Graeme Watson, The Song of Songs: A Contemplative Guide, London: SPCK, 2014; 144 pp.: 9780281066902, £12.99 (pbk)
In this lovely book, Graeme Watson, an experienced priest, pastor and spiritual director, reflects on the Song of Songs and its implications for contemporary spirituality. He draws extensively on the rich history of Christian commentary on it, and on the work of recent scholars, especially that of Ellen F. Davis and Sr Edmée Kingsmill slg. He has some fascinating points of his own to make, for example about the relationship between the ‘beloved’ in the Song and the Jerusalem Temple (p. 14), which would explain the poem's link with Solomon. And he is surely right to say that ‘the Song of Songs was given an allegorical interpretation not in order to make it admissible within sacred Scripture, but because an allegorical reading elevated the theme of passionate human love to a higher level of meaning’ (p. 26). Sometimes his quotations from other authors appear to have little direct connection with the Song. Thus the poem of Ann Griffiths on page 44 is surely closer to Psalm 2, with its adaptation of the psalm's directive to ‘kiss the Son’. And Jan Struther's ‘Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy’ (p. 78) feels similarly unconnected. One might occasionally take issue with Watson's choice of interpretation: thus he takes over Bede's suggestion that the ‘little foxes’ that appear in Song 2.15 refer to heretics, and proceeds to cite Newman's hymn ‘Firmly I believe and truly’, although its links with the Song are unclear (pp. 76–7). Might it have been more useful to reflect on what today's ‘foxes’ are: what are the forces that ruin or threaten our closest and most intimate relationships, and in particular our relationship with God? Watson has some fascinating reflection on the terrible text in Song 5.7, which describes the woman being beaten, wounded and stripped by sentinels in ‘the city’ while searching for her beloved: the connection with Psalm 55 is particularly instructive (p. 107). He could have quoted Francis Landy's point (in Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (1983), p. 226) about ‘the unfairness of traditional values’ with regard to this and similar texts, and about how the woman is humiliated ‘by the guardians of public morality’ (p. 146) and then comforted by the women who speak next. There are a few small inaccuracies: St Bernard of Clairvaux was not the same as the Cluniac monk Bernard of Morlaix, whose hymn ‘Urbs Sion aurea’ was translated by J. M. Neale as ‘Jerusalem the Golden’ (pp. 97–8). Acedia (accidie) is surely that listlessness or apathy that prevents the person from doing the spiritual good that is most needful: Aquinas’ definition of it as tristitia spiritalis boni means not so much ‘the sorrow of the world’ but that sadness or listlessness that prevents a person from striving for some spiritual good (p. 103). Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 ce during the reign of the emperor Vespasian: the Roman general, Titus, who was responsible became emperor nine years later (p. 130n2). But these are details: the book can be confidently recommended to anyone interested in exploring the rich imagery and layers of meaning in the Song for their own spiritual lives.
