling myrrh," sweaty with anticipation, "upon the handle of the lock" (5:5). Yet when she opens it ...
Gone. He's not there, if he ever was, evaporated like a dream. Perhaps this was a criticism, as some suggest, the metaphorical abandonment of women locked into a culture of polygamy. The desire seems too genuine here, though, for criticism. More probable is the possibility of this being a dramatic allegory of the soul's desire for God. In this light, the passage assumes new meaning for a secular modernity where God disappeared into myth and metaphor. For many of us growing up in theistic traditions, where meaning and purpose is rooted in the belief in a Supreme Being, losing faith is less of a liberation than a bereavement. It's like opening the door and finding no one's there.
Aside from the twisty existential quandaries though, the story's Iron Age innuendos are something else, and paint us a lovely picture of The Edible Woman. "Your stature is like to a palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of grapes?" (7:7). Yummy. Apparently he thought so too, since he figured, "I will go to the palm tree and climb it, and now your breasts will be like clusters of the vine" (7.8). Hang on. Climb? I doubt her stature was really like to a palm tree, which can grow to 60 metres, so Solomon was hardly going to monkey up her, was he?
Heh. Well, hells yeah. Think about how you climb a tree, you start from the lower limbs and work your way upwards along the trunk until you reach its apex, which is really the climax of the work. If that doesn't make sense for you, think about doing that with your mouth, and remember the tree is a metaphor for a woman. I'm confident in your deductive reasoning.
You'd want to use your mouth too. The 'tree' was a tasty little morsel, whose "waist is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies." If you've seen sheaves of wheat, they're usually tied in the middle, meaning that besides having a model's height, Beloved had an hourglass figure à la Marilyn Monroe. She's also described as being "a garden shut-up, with henna and spikenard, a body like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting" (4:12-13, 7:2). Spicy and intoxicating. Solomon wasn't too shabby himself. "His legs are like pillars of marble" (5:15). Hello, rock-hard muscles. All I can say is work that, baby!
Somehow though, I doubt you'd get their modern counterparts unless you tweaked their pick-up lines though. "My bowels moved for you" (5:4, KJV) is more likely to get you an enema than a date for the evening. That being said, you can have a funfilled evening getting slaps from the girls and weird looks from the guys with some of this stuff, so check out a Bible for your bar night today!
The Bible.
Yeah, don't let your jaw hit the floor, but old-time religion is full of tasty tidbits sure to keep you awake and aroused until the second coming — or at least until you can legitimately slip out the back.
Specifically, "Song of Songs" gives a blow by blow account of smooth-talking King Solomon's seduction of a sweet little Shulamite girl three 3,000 years ago. Now, most people might remember Solomon as the guy who asked God for the gift of wisdom and outwitted the Queen of Sheba. What you might not recall is that he had 300 wives and 700 concubines — and probably limitless libido too, with those stats. Given the emphasis in ancient times on female modesty, "Song of Songs" amounts to a riproaring playboy sweeping a shy wallflower off her feet.
The unknown religious poet wrote this experience as a song in three voices, that of Solomon, the Beloved (i.e. the chick), and a chorus of family well-wishers. I'm slightly bewildered by the well-wishers, since I'm fairly sure my dad would gun down any married man who tried to make off with his daughter, but I guess between polygamy being more commonplace and his father David's reputation as a warlord, that probably wasn't an option at the time.
Despite the small matter of Solomon's 1,000 other women, his approach to this particular woman is written with a delicacy of detail. As in a suspense film, where the stark lighting throws every object into focus, when the music stops so that every sound plays upon your nerves, so the poetry moves slowly here, but with irrevocable purpose. As in a dream sequence, "in sleep, my heart wakes, and my lover's voice knocks at the door: Open unto me, sistersoul, undefiled." (5:2). She's listening in the dark to her lover at the door, lying naked on her bed, having just put off her clothes and washed her feet (5:3). Yet he "put his hand by the hole of the door" and you can see she moves smoothly in spite of herself to the door, fingers sticky "with sweet-smelling myrrh," sweaty with anticipation, "upon the handle of the lock" (5:5). Yet when she opens it ...
Gone. He's not there, if he ever was, evaporated like a dream. Perhaps this was a criticism, as some suggest, the metaphorical abandonment of women locked into a culture of polygamy. The desire seems too genuine here, though, for criticism. More probable is the possibility of this being a dramatic allegory of the soul's desire for God. In this light, the passage assumes new meaning for a secular modernity where God disappeared into myth and metaphor. For many of us growing up in theistic traditions, where meaning and purpose is rooted in the belief in a Supreme Being, losing faith is less of a liberation than a bereavement. It's like opening the door and finding no one's there.
Aside from the twisty existential quandaries though, the story's Iron Age innuendos are something else, and paint us a lovely picture of The Edible Woman. "Your stature is like to a palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of grapes?" (7:7). Yummy. Apparently he thought so too, since he figured, "I will go to the palm tree and climb it, and now your breasts will be like clusters of the vine" (7.8). Hang on. Climb? I doubt her stature was really like to a palm tree, which can grow to 60 metres, so Solomon was hardly going to monkey up her, was he?
Heh. Well, hells yeah. Think about how you climb a tree, you start from the lower limbs and work your way upwards along the trunk until you reach its apex, which is really the climax of the work. If that doesn't make sense for you, think about doing that with your mouth, and remember the tree is a metaphor for a woman. I'm confident in your deductive reasoning.
You'd want to use your mouth too. The 'tree' was a tasty little morsel, whose "waist is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies." If you've seen sheaves of wheat, they're usually tied in the middle, meaning that besides having a model's height, Beloved had an hourglass figure à la Marilyn Monroe. She's also described as being "a garden shut-up, with henna and spikenard, a body like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting" (4:12-13, 7:2). Spicy and intoxicating. Solomon wasn't too shabby himself. "His legs are like pillars of marble" (5:15). Hello, rock-hard muscles. All I can say is work that, baby!
Somehow though, I doubt you'd get their modern counterparts unless you tweaked their pick-up lines though. "My bowels moved for you" (5:4, KJV) is more likely to get you an enema than a date for the evening. That being said, you can have a funfilled evening getting slaps from the girls and weird looks from the guys with some of this stuff, so check out a Bible for your bar night today!
