The world's oldest love poem is The Love Song for Shu-Sin (c. 2000 BCE) composed in ancient Mesopotamia for use in part of the sacred rites of fertility. Prior to its discovery in the 19th century, and its translation in the 20th, the biblical Song of Songs was thought to be the oldest love poem extant.
The little tablet numbered 2461 was lying in one of the drawers, surrounded by a number of other pieces. When I first laid eyes on it, its most attractive feature was its state of preservation. I soon realized that I was reading a poem, divided into a number of stanzas, which celebrated beauty and love, a joyous bride and a king named Shu-Sin (who ruled over the land of Sumer close to four thousand years ago). As I read it again and yet again, there was no mistaking its content. What I held in my hand was one of the oldest love songs written down by the hand of man. (245)
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Once a year, according to Sumerian belief, it was the sacred duty of the ruler to marry a priestess and votary of Inanna, the goddess of love and procreation, in order to ensure fertility to the soil and fecundity to the womb. The time-honored ceremony was celebrated on New Year's day and was preceeded by feasts and banquets accompanied by music, song, and dance. The poem inscribed on the little Istanbul clay tablet was in all probability recited by the chosen bride of King Shu-Sin in the course of one of these New Year celebrations. (245-246)
This is one of several love songs composed for this king which articulate a belief in his very close and personal relationship with the goddess of love. In some songs of this type, the king's name seems to have been merely substituted for that of Dumuzi [Inanna's celestial lover in myth]. Almost certainly they were performed in the context of certain religious rituals which have been referred to as the `sacred marriage' but the precise details are unknown. The belief that the king could in some sense actually have sexual intercourse with the goddess is intimately connected to the belief in the divinity of the kings of this period. (88-89)
The archaeological work done in Mesopotamia in the 19th century completely changed the way history, and the world, could be understood. Once upon a time, the ancient past stopped with the Bible and the version of history presented in the biblical narratives. Following the discovery of Mesopotamia's ancient past, history was enlarged, deepened, and humanity's story became much more complex and interesting. The literature of ancient Mesopotamia provided the first forms of world literature, the first expressions of human emotion and experience and, among them, the experience of romantic love and passion through the world's oldest love poem.
In this meditation on Song of Songs 2:8-13 I'm going to interpret it, not literally, but allegorically, like the ancient and medieval Christians so frequently interpreted the Song. Reading it this way, it's a mystical romance between the reader and Christ, with the reader (of whatever sex) playing the part of the female lover and Christ in the part of the male lover, or Solomon. Indeed, if the literal or historical sense of this book is interesting, the allegorical or mystical sense of this book is far more so. Literally, the Song of Songs is sexy ancient love poetry.* But allegorically or mystically, it's sexy love poetry between the soul and the Lord, which, though it utterly exceeds the understanding, has got to be far better.
Listen to that call now. This Song is not about some love in the distant past. If you but listen it breaks into this very moment. Don't miss this moment, this moment in which the Beloved's call comes through sound and silence, comes through speech and singing, comes through boredom and discomfort, comes through the bodies of the people around you and the dead wood of church pews. "Come away with me," God calls in your soul, with a whisper which deafens all noise, silencing sound, silencing silence into song. 17dc91bb1f
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