The image of Solomon as a sovereign sitting on a great throne of ivory coated in gold is in stark contrast with that of the wise, moderate, and just king who was able to satisfy all the parties in a dispute. This disparity produced a series of interpretations of The Song of Songs, which is commonly attributed to him (0.3). One of these takes the poem as a straightforward love story between Solomon and the Shulamite, while another, much more interesting, assumes a love triangle: the love of the Shulamite for a shepherd and the vain attempts of king Solomon to win her heart.
In this interpretation the girl’s brothers are angry at her because the young shepherd she loves has invited her on a walk. As punishment they make her look after the family’s vineyards, a task that takes her close to Solomon’s camp, who upon seeing her falls in love and has her taken into his tent. Once there, the king tries to seduce her by flattering her and promising her treasures. “Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels,” sings Solomon,
We will make you earrings of gold, studded with silver.1
This offering of gold—albeit with bits silver (1.10)—shows us the moment of transition from the locus amoenus to the locus terribilis, from the pure love of the girl for the shepherd, which takes place among nature, to the love that the sovereign wants to impose on her and which takes place within his encampment, a paradeisos. It is through the aspiration to legal marriage that Solomon could turn the Shulamite into a prisoner of his court and a victim of originary exception. (0.17)
- Song of Songs, 1:10-11 ↩︎
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