Re: The Song of Solomon (was: Sex and the single symbol)

[Alex Gibbs <arg@kilimanjaro.opt-sci.Arizona.EDU>]

My news feed is having some sort of difficulty so I had to use gopher
to get some of r.m.g, but I did not have time to get it all.

nessus@mit.edu (Douglas Alan):
> > In article <9402070829.AA16779@kilimanjaro.opt-sci.Arizona.EDU>
> > arg@kilimanjaro.opt-sci.Arizona.EDU (Alex Gibbs) writes:
> 
> >   Don't want your mystique, your showing-off, your macho bullshit.  Give
> >   me you, open up.  Do it just for me, because you want to do it *for*
> >   me, and I can do it for you, just the same.

I should make it clear that by "it" I meant make love, sex.  By "give me
you" I didn't mean a relationship, I just meant "show me the real you".
And Doug does (oh my! heh)...

> I have a different interpretation.  I think that in the beginning of
> the song the narrator is tired of "love" and romance.  She doesn't
> want to be tied down, she doesn't want any emotional baggage, any
> traumatic relationship bullshit -- she just wants some good sex, she
> wants her itches scratched.  By the end of the song, however, she has
> fallen in love again and her attitude has changed.  She didn't want to
> originally, but now she has fallen in love and will do anything for
> her man, even "come in a hurricane for him".  This is the song of
> everyone who walks the path of the solitary heart.

I think at the beginning of the song she is feeling lonely and
isolated, in the way we all do sometimes, being unable to completely
express ourselves to another as a solitary heart.  I think she is
frustrated, tired of the games of courting.  She wants to connect with
someone in a true and real way.  Don't know if she wants a
relationship or not...

The Song of Solomon/ The song of everyone/ Who walks the path
Of the solitary heart/ The soul cries out/ Hear a woman singing...

> Does anyone know what the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley
> are?  Who are Isolde and Marion, and how do they relate to the song?

Isolde and Marion seem to be spoken for in previous posts.  :)  As for
the first two, the following starts with them *and* contains Kate's
quote from The Song of Solomon, Chapter 2, verses 1-6:

I am a *rose of Sharon*, a *lily of the valleys*.
As a *lily* among brambles, so is my love among maidens.
As an apply tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men.
 With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his *fruit was sweet to my taste*.
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Sustain me with raisins, **refresh me with apples; for I am sick with love.
O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!**

Remember there are different translations of the Bible; her quote
might fit one exactly.  I don't know.  The relation of The Song of
Solomon to her song should be obvious and may have been some
inspiration for "Eat the Music".  Her SoS says "Mmm, just take any
line" and then quotes The Bible's SoS.  As she says, here are a few
other lines...

2:16 My beloved is mine and I am his, he pastures his flock among the *lilies*.
4:3  Your cheeks are like halves of a *pomegranate* behind your veil.
4:5  Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of gazelle, that feed among
     the *lilies*.
4:16 Awake, O north wind, and come, O South wind!  Blow upon my garden, let
     its fragrance be wafted abroad.  Let my beloved come to his garden and
     *eat its choicest fruits*.
5:8  ...if you find my beloved, that you tell him *I am sick with love*.
7:12 ...whether the grape blossoms have opened and the *pomegranates* are in
     bloom.  There I will give you my love.  The mandrakes give forth
     fragrance, and over our doors are all *choice fruits*.
8:2  I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my *pomegranates*.
     O that his left hand... (as before)

Well, I'm sure that's more than enough, probably too much, but if you
want more, you know where to look.  I was mostly skimming.

AlexGibbs arg@kilimanjaro.opt-sci.arizona.edu |\| | (~, |-| ~|~ |-| /-\ \/\/ |<
"All the people in the club are babbling, but the instrument is talking, and
 I can but listen." <Kate commenting about Saxophone Song
"The quality of TV is not strained, it dropeth as the gentle ratings dropeth
 to a very tiny percentage share, and, lo, tis gone.  <pause> Of course
 Shakespeare would have loved your rating system; 12th Night would have been
 lucky to have lasted one."  - Max Headrom, last Max Headroom TV episode