Read this if you…
- want the Bible's most surprising book — explicitly sensual love poetry with no mention of God
- like that the woman's voice is as prominent as the man's, rare in ancient literature
- care about the lush garden/vineyard imagery that centuries of mystics read as soul-and-Christ allegory
Skip this if you…
- don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts
Depicted in Art
The Shulamite is set upon by the drunken city watchmen in a dim Jerusalem street; her veil falls as she struggles.
Gustave Moreau, 1853
The Shulamite stands alone in a watercolor reverie, jewelled and contemplative, against an ornamental Eastern backdrop.
Gustave Moreau
A musician plucks a stringed instrument before the enthroned King Solomon, opening the illuminated Song of Songs.
1490
The Shulamite, robed and standing in profile, recounts the glories of King Solomon to her attendant maidens.
Albert Joseph Moore, 1864
The Bride, draped and crowned, descends a moonlit colonnade searching for her lover by night.
Gustave Moreau, 1892
Recommended Editions
King James Version
Oxford University Press · 1611
The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.
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Notable Quotes
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
Screen & Stage
Posters via The Movie Database (TMDB)
- Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph, Tannaitic rabbi, c. 50–135 CE: "For all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet & dramatist, 1749–1832: "It is the most tender, inimitable expression of passionate, graceful love that has been transmitted to us."
- Origen of Alexandria, early Christian theologian, c. 184–253: "An epithalamium, that is to say, a marriage-song, which Solomon wrote in the form of a drama."
- Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian abbot & theologian, 1090–1153: The song that surpasses every other — only the touch of the Spirit can teach it, and experience alone can unfold it.
- Toni Morrison, Nobel laureate American novelist, 1931–2019: She named her 1977 novel Song of Solomon after the biblical book, threading its imagery of love and flight throughout — the work the Nobel committee cited.
- Robert Alter, biblical scholar & literary critic, b. 1935: "These are among the most beautiful love poems that have come down to us from the whole ancient world."
More by Solomon
- Proverbs~450 BCSolomon—·Quick·94 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleWisdomHebrew
- Ecclesiastes~250 BCSolomon—·Quick·35 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleWisdomHebrew
- Song of Solomon~300 BCSolomon—·Quick·17 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleLyricHebrew
- Wisdom of Solomon~50 BCSolomon—·Quick·66 pagesInfluence—Popularity—BibleWisdomAncient Greek