The Song of Songs (part nine)

The eighth and final chapter of The Song of Songs is also the most opaque. Its language is removed and full of stacked metaphors, a nigh-exhausted conclusion to the emotional rollercoaster of Rayati's fight for love and personal liberty. It is at once sad and hopeful, finding our heroine having learned the complexity of the world and fully coming of age as a result.

The chapter opens with the resignation that Dodi and Rayati will never be able to make a life together. In so many words, the lines express that social convention simply won't allow it, though it's not entirely clear what about their relationship is taboo, exactly. It may be that they are of two different nationalities, as much as distinct nationalities existed at the time, or possibly that they come from different social classes. This passage is an indication that their romance, while not ending, will never be official.

The next segment is cause for some debate. Depending on how it's translated, Rayati meets with Dodi under a tree either after Dodi has an argument with his mother, or possibly they meet under the same tree where Dodi himself was conceived. If it's the latter, then it's buried in the idiom of the time. Regardless, Rayati and Dodi are together in this passage and it's implied that they make vows to one another, even if a real marriage isn't in the future for them. Rayati says to Dodi, "Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal upon your arm". This is a very clear reference to one of the oldest prayers in Judaism, the V'ahavtah, in which God tells His people to bind the mitzvot upon their own hearts and hands. Rayati and Dodi's relationship is posited here as nothing less than a holy covenant that trumps all other laws.

The reason they are making this covenant is because Rayati is about to become the property of King Solomon himself. In this segment the more traditional interpretation of The Song reads it as the official marriage of Solomon and Rayati, as if Solomon has always been Rayati's lover. This doesn't really follow, given the metaphors present here and the assaults on Solomon's character throughout the poem. Rayati mentions the vineyards of Ba'al-Hamon, how they were sold by Solomon for a 1,000 pieces of silver each. Now, Ba'al-Hamon is not a historical place. It's never mentioned anywhere but in this poem and its literal meaning (Master of the Multitudes) indicates another attack on Solomon. The vineyard in The Song is a symbol of personal fulfillment and natural joy. This line accuses Solomon of selling his own happiness as a ruler for material wealth, while the following line finds Rayati evoking her own vineyard, her own fulfillment. She implies that her vineyard will never truly be sold, saying, "The thousand is yours, Solomon".

And so The Song of Songs ends in quiet defiance. Rayati finds herself in the gardens (perhaps Solomon's gardens) and her friends ask her to sing a song. The song she sings is a measure from The Song of Songs itself: "Quickly, my beloved. Be like a gazelle or a young hart on the mound of spices". Though she is not with him, Rayati still holds out hope to be with Dodi again. Her song is this poem and with its help she is resolved to never completely relinquish her happiness for anything.

David Icke's Reptilians

 David Icke is a fascinating figure.  He began his career as a sports commentator for the BBC, and a Green Party spokesman.  Then after a fateful encounter with a psychic, Icke had a spiritual awakening.

In an interview that was ostensibly to be about something sports-related, Icke announced to the world that "he was the son of God, and predicted that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.  From this rapid turnabout, David Icke became one of the most prolific and disturbing futurists in the movement which he dubbed "New Age conspiracism."

One of the touchstones of Icke's theories is that, in the words of Wikipedia, "a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity."  It is Icke's assertion that many world leaders, including George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth II, are actually reptilians.

(Icke also believes that Kris Kristofferson and Boxcar Willie are reptilians.  Although certainly less successful ones than their political heads-of-state brethren.)

Icke has fleshed out a remarkably detailed explanation and world view regarding these reptilians in his extensive self-published repertoire.  The reptilians drink blood, are able to change their shape at will (so as to appear human, or whatever George W. Bush is), are from the Alpha Draconis star system (a perfectly nice star which served as the pole star during the time of the Ancient Egyptians), and live inside the Hollow Earth.  

The reptilians are the masters of all conspiracies.  The puppetmasters of the world, in essence.  The reptilians feed on negative emotions, which is why they are constantly manufacturing wars and other sources of strife.  (You may recognize this as being the plot of a Star Trek: The Original Series episode titled "Day of the Dove.")

I can totally understand why someone would want to believe that the entire world is being controlled by shape-changing reptilian humanoids who drink negative emotions.  In a way, odd as it sounds, it's a lot more comforting than the reigning consensual explanation.  Which is that humans are either too lazy, inattentive, or actively malevolent to allow peace to prevail.  

Can't we all just get along?  Of course not - and it's all the fault of those darned reptilians!

9/11?  Reptilians.  Auschwitz?  Reptilians.  Civil War?  Reptilians.

Eight years after David Icke started revealing the truth about the reptilians, he obviously watched The Matrix and it clearly blew.  His.  Mind.  Icke believes we are all immersed in what he calls "the five-sense illusion."  In other words, The Matrix is real.  

And who controls the Matrix we're embedded within?  In the movie, it was floating octopus head alien craft (or something - I could never really follow that point).  In reality (or what passes for it) the matrix is controlled by the reptilians.

Now you can see the true genius.  It's not like you could just go run up to George W. and rip off his rubber mask, Scooby Doo-style.  Because George W. is just a construct of the reptilians.  The reptilians control us all - but they aren't HERE.  They control us from the real world, and we all just blunder around through the video game they have devised for us.

To quote Keanu Reeves, "Whoa."

Photo credit: Neil Hague via Wikimedia Commons

Manna, Although Maybe Not From Heaven

I had always heard the phrase "it's like manna from heaven" to denote "a good thing falling into your lap at random."  And "this tastes like manna," meaning "really delicious."  I even (being a good and true atheist) had a vague idea that manna was a thing from the Bible.  

But not until this recent Metafilter post did I learn that manna is a real thing!  In fact, you can buy it online.   No joke.

In Exodus, as the Jews wandered the desert for 40 years, they were sustained by manna which God provided for their food.  "It was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey."

(I'm going to stop right there and say, I have only the vaguest sense of what that means.  Wafers made with honey.  My mind keeps slipping to the thought of those Crème Wafers that come in three different colors, the waffle crisp long rectangles with the white frosting stuff in between.  And then I picture them being scattered all over the desert floor and I get confused.  And then I want some.  ANYWAY…)

After the dew cleared in the morning, the manna would appear.  "As small as the hoar frost on the ground."  

No one really knows what the biblical manna was.  Theories aside from tree sap include aphid juice, the emerging tendrils of psychoactive mushrooms, and "a kosher species of locust."  (I don't even want to know what that means.  I just don't.  Okay, I peeked!  Gross!)  Maybe the "psilocybin mushroom" theory explains why they wandered in the desert for 40 years, when it would only have taken a year to cross on foot at most.  They were all stoned out of their minds!

Manna had some interesting characteristics.  You could only gather the amount you needed for the day, because if you tried to keep it overnight, it would rot and become infested with maggots.  The only exception to this was the Sabbath.  Manna did not fall on the Sabbath, and you wouldn't have been allowed to gather it then, anyway.  Therefore you had to gather a double ration the day before.  And miraculously, this Sabbath portion would not rot.

The distribution of manna was not even; sometimes you could just reach out your hand and scoop it up, and sometimes you had to go hunting for it.  You could pound it into a bread-like substance, but even so, gentiles could not perceive it.  If they tried to catch it, it would slip through their hands.  Animals, however, could feed and drink manna.  In one tradition, the taste of manna depended on how old you were.  It tasted like "like honey for small children, like bread for youths, and like oil for the elderly" to quote Wikipedia.  

What is sold now as manna is usually the dried sweet sap from various trees.  (Which makes it related to maple syrup, if you think about it.)  

Once the Jews reached Canaan, the fall of manna ceased.  Although it's rumored that one last little bit of manna is saved in a pot, which is kept beside the Ark of the Covenant.

Photo credit: Flickr/erix!

The Song of Songs (part eight)

Chapter Seven, the penultimate chapter of The Song of Songs, is generally considered the moment in which the two lovers physically consummate their relationship. As with the rest of the poem, it isn't entirely clear whether or not the events therein actually occur. All we really see is Dodi and Rayati making plans together. That, however ambiguous, is actually a major development.

Chapter Seven is the only time in The Song when the two lovers seem to be hatching a plan in the same place at the same time. Throughout the poem they have both dreamed and fantasized, but only while they were away from one another. The lines in this chapter are such that they can only be conversational. After a long period of separation and a drama of errors that nearly kept them apart forever, Dodi and Rayati are ready to run away together.

There's something comfortingly humble about the lovers' escape plan. They simply intend to run away to the country. Rayati has gathered some early fruits of the harvest and left them at the doorway for Dodi. Basically, she put together a package of travel provisions. After all their grand, swooning romanticism and exhausting longing, Dodi and Rayati just want to retire to some small, rural village where nobody knows them.

I've written before about how fatigued the lovers, especially Rayati, sound as the poem progresses. They repeat themselves, they take less time to linger on one another's features and they generally seem less patient. In this fatigue is a sort of maturation. The planning in Chapter Seven isn't some great, romantic adventure.

Rayati once again mentions vineyards, though in a much more measured way. She says they ought to go down to the vineyards to see if they're in bloom, a subtle but important shift in the language. Recall in a previous chapter when she insists “our vineyards are in bloom”. If vineyards are the symbol of happiness and fulfillment in this poem, then Rayati's words in Chapter Seven suggest that she no longer assumes a relationship with Dodi will make her happy. Instead, she'd rather give it a test run. This isn't cynicism so much as it's Rayati approaching her life with a more adult sensibility.

Somewhat more disturbing is the inference in this chapter that Rayati is on the verge of becoming Solomon's concubine. In thinking of Rayati's beautiful hair, Dodi mentions (almost off-hand) that Solomon is “held captive” therein. Where Solomon factors into this story is made more clear in the final chapter. For now, he is simply something from which to run away.

Your Cross May Be in Vain

What if I told you that the cross that many Christians like to wear around their necks—as well as bumper stickers, tattoos, wall art, and whatnot—may have nothing to do with Christ’s death? A scholar has controversially declared just that.

Gunnar Samuelsson, of Gothensburg University, says that there’s no evidence to support that Romans crucified anyone on a cross—and instead of being based on fact, the story of Jesus dying on a cross came from Christian traditions instead, as well as historical illustrations. The Bible itself, he maintains, makes no reference to a cross, either, but only to a “staurus,” which could also mean “pole.” None of the bloody nails or other equipment we learned to sing about so gruesomely in Sunday school are mentioned, either.

Many Christians will likely argue that this is outrageous, as they often do when faced with possible new information and interpretations of their doctrine. Indeed, it is hard to change—and if evidence supporting, say, the bones of Christ’s body being found, or the presence of his own consort—both of which have been raised before—it would certainly change much in how the religion exists (offering more empowerment for women and less scorn toward sex, for example). It would be difficult to face for any religion, for sure.

This claim, of course, could itself be in vain. After all these years, one man has suddenly declared that thousands of people were not punished on the cross and left for death? I find it strange that we’re just now figuring that out, if at all. Some might argue that even if the claim is found to be true, they could still wear their crosses as a symbol, in solidarity, and such.

However, I’ve always had a problem with wearing a cross as a symbol. It is a torture device, right? How does wearing the device the son of your god was tortured on represent your faith to you? That doesn’t symbolize the loving, caring, nonjudgmental lifestyle that people claim Christianity is about.

(And I would argue that perhaps while Jesus himself would have spread such teachings, the religion itself certainly is not those things, and instead has paved the way for much bloodshed—so perhaps the symbol is fitting, after all.)

Wearing the cross, to me, is very much like a pagan wearing an iron maiden, or perhaps a Jewish person sporting a swastika (I do realize that this was first a positive symbol from Tibet before it was warped for Hitler’s use; still, the symbol of death remains with it from such abuse of power today). Why on earth would you wear something that served to torture and kill your ancestors—or, in this case, your most important religious figure—as a symbol of your faith? Would a fish, or a simple pair of sandals, or anything else vaguely associated with the figure not be better? And to sport an image of him dead on the cross itself as so many do is even more gruesome and ghastly. No wonder we can’t get past the historical bloodshed and violence associated with the religion and still continue to perpetuate it in the name of a god today. 

The Song of Songs (part seven)

Sometimes it seems powerfully geeky to get excited about the clever intellectual flourishes of biblical texts, but when a particularly stunning turn of phrase or layered reference pops up in a reading it's just too interesting to ignore. In chapter six of the Song of Songs there is an amazing reference. It's impressive not just because it has a many-layered implication for the poem and the time in which it was written, but also because it's remarkably easy to miss.

The chapter begins with a quick reiteration of where we left Rayati. The women around her are asking where Dodi might be found. Rayati tells them he is in his garden, which segues directly to Dodi in that exact place. Dodi assumes the role of the speaker, which he retains for the remainder of the chapter. His opening line is the most important of this section and perhaps one of the most important for the entire poem. In it, he likens Rayati's beauty to that of Tirzah. Who and/or what is Tirzah? Two things, actually. Tirzah was both a city and a fairly significant, if briefly mentioned, character in the Torah.

The city of Tirzah is potentially another anti-Solomon satirical reference. During Solomon's reign, Tirzah would have been most famous for being a city where the Israelites defeated and killed a king. Specifically, the last of 31 individual kings the Israelites killed under the guidance of Moses as mentioned in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 12. There is no shortage of both cities and biblical characters who were renowned for their beauty. We can't ignore the unsettling implication of invoking the name of a city that infers the deaths of nearly three dozen kings condemned by God. This line is doubly controversial as it ends with the phrase "fearsome as an army with banners". In an otherwise romantic poem, this military, regicidal language stands out. Considering how careful the rest of the poem is, it's hard to believe this line is a mistake.

As for Tirzah the character from the Torah, she was the youngest daughter of Zelophehad, a man whose death brings about an extremely important legal decision just prior to the Israelites' entrance into the Promised Land. Zelophehad had five daughters but no sons. Upon his death, Zelophehad's daughters bring their case before Moses concerning their right to their father's estate. Until this moment, the Torah's law stated that only men could inherit from their family directly. Moses decided it was only fair to give Zelophehad's daughters their family estate, establishing not only a revision to the gender biased rules of economy but also a precedent for the process of changing Toritic laws. For the Song of Songs to reference Tirzah is among its strongest feminist statements. This poem is, among other things, the story of a young woman fighting for her freedom and happiness. What better figure for Rayati's comparison than Tirzah, who went from most disenfranchised to legally uplifted?

The Song of Songs (part six)

After The Song of Songs passes its halfway point, it takes on a certain air of melancholy. The language which began the poem as luxurious and exuberant slowly becomes desperate and oppressive. The most shocking turn happens in Chapter 5 when the narrative strays from the disconnected dialogue between the two lovers and starts to include an entreaty to outsiders for help, sympathy and understanding. Most tragically, the story's protagonists, especially Rayati, find none of those things.

In an earlier chapter, Rayati was described as searching around her city for Dodi, asking the city guards for help. I conjectured that this moment was in fact Rayati's dream and we can see in Chapter 5 why this is so. This chapter is something of a wake-up call, a harsh moment of reality as a counterpoint to the grand, sweeping fantasies expressed by the young, would-be lovers. At the beginning of the chapter Dodi actually arrives at Rayati's front door. When he asks her to let him in, Rayati freezes instead. Despite all of her pining and her plans of escape, when actually faced with the moment when it all could come true she loses her nerve. By the time Rayati convinces herself to open the door, Dodi has already gone away.

Realizing what has happened, Rayati thoughtlessly rushes out to the city in search of Dodi. When the city guards find her, they beat her. Why would this be? Simply, because in that time and place if a young woman walked the streets alone at night she was assumed to be a prostitute. It likely wouldn't have helped that Rayati would be wandering around searching for a man who wasn't a family member. Compared to Rayati's dream, this is an extremely dark moment. It is a fantasy turned into a nightmare, the happy ending of the dream replaced with Rayati injured and alone, begging those around her to help her find a man she may never see again.

The only response Rayati gets from anyone she asks about Dodi can basically be summed up as "What's so special about this guy? Why not just find somebody else?" Though Rayati goes on to describe Dodi in the same swooning language as she did in private in previous chapters, there's something sour about this latest litany. For the first time in the story, we're forced to see Rayati for what she truly is. She's a very young, very inexperienced girl who relies a bit too much on her own flights of fancy. She's rash, impractical and not nearly as brave as she imagines herself to be while locked up in her room at night. The Song of Songs is most certainly not so cynical that it aims to dismiss the very concept of young, romantic love. At times it does quite the opposite. Still, things aren't nearly as rosy and pleasant in this story as they seemed at the outset.

The Song of Songs (part five)

In Chapter 4 of The Song of Songs we learn a lot more about Rayati, specifically that she lives in Lebanon. We must remember the era in which The Song was written before we can understand the implications of this. Modern scholars have dated the text to approximately 900 BCE, though its exact date would determine much of its influence. If it was written prior to 875 BCE, The Song would have come from the height of the Phoenician Empire when the region known as Lebanon was a cultural powerhouse. If it came after 875, it would have been born in a highly contentious period when Assyrian Greeks conquered much of the region and began oppressing the local population considerably. The city of Tyre, then a major sea port and the most important economic city in southern Lebanon, was one of two to rebel against the Assyrians and would have been the closest major city to Rayati's home, provided she didn't live in Tyre itself (or possibly the city of Dor which was nearest to the Israeli border).

Regardless of whether The Song was written prior to Assyrian rule or during it, Rayati's status as a woman of Lebanon has major implications for both the literal and allegorical readings of the poem. Most strikingly, if The Song of Songs is supposed to be a metaphor for God's love for Israel or its people, then Dodi's pursuit of Rayati implies a divine mandate for either the capture of Lebanon by the kingdoms of Israel and Judah or at the very least a call to all foreign Jews to leave their homes and establish themselves in the Holy Land. That Chapter 4 finds Dodi once again enumerating Rayati's many merits and comparing them to wonders both natural and man-made would mean that this call to domination or immigration is not just a matter of love, but of resource. This only makes sense, as ancient Lebanon was the jewel of the Levant. The city of Byblos is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, Beirut has been a thriving metropolis for millennia and Lebanon's natural bounty gave rise to a people with such power and influence that they even conquered the political titan that was Egypt. As an increasingly pervasive cultural and military power, the twin kingdoms of Israel and Judah would have sought to seize the city-states of Lebanon just like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians and Romans did.

Taken as just a love story, Rayati's Lebanese heritage is no less important. At the time the people of Lebanon were ethnically Canaanite and many of them, especially those in the south, would have been Jewish or of a proto-Judaic faith so the love between Dodi and Rayati wouldn't have been a scandal. However, her position as a Phoenician would have undoubtedly made Rayati the more worldly, educated and impressive of the two. In an alternative allegorical reading, Rayati can be seen as the alluring influence of the Phoenician culture on the Jewish people. After all, the Phoenicians gave Hebrews (and eventually Greeks, Romans and modern English speakers) their alphabet and they were the gateway to trade with much of the civilized world. Perhaps the most scandalous thing about The Song of Songs is that it extols the importance of Phoenician civilization in Jewish culture in a time when it seems the only acceptable form of national literature was that with a nationalistic sentiment.

TWOFR: The Welcome Wagon x Tunng

The Welcome Wagon

Welcome to the Welcome Wagon

(Asthamtic Kitty, 2008)

Made up primarily of Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique amongst various collaborators like Sufjan Stevens, The Welcome Wagon differs greatly from what might be expected from a short glance at the album cover.

All those initially expecting simple country and folk tinged songs of salvation are going to be surprised – not necessarily disappointed, but judging from the Reverends attire, a horn section was not to be presupposed. Even including those horn players, this slab is really just a solid indie outing with overt religious connotations.

First appearing on the Asthamtic Kitty compilation To Spirit Back the Mews in 2001, W.W. continued writing simplistic songs, mostly based upon its devotion, but tossing in a few covers sporadically. The music on Welcome to the Welcome Wagon can be considered folk based, but with a vastly expanded orchestration and a cache of musicians to assist the duo. Sufjan Stevens arranged a great deal of music to help W.W. perfectly express its bright and optimistic music.

Variety might be a bit lacking – a great many of the songs are in a similar tempo and utilize choirs to get the chorus across. That isn’t meant to disparage the album’s tact and push to remain cohesive, but when “Jesus” kicks into the chorus, the album moves from a pretty album, to an almost transcendental clutch of worship music. The Velvet Underground cover amidst an disc specifically designed to pay respect to G-d takes on a greater overall meaning.

Lou Reed and the Velvets were known for their associations and personal proclivities as much as their music. Alotta stories that get passed around about substance intake and the like is hyperbole to an extent, but the cultural import of the band is stuck to those rumors. The inclusion of “Jesus,” should remove doubt by you secular music fans about the quality and the intent of this disc. Music should make you feel something – good or bad, it’s there to provoke emotions. And this group of Brooklyn Presbyterians does that.

Tunng

Mother's Daughter & Other Songs

(Ace Fu Records, 2006)

The following comparison is most likely moot, considering the fact that the band I will reference is not generally well known in this country, and I have even been able to misplace the copy of their cd I once had.  Tunng sounds like a more electronically influenced version of Franklin Delano.  That being stated, both of these bands embrace old timey folk while coupling it with modern production techniques and textures.  The majority of the tracks on Mother's Daughter & Other Songs sound akin to each other, but I suppose that just means the band is making a cohesive musical statement.  Each track ostensibly is based upon a simple acoustic guitar melody and the vocals that accompany the music.  From that point on, the group creates the appropriate computer based beat, ambient or otherwise.  There are still violins and banjos on the album, but these traditional instruments are invariably augmented by a shuffling beat or music akin to something Prefuse 73 might create, but not utilize in the same manner.  Tunng creates and submits to the world a modern folk album with forward thinking production that does actually sound a little different from the thousands of other groups attempting this right now this very second.

The Song of Songs (part four)

The third chapter of The Song of Songs is perhaps the strangest of the entire book. It has two distinct parts divided by the quasi-chorus ("do not stir up love until it pleases") that appears in some form or another throughout the entire poem. The first half details Rayati's search for Dodi, or perhaps a dream of her search for him, while the second half pulls away from the lovers entirely to describe a procession of King Solomon. These two segments at first seem entirely disconnected, but there is a tenuous narrative strand between the two.

Chapter 3 begins with Rayati in her bed at night, dreaming. This passage is often misinterpreted thanks to a fairly silly mistranslation. While the common translation is "By night on my bed I searched for him" this is incorrect because the word "night" is actually in the plural and there is no mention of a bed, at least not exactly. The word used is mishkahvi, more or less meaning "bedroom". The proper translation would be "In my room for many nights I tried to find the one my soul loves, but I didn't find him." This translation helps clarify what happens in the next few lines. While the usual interpretation is that all of Chapter 2 is a dream from which Rayati wakes, this makes no sense as Chapter 2 is in both Rayati's and Dodi's voice. Furthermore, the events in Chapter 3 are completely inexplicable. As it follows, Rayati leaves her home, wanders the streets looking for Dodi, asks the city guard for directions and then finally finds Dodi and either goes to bed with him or possibly introduces him to her parents.

Let's take a moment to consider this series of events. Even if Rayati could wander the streets, alone, in the middle of night safely (and we will see in a later chapter why this is impossible), we know from Chapter 2 that Dodi does not live in the same city as her. She would potentially have to cross a mountain range to find him. Were she to somehow find him, why would she bring him to meet her family in the dead of night? It should be clear at this point that it is the first half of Chapter 3, not the contents of Chapter 2, that is Rayati's dream. In her longing for Dodi, she dreams nightly of going out to find him. In this recurring dream she also gets her parents' approval, marries him and endeavors to start a family with him. To put a fine point on this idea, the dream description ends with a slightly altered version of the chorus, "Do not awaken, no stir up love until it pleases". "Do not awaken" is the added phrase.

The second half of the chapter begins with something of a stinging pun. While Rayati has her powerful, romantic dream in her own bed, the second half starts with an image of Solomon emerging from the woods on his lavish carriage. The word used for the carriage is mitahto, the word mitah meaning "bed". Solomon on his carriage/bed is surrounded by thirty armed men. They are described as each having a sword because of "the night's awe" or possibly "the night's fear". The later passages more or less describe Solomon with his well-known reputation as something of a philanderer, saying that he inlaid his carriage with "love from the daughters of Jerusalem". It then goes on to remind the reader that Solomon was technically crowned king by his mother and not by his father, David. Given this imagery and these references, it is hard to see this passage as anything but The Song's writer mocking Solomon.

There is an interesting parallel here. The chapter begins with the poem's heroine displaying passion, courage and a devotion to her one true love, then ends with depicting Solomon as both sexually impure and full of fear for the same mysterious night Rayati would gladly brave alone. If this poem is even partly an assault on Solomon's character, as I strongly suspect it is, this chapter is when The Song's writer stops pulling punches.

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