LOVE STORIES OF THE BIBLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 154, 2 July 1927, Page 30

LOVE STORIES OF THE BIBLE.

BEAUTIFUL PASSAGES. IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

It is noteworthy that there is no PJU* •*** on the love-stories of the Bible. The author of the second chapter of Genesis could not deal with the first love-story of all, but Milto was not under the same constraint, and with sure vision saw the poet's opportunity. S °pafr nd m hand the y Pass'd, the loveliest T^, t „ e »l er * ia X ,n love ' B embraces met— goodliest man of men since born, His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve. Soon Adam says— ?C^.r ar^ er ?. nd J* ole P art ot a " these joys, fearer thyself than all. "To him thus Eve reply'd" telling him of the effect on her of his first utterance:— M a „ rt -v. O / m l *X ul l Beek thee a «"J thee alone. My other half .... Isaac and Rebekah. The next instance, Isaac's wooing, has oeen overlooked. Yet it is not without romance. {Sarah is dead, and Abraham has no confidant except his eldest retainer: he is sorely afraid of his only son's making a match with one of the aborigines; his own circle is small and his kith and kin far away across the desert. He does not apparently consult the youth, perhaps it is because, as he says, the uiissiou may not be successful. The ambassador, too, is conscious that he must make a blind bargain in any case: so he does what is the ancient equivalent of letting the reins fall on the horse's neck— the first maiden who shows the stranger grace is to be she. She tump out "very fair to look upon," and "before he had done speaking" his vow the conditions were fulfilled and he, "wondering at her, held his peace, to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not." We know the rest: the old retainer is certain he has met his young, master's "fate" and the gifts" to her begin to flow. Readily she consents to go with him and he Isaac's bride. On the long way home we may be sure that Rebekah plied, the old man with questions about her future husband and that he spoke well of his master. The rest of the maiden's story is told in one verse:— And Isaac brought bcr Into his mother. Sarah's, tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife: and he loved her; aud Isaac was much comforted after his mother's death. Was any marriage ever more beautifully celebrated? The Love of Cousins. The son of that union had a more romantic love story. Jacob comes into his mother's old home a fugitive and a wanderer, indeed an adventurer. He falls in love with his cousin Rachel, "the tender- ewe lamb," at first sight. They are strangers, but he knows who she is, and though she does not know who he is, she expects one of the men there to roll away the heavy stone lid from the well. His heart is very full and he kisses her and weeps. No doubt the occasion was exceptional, and perhaps early etiquette permitted first cousins to kiss on meeting. (In the original, "brother" and "'sister" mean also "cousin.") He is, of course, taken home. Now "Rachel was beautiful and well favoured and Jacob loved Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years- for Rachel thy younger daughter," and he did so, "and they seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had to her." Rachel was his first and remained his only love throughout her life, and their son was always his favourite child.

The Mother-in-law. The talc of Ruth is entitled to a place here. It is a unique and uniquely beautiful picture, but the interest of the writer was not what ours is here, and consequently the attachment of the two chief characters for one another is not fully told. But it is one of the few honourable, as it is one of the most honest, sketches in literature of the mother-in-law. Naomi and Ruth are a poetic couple. Then come the love stories of the Hebrew Hercules—an unpleasant contrast to the earlier idyll of Ruth and the later great lyric by an unknown poet, whom early admirers thought they were honouring when they called his work "Solomon's Song." Almost every line of the biography of Samson provokes a difficulty by its incongruity with Hebrew life as it is known at this period, say, 1000 B.C. There have not been wanting critics who explain the whole story as a myth: at any rate, it is unique in Hebrew mythology, though easily paralleled in that of the classics. It can only. be said that none of the women with whom he associated is worth any description. . Pure Poetry. Of the other extreme of womanhood is the Shulamite girl to whom was addressed a sweeter poetry than ever was sung to a Lydia, a L.sbia, >r a Cynthia. That in its presentrforni Solomon's Song has been disarranged is generally believed, but "its loveliness shines through" (as a great philosopher put it of good character). Jt is an easy guess that it was. written in dialogue form and that sOme of the lovers' vows have luckily kept their right place. In every word, idea, and image it is a living thing of the East, and the East at its best. This poem distils the very essence of the true lover's soul and reveals, for the' only time in the Bible, the capacity of soft imagination and sweet fancy of the ancient Hebrew in love: Lo. the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The flg 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. It is a happy coincidence that the book which has had the most philosophic effect on the world also contains the J best love lyric.- ;