Women Preparing Spices

Frank Wesley (Indian, 1923-2002), As it Began to Dawn

LISTEN: “The Women Prepare the Spices (Song of Songs 8)” by Katy Wehr, a setting of Song of Songs 8:6–7, 13–14, on And All the Marys (2018)

O set me as a seal upon thy heart

O set me as a seal upon thine arm

For love is strong, strong as death, my love

And jealousy is cruel as the grave

Its flashes are the living flame of a blazing fire

That cannot be drowned out in a flood

All earthly gold in exchange for love

Would be utterly contemptible and scorned

Come, my love

Let me hear your voice

My companions and I wait in the garden

Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun

Like a stag appearing on the mountain

According to the Gospels, after Jesus' crucifixion, a small group of his female followers purchased spices and prepared them to bring to the tomb to anoint his body on Sunday morning. (Sabbath restrictions prevented them from doing work on Saturday.) This was an act of love and reverence that served the practical function of counteracting the smell of decomposition.

The singer-songwriter Katy Wehr imagines the women consoling each other by singing as they crushed the myrrh, mixed it with oil, and bottled it up for transport—maybe also as they headed over to the gravesite. The verses they sing are excerpts from the Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, an ancient collection of Hebrew love poems that Christians have long read as allegorical of the love between Christ and his bride, the church. Wehr has set to music four of the verses from the book’s final chapter, a setting she says she hopes will convey a tone that is both mournful and hopeful.

Wehr’s selections comment on the nature of love: it is permanent, strong, passionate, inextinguishable, and priceless. The female speaker in the poem seeks to stamp herself on her lover’s heart like a seal, claiming him as hers (as per the speaker in the Song of Songs). She professes love’s power, which is as severe and enduring as death. In the context of this passage, the word “jealousy” appears to be used in the positive sense to mean zeal or passion—a resolute devotion.

It seems her lover (Jesus) has gone out for the day, or gone on a trip, and she calls him back home. She can’t wait to hear his voice again. She waits outside for him in the garden, wishing for him to come bounding back into her arms. “Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun.” One can imagine the myrrh-bearing women of the Gospels hoping beyond hope that their beloved Jesus would arise, would speak their names again, would prove that love is indeed stronger than death.

<hat tip to Victoria Emily Jones at artandtheology.org>