oderate
part; the queen, however, occasionally gives a short dance to attract
attention to her bridal attire."[6]

For the general application of these and the related customs to the
interpretation of the book, reference should be made to Budde's
_Commentary_, which recognizes four _wasfs_, viz. iv. 1-7 (describing
the bride from head to breasts), v. 10-16 (the bridegroom), vi. 4-7
(similar to and partly repeating iv. 1-7), and vii. 1-9, belonging to
the sword-dance of the bride, her physical charms being sung from feet
to head (cf. vii. 1; "Why look ye on the Shulamite as (on) a dance of
camps?" i.e. a war-dance). This dance receives its name from the fact
that she dances it with a sword in her hand in the firelight on the
evening of her wedding-day, and amid a circle of men and women, whilst
such a _wasf_ as this is sung by the leader of the choir. The passage
relating to the litter of Solomon (iii. 6-11)--an old difficulty with
the dramatizers--relates to the erection of the throne on the
threshing-floor.[7] The terms "Solomon" and "the Shulamite" are
explained as figurative references to the famous king, and to Abishag
the Shulamite, "fairest among women," on the lines of the use of "king"
and "queen" noted above. Other songs of Canticles are referred by Budde
to the seven days of festivities. It need hardly be said that
difficulties still remain in the analysis of this book of wedding-songs;
whilst Budde detects 23 songs, besides fragments, Siegfried divides the
book into 10.[8] Such differences are to be expected in the case of a
collection of songs, some admittedly in dialogue form, all concerned
with the common theme of the love of man and woman, and without any
external indication of the transition from one song to the next.

Further, we must ask whether the task has been complicated by any
editorial rearrangement or interpolation; the collector of these songs
has certainly not reproduced them in the order of their use at Syrian
weddings. Can we trace any principle, or even any dominant thought in
this arrangement? In this connexion we touch the reason for the
reluctance of some scholars to accept the above interpretation, viz. the
alleged marks of literary unity which the book contains (e.g. Driver,
_loc. cit._). These are (1) general similarity of treatment, seen in the
use of imagery (the bride as a garden, iv. 12; vi. 2, 3), the frequent
references to nature and to particular places, and the recurrence