Author: Karl Möller

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Why I read the Song of Songs IV

My last post in this series was about the imagery of the Song of Songs. And so is this one, because, having commented on its strangeness, I must say something about its dazzling beauty as well. Or perhaps illustrate it with some further examples:

O that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,
for your lovemaking is better than wine.

You are so beautiful, my love.
You are so beautiful.
Your eyes are doves.

Like an apricot among the trees of the forest,
so is my lover among the young men.
In that shade I always delight to sit;
the fruit is sweet to my palate.
…
Prop me up among blossoms,
spread me out among apricots,
for I’m sick with love.
His left hand is under my head,
his right hand embraces me.

My lover is mine and I am his.
He feeds among the lotuses.
Until the day breathes
and the shadows flee,
turn, be like a gazelle, my lover,
or like a young stag on the cleft mountains.

You’ve stolen my heart, my sister, my bride.
You’ve stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes,
…
How beautiful is your lovemaking,
my sister, my bride!
How much better is your lovemaking than wine,
…
Your lips drip honey, my bride.
Honey and milk are under your tongue …

You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah,
lovely as Jerusalem,
awesome as the stars.
Turn your eyes away from me,
for they make me tremble.

Come, my lover,
let’s go out into the countryside,
let’s spend the night among the henna shrubs.
Let’s go early to the vineyards
to see if the vine has blossomed,
if their blossoms have opened,
if the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I’ll give you my love.
The mandrakes give off their fragrance;
at our doors are all kinds of delicious fruits,
new as well as old,
which I’ve stored up for you, my lover.

I delight in the fact that the Old Testament features a whole book of love poetry, one of the many reasons why it deserves far more attention than it usually gets these days. I do realise, of course, that these extracts contain some further examples of imagery that may not be entirely intelligible for those unaccustomed to the Song of Songs’ ancient language, but I hope that they nonetheless illustrate its supreme beauty. The translation, still a work in progress, is, as always, my own.

So, my fourth reason for reading the Song of Songs is its beautiful poetry and imagery.

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Breaking through oppression

Some people have lived such oppressed lives that their true selves have become completely unreachable to them. They need help to break through their oppression.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey through Anguish to Freedom

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Why I read the Song of Songs III

Like an apricot among the trees of the forest,
so is my lover among the young men.

Your hair is like a flock of goats
streaming down Mount Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock ready to be shorn
that have come up from the washing pool,
every one of them having twins,
not one of them bereaved of offspring.

Like a slice of pomegranate gleams your brow
from behind your locks.
Like the tower of David is your neck,
built to perfection.
A thousand bucklers hang on it,
all kinds of warriors’ shields.
Your breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle,
which feed among the lotuses.

His cheeks are like a bed of spice,
towers of herbal spices.
His lips are lotuses,
dripping liquid myrrh.

Your belly is a heap of wheat
fenced about with lotuses.

Your eyes are pools in Heshbon
by the gate of Bath-Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon,
overlooking Damascus.

This stature of yours is like a palm tree
and your breasts like the clusters.

This is a selection of the Song of Songs’ intriguingly exotic imagery. To modern readers, it can be somewhat impenetrable. Even scholars have struggled with it at times and have thought of some of these comparisons and metaphors as ‘bizarre’, ‘grotesque’, ‘comical’ or ‘puzzling’ (as noted by Marcia Falk, Love Lyrics from the Bible: A Translation and Literary Study of the Song of Songs).

That kind of effect was obviously not intended by the author, who in these lines describes the beauty of the Song’s two protagonists. It is simply our distance from the culture that produced this ancient text that causes us such difficulties of perception.

And that brings me to my third reason for reading and studying the Song of Songs, which is my desire to come to a better understanding of the Song’s imagery and poetic language.

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Best Reads 2013. VII: Anne Carson, Red Doc>

Anne Carson, Red Doc>Anne Carson. Red Doc>. The sequel to Autobiography of Red. It doesn’t often happen that I preorder books that have not yet been published. This one I ordered as soon as I knew it was coming out. Autobiography of Red, which I must reread soon, had been a reading experience like no other, and so I had been looking forward to Red Doc>. I half expected to be disappointed though, for how could anything measure up to Autobiography?

So has Red Doc> left me disappointed? No, I’m glad to say that it hasn’t. Is it as good as Autobiography of Red? Perhaps not quite, although it doesn’t fall far short for me. It is a very good book and, like Autobiography, is one of Carson’s most accessible works.

As is so often the case with her books, the layout is once again distinctive.

Being a sequel, Red Doc> picks up the story of Geryon and Herakles years later, but the two protagonists have now acquired new names, Geryon being called G, while Herakles is known as Sad. As for the plot, well, you will have to read the book for yourselves, as I am not going to give anything away.

Readers of Carson’s work won’t be surprised to hear that there are some very poignant moments. For instance, when G meets his old lover, we read:

LOVE’S LONG LOST
shock the boy the man he
knows him. Knew. The
lion head the sloping run a
lavishness in him made you
want to throw your soul
through every door.

I adore Carson’s turn of phrase, which so often is utterly unique and unexpected. This allows her to offer some distinctly new perspectives on life’s most significant moments. In this example, meeting a long lost lover makes ‘you want to throw your soul through every door’. Isn’t that brilliant?

Carson also captures the shock and the breathless response to the surprise encounter so well: ‘the boy the man he knows him’.

Another great moment is G’s conversation with the shrink about his treatment of Sad:

what do you do / talk /
does that help him / one
test for this question /
what test / did he cap
himself yesterday /

no / did he cap himself
today / no / so talk helps /
see your point

Red Doc> features many well-taken observations, such as the following one about misnomers, which includes a wonderful description of anciently swaying pines:

Much is misnomer in our
present way of grasping the
world. But pines do
always seem queenly as
they sway so grand and
anciently from the sky to
the ground.

But to me Carson is at her very best when she talks about pain, loss and grief.

G lays his head on the
table it sinks into the table.

To feel anything
deranges you. To be seen
feeling anything strips you
naked.
…
You think what
will they do what new
power will they acquire if
they see me naked like
this. If they see you
feeling.
…
To be seen is the penalty.

Impairment and he lie
down on the floor.

Tears pour in Ida’s
heart but not her eyes …

And the
reason he cannot bear her
dying is not the loss of her
(which is the future) but
that dying puts the two of
them (now) into this
nakedness together that is
unforgivable.

Pain
catches the whole insides
of him and wrings it.

Tears pouring into your heart but not your eyes – what a wonderfully eloquent way of describing pain.

And then there are so many delightful phrases, as when Carson talks about ‘tearstained laughter’, ‘surprised front steps’, a room that ‘looks lonely’, ‘a smile that dazzles the car’ and a voice that is ‘thin enough to see through’, to mention only a few.

Even rather banal moments are evoked in language that delights by its brilliance:

He sits
up suddenly drenched in
ringing. Phone.

This is a book to savour and come back to time and again. I know I will.

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Playing a game with oneself?

One of my principles for the content of this blog to offer positive, life-affirming thoughts and perspectives. It is no coincidence, therefore, that there is much on love and hope in these posts. Having said that, I do not intend to pretend that every day is ‘a masterpiece’, to quote from Anne Carson’s latest book Red Doc>. Pain, grief and suffering are sadly a reality none of us can avoid, and hope is not always easy to sustain. Some might even struggle with the notion altogether, a perspective that I can relate to as well. It is expressed with characteristic brilliance in Carson’s Red Doc>:

prometheus
I planted blind hope in their hearts
chorus
why

prometheus
they were breaking
chorus
you fool

This dialogue between Prometheus and an ancient Greek chorus not only showcases Carson’s classicist background; it also features a poignant observation about hope, as do the following lines:

AND YET HOPE turns
out to be let’s face it
mostly delusion a word
derived from Latin ludere
meaning ‘to play a game
with oneself or with others’ …

As I said, there are times when this unfortunately does resonate with me, and yet, as Martin Luther King points out, ‘faith in the dawn arises from the faith that God is good and just’ (Strength to Love, as quoted before).