of
descriptions of male and female beauty; (2) references to "Solomon" or
"the king," to "the Shulamite" and to "the daughters of Jerusalem" (from
which, indeed, the dramatic theory has found its chief inspiration); (3)
indications that the same person is speaking in different places (cf.
the two dreams of a woman, and the vineyard references, i. 6; viii. 12);
(4) repetitions of words and phrases especially of the refrains,
"disturb not love" (ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4), and "until the day break"
(ii. 17; iv. 6). But of these (1) is no more than should be expected,
since the songs all relate to the same subject, and spring from a common
world of life and thought of the same group of people; (2) finds at
least a partial parallel and explanation in the use of "king" and
"queen" noted above; whilst (3) and (4) alone seem to require something
more than the work of a mere collector of the songs. It is, of course,
true that, in recurrent ceremonies, the same thought inevitably tends to
find expression in the same words. But this hardly meets the case of the
refrains, whilst the reference to the vineyard at beginning and end does
suggest some literary connexion. It is to be noted that the three
refrains "disturb not love" severally follow passages relating to the
consummation of the sexual relation, whilst the two refrains "until the
day break" appear to form an invitation and an answer in the same
connexion, whilst the "Omnia vincit Amor" passage in the last chapter
forms a natural climax (cf. Haupt's translation). So far, then, as this
somewhat scanty evidence goes, it may point to some one hand which has
given its semblance of unity to the book by underlining the joy of
consummated love--to which the vineyard and garden figures throughout
allude--and by so arranging the collection that the descriptions of this
joy find their climax in viii. 6-7.[9]

Whatever conclusion, however, may be reached as to the present
_arrangement_ of Canticles, the recognition of wedding-songs as forming
its nucleus marks an important stage in the interpretation of the book;
even Rothstein (1902), whilst attempting to resuscitate a dramatic
theory, "recognizes ... the possibility that older wedding-songs (as,
for instance, the _wasfs_) are worked up in the Song of Songs"
(Hastings' _D.B._ p. 594b). The drama he endeavours to construct might,
indeed, be called "The Tokens of Virginity," since he makes it culminate
in the procedure of Deut. xxii. 13