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We shall confine our attention today to the notes of time which the poem furnishes, by which it will, we apprehend, be seen that the scene is laid in spring—or, perhaps, we should say, with regard to Palestine, early in summer—that is, in the early part of May; and, so much attention is paid to this, that all the circumstances are made to refer to that time of the year.
The first and leading sign of the season is that the vine is in blossom, or rather has begun to furnish its first tender grapes. It appears that in Palestine, although the vintage does not begin before September, small quantities of grapes are gathered from certain kinds of vines, from the end of May until that season, at the same time that other kinds have not ceased to blossom. The early grapes thus supplied were accounted great delicacies by the Hebrews, and are doubtless among “the first ripe fruits” which the bride so earnestly desired; and well might she do so if she were of Egypt, the grapes of that country being altogether inferior to those of Palestine. The allusions to this, as one of the signs of early summer, are of repeated occurrence in this Song. Here we have, “The vines with the tender grapes give a good smell;” and just after, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes.” And that “tender grapes,” and not merely “blossoms,” as some suppose, are really meant, is clear from this, as blossoms would offer small temptations to the little foxes. The love these animals bear to grapes is proverbial, but no one ever heard of their appetites for blossoms. Again towards the close of the poem, the bridegroom says: “I went down to the garden of sweets, to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded.” Upon the whole we seem to find that we can resolve all the circumstances alluded to in the book, which afford any indications of season, into a few weeks—say from about the middle of April to the middle of May—and in the southern parts of Palestine they may all be brought into April. The blossoming of the pomegranate coincides with this aspect of the vine; and at the season indicated the country is in its fullest bloom. In beautiful accordance with nature, therefore, it represents the time of the blossoming of the vines and the pomegranates, of the singing of the birds, and of the cooing of the turtles, as the time of flowers too—it is the time when they are in the greatest abundance.
Let us look at the leading passage again. “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away!” Here is a charming spring picture, with more exact and accumulated allusions to the beauties of nature than often occur together in sacred books. It is the more engaging from the strict coincident fitness of all of them to express the time of year. Addison observes in one of the Spectators (No. 418), that a poet is not obliged to attend nature “in the slow advance she makes from one season to another, or to observe her conduct in the successive productions of plants and flowers. He may draw into his description all the beauties of the spring and autumn, and make the whole year contribute something to render it more agreeable,” etc. But the Hebrew poet has not taken this liberty: he has followed nature more closely, and with the most gratifying results to the taste and imagination. We can see something of this; but how much stronger must have been the aspect of natural truth thus imparted to the poem, in the eyes of those whose personal observation and periodical experience made them intuitively conscious of the truthfulness of all these details!
Harmer finds an incongruity in the passage which describes the fig-tree as putting forth her green figs, seeing that figs are not ripe till August, and scarcely begin to be formed at the time in view. He therefore contends that the meaning must be, that “the fig-tree then beginneth to make her figs spicy or palatable, which, however, requires a long time to make them perfectly so;” and it is under this view, apparently, that Dr. Stowe translates the passage: “The fig-tree is sweetening her green figs.” But, after all, there is no real force in the objection. The early figs, both black and white, are ripe so early as June. They fall off as soon as they are ripe; or, according to the allusion of the prophet Nahum (Nah_3:12), “fall into the mouth of the eater upon being shaken.” It is when this boccore, or early fig, draws near to perfection, that the kermous, which is the summer fig, or proper carica, begins to be formed, not ripening until August.
The passage relating to the singing of birds is highly interesting being, with a single exception, the only allusion to the songs of birds in the whole Bible. That exception occurs in Psa_104:12 : “By them (the streams) shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.” This scantiness of allusion has made some suppose that either birds of song were very few in Palestine, or that the Hebrews were a people not very sensible to the charms of this natural music. All suspicion of the kind ought, however, to be at once dissipated by the rapturous burst with which the poet here hails the return of the time of song: “The time of the singing of birds is come!” We cannot think that formerly when the land was richly cultivated and abounded in woods, orchards, and gardens, the songs of birds were infrequent; although in the present forlorn condition of the land, this is now the case. There are still a few favorite localities frequented by birds of song, and where their sweet voices are heard; but speaking generally, according to the testimony of a traveller who paid attention to such matters: “The singing of birds is not often heard in Palestine. There are a few species of birds with a gaudy plumage, but their notes are not melodious. The sweet plaintive nightingale is sometimes heard, but oftener the harsh cawing of the crow.” Note: Rev. John Paxton, an American traveller. Not to be confounded with Rev. Dr. Paxton, author of Scripture Illustrations.
This mention of the nightingale may remind us that Harmer conceives that the Hebrew poet has here especially the song of that bird in view, because, as he makes out from Lady Mary W. Montague—at Constantinople, however—that the season of vine blossoming and the singing of the nightingale are coincident. He would have rejoiced to have had his notion supported by the positive fact, that in Palestine the voice of the nightingale is heard during the greater part of this garden season, singing delightfully in the day-time from amid the pomegranate groves, and from trees of loftier growth in the night season. In the larger towns there are persons who keep these birds in cages, and let them out at a small rate to nocturnal assemblies; so that most entertainments of note during the spring have a concert of nightingales. This may seem an incongruous employment of a bird so proverbially “plaintive” and “mournful.” But the Orientals do not regard the song of this bird as at all melancholy; and those who have studied the bird well, begin now, even among ourselves, to tell us that he is rather
“The merry nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates,
With fast thick warble, his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music.”—Coleridge.