poet had had in view the changes of theatrical scenery. But at all events the theatre is not a Semitic institution, but is of Indo-Persian Greek origin. Jewish poetry attempted the drama only after it began in Alexandrinism
[1]
to emulate Greece. Grätz' (1871) polemic against the dramatists is so far justified. But yet we see, as in the Book of Job, so in the Song, the drama in process of formation from the lyric and narrative form of poetry, as it has developed among the Greeks from the lyric, and among the Indians from the epic. In the Book of Job the colloquies are all narrative. In the Song this is never the case;
[2]
for the one expression, “answered my beloved, and said to me” (Sol 2:10), is not to be compared with, “and Job answered and said:” the former expression indicates a monologue. And in the “Daughters of Jerusalem” (Job 1:5, etc.) we have already something like the chorus of the Greek drama. The ancient Greek MSS bear involuntary testimony to this dramatic character of the Song. There are several of them which prefix to the separate addresses the names of the persons speaking, ας ἡ νύμφη ὁ νυμφίος.
[3]
And the Aethiopic translation makes five separate pieces, probably, as the Cod. Sinait. shows, after the example of the lxx, which appear as divisions into Acts.
The whole falls into the following six Acts: -
(1.) The mutual affection of the lovers, 1:2-2:7, with the conclusion, “I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem.”
(2.) The mutual seeking and finding of the lovers, 2:8-3:5, with the conclusion, “I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem.”
(3.) The fetching of the bride, and the marriage, 3:6-5:1, beginning with, “Who is this ... ?” and ending with, “Drink and be drunken, beloved.”
(4.) Love scorned, but won again, 5:2-6:9.
(5.) Shulamith the attractively fair but humble princess, 6:10-8:4, beginning with, “Who is this ... ?” and ending with, “I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem.”
- ↑ Note: Vid., my Prolegomena to Luzzatto's מגדל עז (Heb. Paraphrase of the Pastors fido of Guarini), 1837, pp. 24-32.
- ↑ Note: Similar is the relation between Homer, where the speakers are introduced with narrative, and our national epics, the Nibelungen and Gudrun, which become dramatic when the action and the feeling rise to a higher elevation: the words of the different persons follow each other without introduction, so that here the manner of the singer had to become dramatic.
- ↑ Note: Vid., Repert. für bibl. u. morgenl. Lit. viii. (1781), p. 180. The Archimandrite Porphyrios describes such a MS in his (Russian) Reisewerk (1856).
