s regles d'admission."

[291] McClintock and Strong.

[292] In the seventh chapter there are lines where, as Renan points
out (50), the speaker, in describing the girl, "vante ses charmes les
plus intimes," and where the translator was "oblige a des
attenuations."

[293] Renan says justly that it is the most obscure of all Hebrew
poems. According to the old Hebrew exegesis, every passage in the
Bible has seventy different meanings, all of them equally true; but of
this Song a great many more than seventy interpretations have been
given: the titles of treatises on the Canticles fill four columns of
fine print in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia. Griffis declares
that it is, "probably, the most perfect poem in any language," but in
my opinion it is far inferior to other books in the Bible. The
adjective perfect is not applicable to a poem so obscure that more
than half its meaning has to be read between the lines, while its
plan, if plan it has, is so mixed up and hindmost foremost that I
sometimes feel tempted to accept the view of Herder and others that
the _Song of Songs_ is not one drama, but a collection of unconnected
poems.

[294] Mr. Griffis' lucid, ingenious, and admirably written monograph
entitled, _The Lily among Thorns_, is unfortunately marred in many
parts by the author's attitude, which is not that of a critic or a
judge, but of a lawyer who has a case to prove, that black and gray
are really snow white. His sense of humor ought to have prevented him
from picturing an Eastern shepherd complimenting a girl of his class
on her "instinctive refinement". He carries this idealizing process so
far that he arbitrarily divides the line "I am black but comely,"
attributing the first three words to the Shulamite, the other two to a
chorus of her rivals in Solomon's harem! The latter supposition is
inconceivable; and why should not the Shulamite call herself comely? I
once looked admiringly at a Gypsy girl in Spain, who promptly opened
her lips, and said, with an arch smile, "soy muy bonita"--"I am very
pretty!"--which seemed the natural, naive attitude of an Oriental
girl. To argue away such a trifling spot on maiden modesty as the
Shulamite's calling herself comely, while seeing no breach of delicacy
in her inviting her lover to come into the garden and eat his precious
fruits, though admitting (214) that "the maiden yields thus her heart
and her all to her lover," is surely straining at a gnat and
swallow