leave her "leaning upon her beloved." The difficulties of detail are
equally great. To suppose that all the male love-making, by hypothesis
unsuccessful, belongs to Solomon, whilst the heroine addresses her
passionate words to the continuously absent shepherd, is obviously
unconvincing; yet, if this shepherd speaks in iv. 8-v. 1, how are we to
explain his appearance in the royal harem? This and other difficulties
were acknowledged by Robertson Smith, notably the presence of vii. 1-9,
which he proposed to set aside as an interpolation, because of its
sensuality and of the difficulty of working it into the dramatic scheme.
The fact that this passage has subsequently become the central element
in the new interpretation of the book is, perhaps, a warning against
violent measures with difficulties.

Attention has already been drawn to Herder's proposal, accepted by some
later writers, including Diestel and Reuss, to regard the book as a
collection of detached songs. This received new and striking
confirmation from the anthropological data supplied by J.G. Wetstein
(1873), Prussian consul at Damascus. His observations of the wedding
customs of Syrian peasants led him to believe that Canticles is
substantially a collection of songs originally sung at such festivities.
Wetstein's contribution was republished shortly afterwards by Delitzsch,
in an appendix to his _Commentary_; but it received little attention.
The first amongst Old Testament scholars to perceive its importance
seems to have been Stade, who accepted Wetstein's view in a footnote to
his _History of the Jewish People_ (ii. p. 197), published in 1888; to
Budde, however, belongs the distinction of the systematic and detailed
use of Wetstein's suggestions, especially in his _Commentary_ (1898).
This interpretation of the book is accepted by Kautzsch (1896),
Siegfried (1898), Cheyne (1899), and other eminent scholars. The
last-named states the theory tersely as follows: "The book is an
anthology of songs used at marriage festivals in or near Jerusalem,
revised and loosely connected by an editor without regard to temporal
sequence" (_Ency. Bibl._ 691). The character of the evidence which has
contributed to the acceptance of this view may be indicated in
Wetstein's own statements:--

"The finest time in the life of the Syrian peasant consists of the
first seven days after his wedding, in which he and his young wife
play the part of king (_melik_) and queen (_melik