Posted by Argyle on December 30, 1998 at 02:05
In Reply to: Three Questions posted by Luke Warm on December 29, 1998 at 14:13
:1. Whats your email? You didnt include it in the message.
I may be reached at argyle7@hotmail.com.
:2. Are you a professional writer? You sound like you should be.
Yes and no. While I have been compensated for a few pieces I have published, I have therefrom hardly earned enough to live on. I am a literary critic by trade, and I rarely delve into fiction. (For my fellow WS enthusiasts, however, I will certainly make an exception.)
:3. Whats with the Latin? (It is Latin, right?)
I'm appalled! Any WS enthusiast should be able to recite this passage by heart! =)
It is from the Song of Solomon, an incredible lyric poem in the Old Testament which concerns King Solomon's love of and erogenous yearning for his wife. The work is included to provide a model of morally sound sex and love, to show that while the Judeo-Christian tradition praises abstinence, it also should not consider sex between married people an evil or dirty act, but rather very much the opposite.
The poem is breathtakingly erotic, but *not* pornographic. Because some people cannot draw this distinction, however, many Protestant translations of the Bible resort to impressive linguistic gymnastics to avoid the Song's overt sexuality, or, sadly, omit the Song entirely. I present it in the untranslated, unblemished vulgate Latin of my own, dear Catholic Church for this reason.
But I digress. The passage I have quoted reads, as literally as possible: "My lover placed his hand at the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I opened [myself] to my beloved, and my hand dripped with myrrh, my fingers dripped with liquid myrrh upon the hinges of the door." (Not to belabor a point, but the New Revised Version of the Bible would have the first line read: "My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart thrilled within me.")
This passage is but the most explicit of many allusions to watersports in the poem. I might point out the poem treats WS quite favorably, and certainly doesn't prohibit it (though the Bible does elsewhere expressly forbid urinating on walls).
--Salue, Argyle.
Email: argyle7@hotmail.com