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On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs in the Song

of Songs

Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

To cite this article: Esther Heinrich-Ramharter (2022) On the Form and Function of the
Waṣfs in the Song of Songs, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 36:1, 3-23, DOI:
10.1080/09018328.2022.2085899

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Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 2022
Vol. 36, No. 1, 3-23, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09018328.2022.2085899

On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs in the

Song of Songs

Esther Heinrich-Ramharter
Institut für Philosophie
Universität Wien
Universitätsstraße 7
1010 Wien
esther.heinrich-ramharter@univie.ac.at

ABSTRACT: Description Songs, also called waṣfs, form an important part of

the Song of Songs. They show the structure of a two-tiered list, one column
of which comprises body parts, while the other column consists of metaphors
taken from different domains. This paper explores eight dimensions of the
functioning of the waṣfs that depend on this structure, for example the two-
tiered lists as secret codes, or as a case of mnemonics.
Key words: Song of Songs, waṣf, mnemonics, list, metaphor

1 Introduction
Studies of the Song of Songs are often marked by a great deal of enthusiasm
in their opening paragraphs. As the Bible scholar André Feuillet puts it, “Es
gibt kein erregenderes Problem als das des Hohen Liedes,”1 Goethe calls it
“die herrlichste Sammlung liebes Lieder die Gott erschaffen hat.”2 This pa-
per, in contrast, follows an interest that might seem comparatively sober at
first glance: it focuses on the formal structure and functioning of the so-
called “waṣfs”3 or “description poems,” which are parts of the Song. Howev-
er, I will try to show that an understanding of this structure has consequences
for the reception of the text itself. The aim of this paper is to evaluate, emend
and extend the approaches already mentioned in the literature—most of them
only as an aside—, and to offer an additional approach (section 2.8). The
views presented here are not mutually exclusive; some make a good match,
some lead to a mismatch.4

1. Feuillet 1964, p. 238. Soulen (1967, p. 183) quotes this.

2. See Tillmann 2006, p. 185. Goethe offered a translation of the Song.
3. Some scholars reject this term for the description poems of the Song. See Japhet
2011, p. 217.
4. My aim is not to offer “the right understanding” of the Song or the waṣfs, but to
elaborate on some interpretations that help readers to see some interesting aspects.
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
4 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

The Song contains at least four waṣfs: Song 4,1-7.5.10-16; 6,5-7, and 7,2-
6.5 The second is about a man, while the others are about a woman. Accord-
ing to Boman, a waṣf is a “description of human appearances,”6 according to
Barbiero, it is a “description of the body.”7 Bergant says, “[t]his form uses
exaggerated metaphor and, in an orderly fashion, describes the body of the
loved one, part by part.”8 Given that these are examples of the standard view
of waṣfs, the concept of a waṣf has thus been augmented in different direc-
tions: for some exegetes, the subject matter is not restricted to human beings;
for others, it is not, or not only, appearances.9 Many suggestions have been
made with regard to the content of the waṣfs in the Song. Here are just a few
of them: the metaphors describe an ugly woman to defame Solomon;10 the
images describe a woman realistically and this can only be understood as a
joke;11 the figures described are works of art or the metaphors are taken from
works of art;12 the content of the waṣfs is “nature and culture”;13 and—the
most common view—a “man is telling his lover how he perceives her.”14
In relation to the form of the waṣfs, David Bernat stated: “The structural
foundation of the waṣf is the list or catalogue.”15 Moreover, a special type of
list is characteristic of the form of the waṣfs, as they combine parts of bodies
and metaphors or properties:16

5. Krisnetzki (1981, p. 21) remarks that Song 3.6-8 and 3.9-10d, which are explicitly
about bridal sedans, are actually about brides, and hence these texts should also be
subsumed under waṣfs.
6. Boman 1970, p. 77
7. Barbiero 2011, p. 170
8. Bergant 2001, p. XV. Similarly, Hopkins 2007, p. 8, who adds that the images in
the metaphors are sometimes artificial.
9. Cf., e.g. Bernat 2004, Soulen 1967, and see below.
10. See Waterman 1948.
11. See Segal 1962. Compare also Brenner 1993, Whedbee 1993. For an interpreta-
tion that identifies grotesque aspects of the Song see Black 2009.
12. See Isserlin 1958, Gerleman 1962.
13. Fishbane 2015, p. 102
14. Exum 2005, p. 159
15. Bernat 2004, p. 330
16. Studying the interferences of my considerations with different theories of meta-
phors would certainly be fruitful and should yield interesting results—and would
probably help to make some of my points clearer. However, I will not be able to
elaborate on this because it goes beyond the scope of this article. Nelson Goodman’s
theory of metaphor seems particularly promising here. It provides, in the form of a
general theory of symbols, an independent systematic framework for the definition of
metaphor in relation to other rhetorical figures (see Goodman 1976, pp.71-85), which
could enhance my considerations, especially in sections 2.6 and 2.8. See footnote 41
for a vague hint of a possible connection between cognitive theories of metaphors
and the topic of this article.
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 5

part of the body 1—metaphor/property 1

part of the body 2—metaphor/property 2
part of the body 3—metaphor/property 3
…
The parts of the body are arranged (approximately) top-down or bottom-up.
This structure, which is not always perfectly realized in language, will be
called a “two-tiered list” in the following.17
The special form of lists as characteristic of the waṣfs has been noticed in
the secondary literature. Bernat speaks of “lists where the individual items
are named within a poetic line” (by which he seems to mean a linear se-
quence of arbitrary items) on the one hand and “list parallelism”18 on the
other.19 We are clearly dealing with the second type here. Yair Hoffmann
distinguishes simple lists or catalogues from the “expanded model” and the
“combined model”:20 in the former, “information pertinent to each element”
is added to the items; the latter means a “combination of two different cata-
logues, such as those of merchandise and prices.”21 The boundaries between
these two models are fluid, as prices may well be seen as additional infor-
mation to goods. The waṣfs are an example of such a border case.
The scope of this paper is restricted to interpretations of the waṣfs insofar
they rely on this particular structure. It is not claimed, however, that these
interpretations are superior in any respect.22
Waṣfs have also occurred in Egyptian love lyrics since the 14th century
B.C.,23 though they probably only described gods initially. The waṣfs in the
Song most likely have their origin in these lyrics or are at least strongly influ-
enced by them.24 The following considerations will deal with the waṣfs of the
Song exclusively but can also be transferred to other waṣfs.

17. Linguistically speaking, it is a series of nominal sentences.

18. Bernat 2004, p. 330. “Parallelism,” which is often named one of the most impor-
tant rhetoric figures of the waṣfs or the Song, has a similar meaning but there is a
distinction (cf. Alter 2011b, pp. 1-28, Geller 1979, Longman 2001, pp. 11-12,
Fishbane 2015, pp. XV-XVI; Zhang (2016, p. 2, fn 6) provides a collection of rele-
vant publications): it consists of parallel structures of sentences or phrases, but there
need not be lists.
19. Bernat (2004, p. 335) states that list parallelism can also be found at other points
in the Bible and its surroundings. For example, the description of the behemoth’s
body in Job 40.16-18—an enemy waṣf—is of this type.
20. He also speaks of “the open model” and “concealed catalogues,” but this termi-
nology is not important in our context.
21. Hoffmann 1996, p. 88.
22. The approaches of Fiona Black, who partly draws on the work of Michel de
Certeau and Roland Barthes (Black 2009), of Christopher Meredith (2013), and of
Elaine James (2017, pp. 118-150)—to give but some examples—are very interesting
and beautiful contributions and are excluded only due to the narrower scope of this
paper.
23. See Fox 1985, p. 181.
24. See Keel 1992, pp. 29-34; Exum 2005, pp. 47f; Fox 1985, pp. 191-193.
6 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

One last note on terminology: the word “recipient” will be used for the
(initial or later) reader or listener of the Song, and the term “author” will refer
to all those persons who were involved in the Song’s formation. For reasons
of simplicity, the case of the male lover describing the female beloved shall
be taken as the underlying situation unless stated otherwise; however, switch-
ing the sexes would not alter my considerations here (I am well aware that
there are important gender differences between the waṣfs of the man and the
waṣf of the woman)25.
2 Multiple functions of the waṣfs depending on their structure
2.1 The list as enumeration, iteration, hypnosis, cumulation, exuberance,
excess, climax
Karl Möller revisits a line of thought pursued by Umberto Eco and applies it
to the waṣfs in the Song of Songs:26
Umberto Ecos Anmerkungen zur Rhetorik der Aufzählung verdeutlichen die
Wirkung dieser Beschreibungslieder, die sich durch einen Begeisterungsüber-
schwang auszeichnen, der das Paar dazu bringt, einen regelrechten Katalog
körperlicher Vorzüge aufzustellen. […] Was nun die Rhetorik der Aufzäh-
lung anbelangt, hat Eco aufgezeigt, dass es darum geht, von der hypnotischen
Wirkung der Liste an sich gefangen genommen zu werden.27
When applying Eco’s ideas to the descriptions of the lovers in the Song of
Songs, Möller sees a need to add that the waṣfs do not fulfil the conditions of
Eco’s lists; he ascribes to Eco the view that the purpose of such a list consists
in generating an impression of infinity, whereas the number of parts of the
body is clearly limited in the waṣfs.
Möller does not do full justice to Eco, however, because Eco does in fact
distinguish between two sorts of lists: “practical (or pragmatic) lists” and
“poetic (or literary or aesthetic) lists.”28 “Practical lists” are characterized by
having “purely referential functions, since their items designate correspond-
ing objects.” These lists are thus finite and “they may not be altered, in the
sense that it would be pointless to include in a museum catalogue a painting
that is not held in the museum’s collection.” Poetic lists, in contrast, are
“open, and in some way presuppose a final etcetera.” The writer of such a list
is either “aware that the quantity of things is too vast to be recorded,” or,

25. See Exum 2005, pp. 13-28.

26. Ezek 27 is another list of the Hebrew Bible mentioned by Eco: “a list of proper-
ties to give an idea of the greatness of Tyre” (Eco 2011, p. 147).
27. Möller 2013, p. 124. Geller (1979, p. 35) also notes, “The rhetorical effect is […]
enumerative.” Also compare: Robert Alter’s conception of intensification as an ele-
ment of biblical poetry (Alter 2011b, pp. 75-103).
28. Eco 2011, p. 122. Eco opposes “list” and “form.” He ascribes the first to primi-
tive cultures and the latter to higher cultures (Eco 2011, pp. 137-141). But one could
take the view that a “list” is also a form—an infinite form—that is filled up. Eco’s
distinctions are illustrated by many examples in his book, The Infinity of Lists (Eco
2009).
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 7

“takes pleasure […] in ceaseless enumeration”29, perhaps even tries “to ex-
press the ecstasy of ineffability”30. Though Eco opposes practical lists to po-
etic ones, practical lists may well occur in the arts—as demonstrated by one
of Eco’s examples: Leporello’s catalogue of the women seduced by his mas-
ter in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Therefore, the finite nature of the waṣfs does
not exclude them—as Möller supposed—from the application of Eco’s con-
siderations.
Moreover, as the hypnotic effect of the list31 can also be attributed to finite
lists, its identification as a moment of the waṣfs—as stated by Möller—does
not make any expansion of Eco’s considerations necessary, either.
The impression of infinity and the “vertigo of the etcetera”32 in the waṣfs
also ask for further consideration. The two tiers of the list come into play
here: it is reasonable to say about the parts of the body that they are finite; but
the metaphors—their respective domains of origin, let alone their concrete
manifestations—are not limited.33 The two-tiered list is thus (potentially)
infinite.34 Francis Landy’s literary analysis of the Song points in this direc-
tion: “[T]he lover’s body is explored, with all its multifarious possibilities of
significance and action, its extremes of revulsion and attraction, its vulnera-
bility and peril.”35 Although every part of the body is only mentioned once
within one and the same waṣf in the Song,36 the different waṣfs present dif-
ferent metaphors for one and the same part of the body (for example, the eyes
are described as “doves behind your veil” in Song 4.1 and as “pools in
Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim” in Song 7.5).
The moment of repetition37 that can be recognized here is identified by
Eco and Möller as a central feature of some lists. Möller suggests that the

29. A primary reference for this idea is Immanuel Kant: the mathematical sublime, in
his Critique of Judgment (Kant 1951, § 27).
30. Eco 2011, p. 141
31. Cf. Eco 2011, p. 125.
32. Eco 2011, p. 129
33. One aspect of the waṣfs admittedly stands in contrast to the “vertigo of the etcet-
era”: Assis points out that they show an “inclusion structure.” For example, the waṣf
in Chapter 4 is framed by “you are beautiful” in 4.1 and 4.7 (Assis 2009, p. 121).
Barbiero (2011, pp. 170f) calls this structure “inclusio” and Hess (2005, p. 127) calls
it “envelope construction.”
34. Different metaphors can be attributed to one part of the body (Boman 1970, p.
83; see below).
35. Landy 1987, p. 305
36. Song 4.2 and 4.4-5 are candidates for double determinations of a part of the body.
Stoop-van Paridon (2005, p. 187) holds that “twin” can be related to “teeth” or to
“sheep”; if it is related to “teeth,” then 4.2b is a second description of the teeth. See
also Zakovitch 2004, p. 184.
37. Robert Alter has explored in depth the importance of the technique of repetition
for biblical prose (Alter 2011a, pp. 111-141). For the topic of repetitions in the Song
see Fox 1985, p. 209-217.
8 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

“pure love of iteration”38 can be recognized in the repetition of the same

components in different waṣfs—for example, the hair as a flock of goats is
mentioned in Song 4.1 and 6.6, and the third waṣf is, as a whole, a shortened
and slightly modified version of the first.39 But I would like to add that this is
not the only moment of repetition in the text. In the other case, the element
repeated is admittedly of a different nature: it is the structural element of
coupling expressions (one being a part of the body, the other being from a
different domain). We are still dealing with repetition here. And this repeti-
tion can be carried out ad infinitum. This effect is also dependent on the two-
tiered list structure of the description—simple lists would not offer such a
possibility, as they do not have a formal feature that can be repeated.
To conclude:
- Any two-tiered list keeps something constant (the formal feature of
the couples), and hence includes repetition, while “everything else”
(the content) may be changed, thereby creating a pure love of itera-
tion, a hypnotic effect.
- Any two-tiered list with a finite set of elements in one column attach-
es an infinite variety to a finite set, thereby making the “vertigo of
the etcetera” and the “exuberance of exaltation” possible (for the fi-
nite multitude of body parts).
- Particularly, in any waṣf there can be an additional cumulative ef-
fect—an excess40, yielding a climax41: if the body/person unites the
parts of the body,42 all that is said is attributed to one entity.43 Steven
P. Hopkins observes: “In […] the flamboyant waṣfs of the Hebrew
Song of Songs [and comparable Indian and Arabic pieces of art, au-
thor], the body of the beloved dissembles itself into dozens of similes
and metaphors, an excess that dazzles and expands in the lover’s gaze

38. Eco 2011, p. 125. Note that such a love of iteration and lists—as Eco understands
them—could also be recognized in the Egyptian paintings (see Keel 1992, p. 143, for
example).
39. See Möller 2013, p. 124.
40. Cf. Eco 2011, pp. 174-183.
41. Cf. Eco 2011, p. 127. However, in this case the climax works slightly differently
to how Eco describes it. It is not the case that “at every step they say something
more, or with greater intensity,” but the simultaneous ascription of different attributes
to one body (via its parts) causes a cumulation—it becomes more in sum.
42. Eco (2011, p. 127) mentions the anaphora, the repetition of the same word at the
beginning of every line or phrase. In our case, it is not a single word that is repeated
but words are listed that form the description of a single thing. It should be noted,
however, that the view that a body is a single thing is not without controversy. See
Section 2.3.
43. The parts of the body form what Eco calls a “coherent-excessive list,” whereas
the “right column” might be considered as a “chaotic list” (Eco 2011, p. 177) de-
pending on whether one holds that the metaphors are taken from one domain only—
for example, war.
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 9

to extraordinary, multiple forms, into cosmic and earthly landscapes,

across historical and mythical time, taking on animal and cultic
forms. Meanwhile, the lover’s body remains, in varied degrees, sim-
ultaneously concrete and individualized, the lover who stands before
the lover, literally or in the elastic presence of memory, as his or her
own.”44
2.2 The list of metaphors taken from a kit or a stockpile
Chana and Ariel Bloch hold that the metaphors of the Song are “drawn from
what must have been a traditional stockpile of imagery of love poetry, in a
fashion analogous to the inventive recycling of conventional images in the
Renaissance sonnet from Petrarch down to the Elizabethans”45. Anselm
Hagedorn’s statement “Er setzt seine Geliebte aus einem Baukasten von
Metaphern zusammen”46 also suggests that the items of the “right tier” are
well-known in their metaphorical use, at least to a certain group of people,
particularly those who compose texts like the Song and their recipients.47 It
implies that there is a tradition of writing such waṣfs. While the latter as-
sumption is common knowledge among biblical scholars, the former can be
doubted. In another paper, Hagedorn uses some Babylonian omina—oracles
to get to know something about the future, or one’s presumed wife—to deci-

44. Hopkins 2007, p. 8. If one has a cognitive theory of metaphor in mind, it is inter-
esting to note that one target domain (the body) is accessed by means of terms from
completely different source domains in the waṣfs. As unusual as this might seem, it
becomes plausible if one follows the line of argumentation put forward by Hans-
Peter Müller, whose proposed reading of the Song equates exploring one’s body to
exploring the world, thus allowing the target und source domain to be reversed (cf.
Müller 1984, see also Alter 1987, p. 306).
45. Bloch and Bloch 1998, p. 128. Note that the existence of such a stockpile does
not exclude the creative use of new images: “Graceful orchestration of the traditional
materials rather than novelty appears to have been the key aesthetic value, though
there is also some pleasing interplay between familiar and novel image.” (Bloch and
Bloch 1998, p. 128).
46. Hagedorn 2010a, pp. 424f. Note that the idea of seeing the waṣfs as taken from a
kit heavily depends on the structure of two-tiered lists. There has to be something to
be knitted together.
47. This idea of a kit does not imply that the metaphors are of a similar nature; it is
compatible with the view that “the poet draws his images from whatever semantic
fields seem apt for the local figure—domesticated and wild animals, dyes, food,
architecture, perfumes, and the floral world” (Alter 2011b, p. 251). However, some
authors suggest that the metaphors are taken from a very particular domain, e.g. from
geography: “In each case [Song 4.1-7; 6.4-7; 7.1-7], the young woman is “mapped”
visually, and her body is allied topographically with the land of Israel. The geo-
graphical references create a map of the land of Israel— not a complete one, of
course, but one in which the ineffable totality of the young woman is evoked by the
presentation and iteration of select parts. The vision of the lover as a cartography
links the aesthetic of the land with the beauty of the lover.” (James 2017, p. 119)
10 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

pher the metaphors of the Song.48 Although, as he states, the interest of the
man in the omina and the Song is different, both texts have to use metaphors
from the same sphere, as they have to describe the body of a woman. The
omina use professional jargon when giving the corporeal feature in the
πρότασις, and ordinary language when interpreting in the ἀπόδoσις (as the
man asking for the oracle has to understand it). The omina are based on a
“Katalog festgefügter und stereotype Eigenschaften und Deutungen.”
If this also holds for the waṣfs in the Song, it does not mean, as already
noted by Hagedorn, that the waṣfs deny the woman’s individuality. However,
one can take the view that they design the picture of the woman by sticking it
together using properties out of a given pool.49 The two-tiered list thereby
implies a double restriction: the parts of the body are taken from a given cata-
logue (partly determined by the anatomy of the body itself, partly by conven-
tion) and the metaphors as well.
The conception of metaphors taken from a kit combines two almost com-
plementary ideas—that of restriction and that of creating a multitude. When
Landy says, “from the pool of possible correlatives, often only one is selected
by the text,”50 he emphasizes the restrictive aspect. Meanwhile, by explicat-
ing the combinatorial nature of the waṣfs, Boman stresses the aspect of varie-
ty: “As one image. e.g. the tower, can be applied to various parts of the body,
so the same part of the body can be represented by two or three groups of
images […].”51 The impression this conjunction provokes for the recipient
might be that of a controllable variety or richness (which may be desirable,
as one can see from the omina).
2.3 A list of riddles
Opposed to the kit model is the idea that a waṣf is a list of riddles52: if the
phrases used to describe the parts of the body are not familiar to the person
being addressed, they assume the character of a riddle (as they do for today’s
exegetes anyhow). Thorleif Boman holds this view: “In the form of a simple
riddle, easy to solve, the waṣf describes […] qualities of two principal per-
sons […].”53 Yair Zakovitch has a similar view: “The poems of the Song of
Songs are riddles […].”54 Coming from a different background, Schwien-
horst-Schönberger states that, as Solomon spoke in parables like Jesus, “die

48. See Hagedorn 2010b, p. 599.

49. If this implied non-individuality, then so would the DNA of today’s biology.
50. Landy 1987, p. 309
51. Boman 1970, p. 83
52. Riddles definitely exist in the Bible—for example, in Judg. 15.12 (the Samson
riddle), or Prov. 30.
53. Boman 1970, p. 77. For a critical evaluation of Boman’s approach, see, e.g.
Soulen 1967. I do not make use of Boman’s questionable concepts of Hebrew
thought in general, but only refer to some very special points.
54. Zakovitch 2000, p. 12
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 11

Zuschreibung des Hoheliedes an Salomo ein versteckter Hinweis darauf sein

[dürfte], daß auch hier mit Rätseln und Gleichnissen zu rechnen ist”55.
But why a whole list of riddles? A first answer could be this: what shall be
deduced is an overall image of a person who is inaccessible (tower and other
war metaphors), innocent (dove), attractive (flowers), and fruitful (goats).56
However, this answer is slightly problematic. The Greeks certainly had a
conception of a (human) body (or person) as a unit, not only built by, but also
binding together several parts in dependence on each other; but not so the
Egyptians, as Emma Brunner-Traut has shown.57 Now, the Song is most like-
ly influenced by the Egyptians58 and, with lesser probability, by the Greeks.
The question is therefore whether the author of the Song, particularly the
waṣfs, had a background in Greek or rather Egyptian traditions. According to
the first answer, it is not the body parts that are inaccessible, innocent, attrac-
tive and so on; it is the person to whom these parts belong. This view is much
more plausible in a context where people are used to thinking of persons or
bodies as systems that organise their parts, i.e., if they have a background
similar to the Greek.
A second answer is offered by Boman: “With the solution of the riddle of
the tower image, we now have a key for the understanding of a series of other
images.”59 Generally speaking, solving one of the riddles helps when it
comes to finding solutions to the other riddles. (Something like a cross word
puzzle emerges.)60
2.4 The two-tiered list as a secret code
An idea similar to the understanding of waṣfs as riddles is to understand them
as ciphers.61 This proposal stems from Hagedorn again:
Indem der Mann aber das Objekt seiner Begierde in Metaphern kleidet, ver-
schließt er gleichzeitig den Zugang zu ihr. Die Sprache der Liebenden ist

55. Schwienhorst-Schönberger 2015, p. 29

56. Boman 1970, pp. 79-83
57. See Brunner-Traut 1988, p. 12, 14.
58. See Keel 1992, p. 12.
59. Boman 1970, pp. 78f
60. There are scholars who explicitly reject the idea that the waṣfs in the Song are
riddles. Landy, for example, states, “If the Song were a continuous allegory of sex,
no matter how ingenious the techniques or subtle the allusions, it would be nothing
more than a riddle or a tease.” (Landy 1987, p. 305) Being a riddle is thereby dis-
qualified as something inferior.
61. Landy (1983, p. 134) calls the Song “enigmatic.” An enigma could be seen as
something between riddle and cipher. A two-tiered list is one form in which children
often build their “secret languages” for use with their friends. For an evaluation of
the view that the Song is enigmatic -in the sense of obscure—(‘[que l]a réputation
contemporaine du C[antique des Cantiques] est d’être l’un des texte les plus obscurs
de la Bible’) see Pelletier 1989, p. 33.
12 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

auch immer eine Geheimsprache, deren vollständige Decodierung unmöglich

ist.62
However, this suggestion raises several questions: whenever something is
encrypted, there is someone who encrypts the message, someone who is
meant to understand it, and someone who is meant to not understand it. Who
is who here in the case of the waṣf? And what is the reason for encrypting the
information?
To whom does the man deny access to the object of his desire (‘den
Zugang [zum Objekt seiner Begierde] verschließ[en]’)? The fact that
Hagedorn speaks of the “language of the lovers” as a “secret language”
makes the lover the one who encrypts and the beloved the one who should
understand.63 But who are the ones who are intended not to understand the
message? They could be potential rivals or the whole community.
An alternative answer to the question of who should not understand is: the
beloved herself. Perhaps the lover does not want to say what he thinks or
feels, at least not directly. Different reasons are also conceivable: shame (a
separate section will be dedicated to this option), social conventions, anxiety,
and so on.
Cheryl Exum suggests that the man directs—somehow paradoxically, at
first glance—the encryption against himself:
Beauty in the Song is communicated primarily by metaphor, and in these
verses the metaphors obscure the reality of the person by closing her in imag-
es. So it is that metaphor contributes to the aesthetic process that distances the
object of desire. […]
The totality of her overwhelms him. In order to keep at bay the over-
powering feelings she arouses, he distances himself from the whole per-
son through the breakdown of the body into parts […] each inchoately an-
ticipating a successful assemblage. Then, as if to make the parts less
threatening, he compares them to familiar things. Each part is like some-
thing in the everyday world he knows, things that do not arouse such
strong and disturbing emotions in him.64
According to this point of view, the purpose of encryption is to not be over-
whelmed by the beauty of the beloved. In Landy’s words, “Beauty can only
be experienced at a distance.”65
The following remark from Hopkins is in a similar vein: the waṣf’s “met-
aphors and similes throw verbal bridges across empty space that serve both to
connect and to separate lover and beloved; to touch and to preserve differ-
ence, at one and the same time: to defer finality and to prolong a certain insa-

62. Hagedorn 2010a, p. 425

63. This view is in conflict with the alleged affinity, stated by Zakovitch (2004, pp.
51-53), of the Song with a “Hurenlied.”
64. Exum 2005, p. 160.
65. Landy 1983, p. 134.
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 13

tiable desire.”66 Echoing Exum’s approach, the metaphors are considered to

be distance-creating, but their purpose here is to prolong desire.
Only general options have been presented so far, neglecting the concrete
situations in the Song. A discussion of the situations in which the waṣfs are
uttered within the Song goes beyond the scope of the paper, but it is clear that
an understanding of the waṣfs as lists of ciphers intervenes with any attempt
to divide the Song in scenes or to determine which persons are present, etc.67
If, for example, the beloved is supposed to be absent (as is probable in the
waṣf in Song 5), it does not make sense to assume that he speaks in a code
that only she can understand. If, conversely, one holds that the metaphors
function as code between the lovers throughout the text, this implies that they
are together whenever they choose this way of speaking (even in the waṣf in
Song 5).
Considering the waṣfs as coded lists poses a problem that becomes perti-
nent at this point. The waṣf in Song 5 is not spoken to the man (but to the
daughters of Jerusalem), and metaphors are used in different kinds of constel-
lations of persons throughout the Song. This requires explanation as it shows
the metaphors to be a matter not only between the two lovers. A rather differ-
ent approach could therefore be appropriate: to see the encoding as an issue
between the author and the recipient. Any social reasons that can be thought
of as efficacious between the lovers can also be transferred to the utterances
of the author, but the personal reasons are ruled out with respect to the author
(who certainly is not doing something out of a fear of being rejected, except
in the case where [or insofar as] he is himself a lover).
2.5 With every single line…—Metaphorization as an expression of pudency
and poetry
In an autobiographical book, Ahmed Karimi, an Islamic scholar and philoso-
pher of religion, writes:
[V]ielleicht liegt es auch an unserem kulturellen Charakter, der es vermeidet,
das Gefühlte und Gedachte direkt und entblößt auszu-drücken, der vielmehr
das Gemeinte vermittelt, indem er es mit Metaphern und Bildern umkleidet—
der andere muss es fühlen. So entsteht eine Art kulturelle Scham; niemals
wird eine Frau mit den Worten umworben: “Du hast schöne Augen.” In Ka-
bul würde man dagegen voller Anmut sagen: “Das Feuer, womit dein Blick
mich entfacht, muss aus einem Meer aus lichtem Morgen und tiefer Nacht
entsprungen sein, in dem ich versinken will.”68
Keel sees a line of tradition between the waṣfs and modern Arabic love po-
ems of the same form.69 One might thus consider that something of this spirit
is also present in the Song. Someone who uses a secret code wants to say

66. Hopkins 2007, p. 9. Compare also Fox 1985, p. 277.

67. Hopf (2016) offers his own suggestion for analysing the plot of the Song as well
as information about previous attempts (see pp. 330-352, particularly p. 330).
68. Karimi 2015, p. 76
69. See Keel 1992, p. 34
14 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

something, but only to certain individuals. The expression of shame means

that someone does not want to say a certain thing. It means he is reluctant to
say something, wants it to remain at least partially unsaid or would prefer not
to say it explicitly, but in a different, poetic way.
When composing a love poem for an adored person, the writer must make
sure that the subject relates it to herself. A poem may be dedicated to some-
one, but as a work of art, it is not addressed to someone; rather, it is general
in a sense. One way of ensuring that the adored individual recognizes that she
is the one the words are meant for is to use the second-person singular pro-
noun70 in the poem and then deliver it to the person. In this way, the waṣfs in
Chapters 4, 6, and 7 of the Song not only make it unambiguous to the be-
loved that she is the one the words are meant for (supposing she hears them);
by means of their structure, they say it to the beloved with every single line:
“your hair…, your teeth,….”
2.6 The two-tiered list as a special kind of ἔκφρασις
ἔκφρασις can be understood broadly or in a narrower sense: “[I]n modern
literary criticism, [… ekphrasis …] is usually seen as a text or textual frag-
ment that engages with the visual arts.”71. It is “the verbal representation of
visual representation”72. But this focus on visual arts was foreign to ancient
rhetoric; everything could be subject of an ἔκφρασις: persons, things, places,
buildings, events,… In the ancient perspective, an ἔκφρασις is a truthful and
vivid depiction of a scene or sight.73 In the following I will use the word in
the sense of its ancient definition, according to its wider meaning. Do the
waṣfs of the Song offer ἔκφρασις, as is suggested by Annette Schellenberg?74
The “left column” of the two-tiered list mirrors more or less the ordering
of the parts of the body (from head to toe or bottom up); and each part of this
“column” is combined with a property or a description of an image (a flock
of goats moving down the slopes of Gilead; the tower of David, built in
courses, on it hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors;…).
Problematic for the interpretation of a waṣf (of the Song) as ἔκφρασις is the
case—and almost all cases are of this sort—of the images, images of a differ-
ent or even distant domain: the recipient is then confronted with two images,

70. Zhang (2016, p. 67) notes -hinting at Emmanuel Lévinas- that “the beloved’s
body so extolled in the waṣf cannot be reduced to an “It” as the object of reason or
lust, for the “you” that transcends the sum of the bodily parts evokes transcendence.”
71. Webb 2009, p. 1.
72. Heffernan 1993, p. 3. Compare also, e.g., Bartsch/Elsner 2007, p. i.
73. Cf., e.g., Webb 2009, p. 88, Curtius 1978, p. 78, or Whitaker 2015, who writes
about the “popular rhetorical technique of ἔκφρασις (ekphrasis): a vivid description
that leads the subject before the hearer’s eyes. Described in the theoretical handbooks
and other rhetoric literature, and utilized in speeches and novels from the Classical
and Hellenistic eras, ekphrasis uses words to lead an image “under the eyes” [FN:
Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata, ed. Michel Pattillon (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1997).
Prog. 118.7 […].]” (p. 5-6).
74. Schellenberg 2019. Cf. also Sumi 2004, particularly Ch. 3.
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 15

one image is of the part of the body and one is from a different domain. The
mental images aroused by the items of the “right tier” must then be trans-
ferred to the woman’s body. One could argue that to do so is so common—
according to some theories of metaphor, it is exactly what happens whenever
metaphors are used—one need not make it an exegetical matter. But an
ἔκφρασις should yield as its result a “vivid depiction” of—in our case—a
whole human body; it usually is an immediate, direct description, producing
an image of the depicted without detours.
Moreover, even ἔκφρασις in its most common form always “comes late”
in a way: parts have to be imagined discretely, one after the other, before
other parts and their mutual relationships are known. This makes any
ἔκφρασις (as something within language) different from how one perceives a
picture or visual impression. This deficiency of the ἔκφρασις is reinforced in
the case of the waṣfs: the images of the metaphors must first be transferred or
transformed. They do not join up to an image as the parts of a picture do.
They do not make up the image. We have to build an image of a body out of
a series of images of towers, sheep, goats, and so on. Only in a very restricted
sense are we told by the list how to put these together—namely by the order-
ing of the parts of the body. Obviously, the need for a certain capability, ei-
ther imaginative or discursive, to build up the image of the woman out of the
images of the metaphors becomes essential here. If this is ἔκφρασις, then the
ἔκφρασις is special: the vividness of the resulting image of the woman could
hardly be generated by a step-by-step procedure, where in each step a sort of
translation or transformation has to be executed; this procedure would be too
sluggish. Therefore, if we consider the waṣfs as ἔκφρασις, we presuppose, on
the side of the recipient, a special capability that lets him see the parts of the
body already in the images of the metaphors, either by recognizing some sort
of schema, or by reading off a blurred or fuzzy image, or by any other means
of simultaneously capturing the images of the metaphors and the body. This
capability must allow the recipient to see the image of a body emerge (from
the metaphors) without any extra effort in the sense of deliberate transference
(which includes a capability to join the parts).
The big advantage of considering the waṣfs as ἔκφρασις is that studying
the waṣfs means that one has the whole rhetorical tradition of analysing
ἔκφρασις at hand. Many elements of this tradition can doubtlessly be identi-
fied in the waṣfs: Patrick Hunt emphasizes the “sensory richness and synaes-
thesia as combining two senses in one image”75, to give but one example.76

75. Hunt 2008, p. 84

76. When the term “ἔκφρασις” is restricted to descriptions of works of arts, the waṣf
may be seen as an “inverted ἔκφρασις” if one regards the metaphors as getting their
images from the domain of art (see above). It is not a work of art described by words
and images from other domains but an image (of a body) described by (different)
works of art.
16 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

2.7 “Quality abstraction” or “emotion abstraction” by coupling of impres-

sions
If the capability involved in the above is discursive, then it could also be seen
as a kind of anti-ἔκφρασις—an operation leading away from the image.
According to Thorleif Boman, the concern of the ancient Hebrew poet is
not the appearances of persons and things but their qualities.77 A high tower
rising above its surroundings and a woman holding her neck high both give
the impression of inapproachability and inaccessibility. The coupling of two
impressions enables what one might refer to as “quality abstraction.”
Richard N. Soulen shares with Boman the view that it is not the impres-
sions of appearances (alone) that is at issue in the waṣfs. But instead of quali-
ties, which is Boman’s suggestion, Soulen believes that emotions are what
the waṣfs should convey:
[T]he point of comparison between the maiden’s hair and a flock of goats on
the slopes of Gilead […] lies simply in the emotional congruity existing be-
tween the two beautiful yet otherwise disparate sights.78
If one takes the term “abstraction” literally, then one could name this an
“emotion abstraction.” Landy79 also offers an approach that focuses on or at
least involves emotions.
Marcia Falk brings an objection against Soulen that could also be directed
against Boman:
The point of comparison between a woman’s hair and flocks of goats on a
mountainside lies, for him, “simply in the emotional congruity existing be-
tween two beautiful yet otherwise disparate sights.” But if this were so, the
poet might have chosen any beautiful thing for an image; there would hardly
be a point to interpret this particular metaphor, or any other.80
This objection rests on the assumption that only one kind of beauty or delight
or whatever quality or emotion is at issue exists. But one can hold that there
are very different sorts of beauty—for example, each of which can be “ab-
stracted” from suitably chosen pairs of comparison. Soulen’s statement, i.e.
that we cannot express these explicitly in sentences, does not imply that they
do not exist and neither that they cannot be determined by suitable meta-
phors.
So the task of the two-tiered list according to the views of Soulen and
Boman—as I interpret them—is, first, to generate—‘abstract’—a quality or
emotion by coupling two things/images owing this quality or emotion, and,
second, to ascribe it “back” to the parts of the beloved being described.

77. See Boman 1970, p. 77.

78. Soulen 1967, p. 190
79. Landy 1983, p. 133
80. Falk 1988, p. 71
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 17

2.8 The two-tiered list as mnemonics

Soulen is right when he says, “The writer is not concerned that his hearers be
able to retell in descriptive language the particular qualities or appearance of
the woman described”81. But he is right only insofar as it is not descriptive
language that is at issue here; it might still be the case that the author, per-
former, or lover is interested in someone’s ability to retell or remember
something. In fact, Keel sees in the waṣf, a “Form, eine Person zu ver-
gegenwärtigen”82. And Hunt writes, “The multiple sensory clusters greatly
enhance the memorable qualities of the figures and makes them all the more
facile to imagine and remember […].”83
The structure of the waṣfs resembles in several aspects the mnemonics84
developed in Greek and Roman antiquity,85 and described, for example, in Ad
Herennium86 or in Cicero’s De oratore: to remember complex matters, one
must first choose a fixed system of loci—singular places in a fixed order—,
such as a house, an intercolumnar space, a theatre, a planetary system, or a
human body. The next step is to “stick” images of the res memoranda to the-
se places.87 An advantage of such a setting of loci is that one can draw on it
repeatedly. In the Song, the third waṣf is a “verkürzte und leicht modifizierte
aber auch intensivierte Wiederholung des ersten Liedes’88 and the other waṣf
about the woman takes the parts of the body from the same repertoire. In
proceeding always either bottom-up or top-down, the waṣfs follow the simple
observation, as made by Aristotle,89 that matters arranged in a fixed order
will be easily remembered. A comparison of the first and the third waṣf
brings to light another possible affinity between the mnemonics and the
waṣfs: the description of the body in the third waṣf starts from a different part
of the body than in the first waṣf and leaves out some parts. This characteris-
tic is also mentioned as a requirement of the art of memory: the loci have to
be chosen in such a way that enables the speaker to start from an arbitrary
point, and to move back and forth freely.90
The conception of “quality abstraction” or “emotion abstraction” makes
the similarity of the Song and mnemonics seem even stronger. In this concep-
tion images of potential memoranda (the qualities or emotions) are somehow
“placed” on the body. The tower is an image of inapproachability and it is

81. Soulen 1967, p. 190

82. Keel 1992, p. 31
83. Hunt 2008, p. 85. He also uses the term “eidetic image for memorability and
richness” (Hunt 2008, p. 85). Compare also Hopkins 2007, p. 8.
84. For the terminology, see Yates 1978, pp. 19-20.
85. It goes back at least to the fifth century B.C. (see Boeckh 1828, pp. 293-343).
86. This is a textbook compiled by an unknown teacher of rhetoric, ca. 80 B.C.,
based on lost Greek sources. It was falsely ascribed to Cicero (see Yates 1978, pp.
20f).
87. See Yates 1978, p. 22; Herzog 1991, pp. 170f.
88. Möller 2013, p. 124
89. Aristotle, On Memory, 452a, 2-4.
90. See Yates 1978, p. 22.
18 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

“attached to” the neck. The parts of the body tend to become carriers —
loci— of the emotions or qualities, rather than being themselves the content
to be remembered. Moreover, human virtues and emotions were also subject
to mnemonics in antiquity.91
Even if one opposes the conception of quality or emotion abstraction and
must therefore admit that the parts of the body are also objects to be remem-
bered, this is not a point against an affinity between the waṣfs and mnemon-
ics. The idea that the loci function as means of remembering something else
does not imply that they are only a means to an end. The parts of a body may
well be both objects to remember and means to remember, as long as they
fulfil the conditions of good loci—and it is clear that they do from the fact
that bodies occur in the lists of preferred loci in antiquity.92 Places were also
memoranda in the famous story of Simonides of Ceos, which is regarded as
the birth of mnemonics.93 If the parts of the body are also the content that
should be remembered, this points towards another similarity between the
wasf and mnemonics: the fact that the students of rhetoric were taught to use
images as drastically as possible94 corresponds to how the metaphors of the
Song are often said to be “flamboyant,” “extravagant” and so on.95
It could be argued that nothing is really placed or laid down in the waṣfs;
we are not supposed to imagine a tower on the neck. However, anyone who is
inclined to see this as an argument against an affinity between the waṣfs and
mnemonics should bear in mind the fact that even in the earliest sources,
mnemonics are not described homogenously. On the one hand, things are
“put on places,” but on the other hand, we find phrasings like “the places are
very much like wax tables of papyrus, the images like the letters”96. This is
certainly quite a different view of the functioning of the art of memory, one
that allows for the waṣfs to be subsumed. A suitable word for the relation
between the places and the memoranda is perhaps “fixed.”97
Another link between mnemonics and the waṣfs is in the bodies. The sub-
ject of what a body can convey has been explored in various studies which
see the strongest possible relation to mnemonics: Reinhart Herzog states,
“Die antike Physiognomik wird in der Tat als Beispiel eines kompletten und
ausgearbeiteten mnemotechnischen Systems sichtbar.”98

91. See Yates 1978, p. 71.

92. See Herzog 1991, p. 170.
93. See Yates 1978, p. 17.
94. See Yates 1978, p. 25.
95. See, for instance, Alter 2011b, p. 251.
96. Yates 1978, p. 22.
97. Yates argues in her book (1978) that Platon’s idea of knowledge as remembrance
and the development of the theatre spread the art of memory over a very large part of
Western culture (see Yates 1978, p. 51; cf. also Matsuda 1996, p. 63). If the art of
memory has such a potential for becoming omnipresent, then, one could argue, one
need not wonder if it appeared in quite different places from the beginning. But this
is not a strong argument, I confess.
98. Herzog 1991, p. 170.
 On the Form and Function of the Waṣfs 19

Up to this point, I have been trying to show that there are similarities be-
tween the waṣfs and mnemonics. These parallels seem interesting to me from
a hermeneutical point of view, independent of historical connections. But is it
possible at all that the waṣfs were de facto informed by Greek mnemonics? A
Hellenistic date for the Song is a (controversial) hypothesis.99 In any case,
much of the Song that is anomalous in the biblical context could well be ex-
plained by a Hellenistic influence (the interest in the private life instead of
the public, the frank utterances about sexual experiences,…).100 I am not
aware of any definite proof of a historical connection between Greek rhetori-
cal traditions and the Song, but I think that the similarities are striking
enough to form a plausible hypothesis.
There are thus some obvious similarities between the art of memory and
the waṣfs in terms of language, structure and traditions, and it is at least pos-
sible that there was some historical influence. But is there a possible motive
for using techniques of memorizing for the waṣfs? Who, in connection with
the Song, should have an interest in remembering something and what? And
for what purpose? There are several plausible options. Internally to the text,
perhaps the lover wants to remember what he wants to tell his beloved when
he stands in front of her. Perhaps he wants to remember her when he is away
from her. Or maybe the lover wants the beloved to remember what he said to
her. Externally to the text—and this is a crucial point—it is not only plausible
that an “oral author” or performer seeks to remember the text, but most
scholars agree that the Song has roots in some oral tradition —although they
do disagree about the social setting—,101 and hence the waṣfs were indeed to
be remembered. Looking at the waṣf in Chapter 4 and comparing it with the
one in Chapter 6, which is similar but shorter, it is obvious that the two were
related via memory (the fact that one of them is shorter could be interpreted
as the result of incomplete memory).102
3 Conclusion
This paper has explored eight dimensions of functioning of waṣfs in their
form of two-tiered lists. As mentioned, these functions need not be mutually
exclusive. On the contrary, interrelations between them would be an interest-
ing focus for further study. To give but one example, generating an impres-
sion of infinity (2.1) can well be embedded in the creation of a vivid image—
an ἔκφρασις (2.5). Furthermore, different functions could be present in dif-

99. Cf. Bloch and Bloch 1998, pp. 24-26; Hagedorn 2003; Hagedorn 2010a, p. 419;
Hopkins 2007, p. 10 (‘most likely the Hellenistic Period in Palestine’); Keel 1992,
pp. 12-14, Krinetzki 1981, pp. 23f (strongly in favour of a Hellenistic date and influ-
ence); Pope 1995, pp. 26-31.
100. See Bloch and Bloch 1998, p. 26.
101. See, e.g., Fox 1985, pp. 227-252.
102. Even if the waṣfs in the Song are not intended to make someone remember
something, it is still possible that their form was induced by the Greek tradition of the
art of memory.
20 Esther Heinrich-Ramharter

ferent waṣfs. These, in turn, could be read as hints that there must also be
content-related differences.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the fact that there is a certain
amount of tension surrounding lists and metaphors. A list groups together
pieces from a domain common to all of them, but the conjunction is formal, it
is done by the positing of the words only. The metaphor combines pieces
from distinct domains, but the conjunction is nevertheless based on the rela-
tion of the contents. This tension might, perhaps, trigger the imagination of
the recipient.

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