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Updated: June 21, 2025
The rival theory, that Theocritus borrowed from the Biblical Song, is supported by Professor D.S. Margoliouth, in his "Lines of Defence of the Biblical Revelation" , pp. 2-7. Maspero, describing, in 1883, the affinities of Canticles to the old Egyptian love songs, uses almost the same language as G.E. Lessing employed in 1777, in summarizing the similarities between Canticles and Theocritus.
The Preliminary Discourse prefixed to Sale's Koran; and Professor Palmer's Introduction in S. B. E., vol. vi. Islam, by J. W. H. Stobart, in the "Non-Christian Religious Systems" Series of the S.P.C.K. Der Islam, by Houtsma, in De la Saussaye. Sell, The Faith of Islam, Second Edition, 1896. Margoliouth. Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, 1905.
One would have thought that any poet dealing with rustic beauty might light on the fact that a sunburnt skin may be attractive. Yet Margoliouth dignifies this simple piece of observation into a theory! "The theory that swarthiness produced by sun-burning need not be disfiguring to a woman" is, Margoliouth holds, taken by Theocritus from Canticles.
Bywater, 1909; and Prof. Margoliouth, 1911. But it is of another cause of misunderstanding that I wish principally to speak in this preface. The great edition from which the present translation is taken was the fruit of prolonged study by one of the greatest Aristotelians of the nineteenth century, and is itself a classic among works of scholarship.
Graetz was certain that no Hebrew poet could have drawn his shepherds from life; Margoliouth is equally sure that no Greek could have done so. But from the time of Theocritus their profession becomes associated with poetic art. The shepherd's clothes are donned by Virgil, Spenser, and Milton. The existence of the Greek translation of the Song of Solomon gives us the explanation of this fact.
Each critic is half right Margoliouth in believing the pastoral pictures of Canticles true to Judean life, Graetz in esteeming the pastoral pictures of the Idylls true to Sicilian life. The English critic supports his theme with some philological arguments.
Or as in a chariot a mare of Thessalian breed, So is rose-red Helen, the glory of Lacedemon. The exact point of comparison is far from clear, but it must be some feature of beauty or grace. Such a comparison, says Margoliouth, is extraordinary in a Greek poet; he must have derived it from a non-Greek source.
Another difficult word which constantly recurs in the Poetics is prattein or praxis, generally translated 'to act' or 'action'. But prattein, like our 'do', also has an intransitive meaning 'to fare' either well or ill; and Professor Margoliouth has pointed out that it seems more true to say that tragedy shows how men 'fare' than how they 'act'. It shows their experiences or fortunes rather than merely their deeds.
MOHAMMEDANISM. Sir William Muir, Life of Mohammed, new and rev. ed. by T. H. Weir ; Ameer Ali, Life and Teachings of Mohammed , and, by the same author, warmly sympathetic, Islam ; D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam , in the "Heroes of the Nations" Series, and, by the same author, The Early Development of Mohammedanism ; Arthur Gilman, Story of the Saracens , in the "Story of the Nations" Series.
Ewald, while refusing to connect the Idylls with Canticles, admitted that one particular parallel is at first sight forcible. It is the comparison of both Helen and Shulammith to a horse. Margoliouth thinks the Greek inexplicable without the Hebrew; Graetz thinks the Hebrew inexplicable without the Greek. In point of fact, the Hebrew and the Greek do not explain each other in the least.
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