5 Black I am yet lovely.
I render שחורה literally as “black,” although “dark” is
also possible. Much ink has been spilled over whether the conjunctive vav means “and” or “but.” There is no
question that it must be “but” because the Bible, and the ancient Near East
more generally, viewed unnaturally “blackened” skin, that is, not one’s natural
color, as the antithesis of good looks and good health. Ibn Ezra remarks,
“Don’t think I was born black; it is only accidental, and it will pass.” In the
Bible, to be “colorful” (especially bright/white and ruddy; cf. 5:10), which is
essentially brightness or shininess, bespeaks vitality and beauty, and to be
black or dark—to lack color or luster—is to lack attractiveness. Lamentations
4:7–8, describing the physical deterioration of the besieged population of
Jerusalem, makes this contrast: “Her nobles had been brighter than snow, whiter
than milk. Their bodies had been ruddier than coral, their physique was
sapphire [or: lapis lazuli]. Their features grew darker than black, they were
unrecognizable in the streets.” Similarly, in Job 30:30, blackened skin is
among other features of Job’s weakened physical condition. One of the many
curses in Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty is, “May your flesh and the flesh of
your women, your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, turn black like
pitch, bitumen, and naphtha.” See also Sir 25:17: “A woman’s wickedness changes
her appearance, and darkens her face like that of a bear.” Note that all these
are references to complexions that were originally not “black” (it is certainly
not a racial feature), but that became blackened because of adverse
circumstances.
The idea that loss of color
equals loss of beauty is also found in Euripides’s Helen, where the beautiful Helen wishes she were unattractive,
which is expressed as having her color erased as one would remove the color
from a painting or statue: “My life and fortunes are a monstrosity, partly because of Hera, partly because of my
beauty. I wish I had been wiped clean like a painting and made plain instead of
beautiful, and that the Greeks had forgotten the evil fate that I now have and
remembered what is good, just as they now remember what is ill!” (Helen, lines 260–64; trans. David
Kovacs, LCL 11:40–41).
But, to return to the biblical
notion of becoming black as the result of adverse circumstances, what adverse
circumstance caused our woman’s plight? It is not illness or famine or
wickedness, the usual causes for the blackening of skin tone. Her blackened (or
darkened) skin was the result of the sun’s glare, a suntan, from working in the
vineyards. Her suntan is often explained as a sign of belonging to a lower
class, a peasant, who must work outdoors (e.g., Fox and Garrett). But nowhere
does the Bible suggest that outdoor work is a sign of a lower class.
Alternatively, the contrast between “black” and “lovely” has been perceived as
a contrast between the rural and the urban, or the primitive and the civilized,
or natural beauty vs. cultured beauty (see Landy, 144). But these conjectures
all posit a hierarchy of values not otherwise found in the Bible. The contrast
here is between beauty and its absence.
Looking to the Greeks may suggest
a different way to understand our woman’s suntan. In Greek culture, (upper
class) women are portrayed with white or pale skin and men (specifically
upper-class men) with tan skin. In early Greek art, “female figures are painted
with a stark white pigment, while male figures are painted with a dark reddish
pigment.” “The difference between men and women’s complexions corresponds to an
old convention that had already appeared in Homer, as well as on painted scenes
on the black-figure pottery of the seventh century bce.” The same white female
vs. tan male occurs in Greek literature. Greek literary references to tan as a
sign of male beauty include the following: Philostratus remarks that “on
handsome boys tan is a flowering of their beauty” (Philostratus, Love Letters 27 [39]; trans. Allen
Rogers and Francis H. Fobes; LCL 383:470–71). A suntan as a mark of an
upper-class man: “In fact, many, giving up the trades that they had before,
rush after the wallet and the cloak, tan their bodies in the sun to Ethiopian
hue, make themselves extemporaneous philosophers out of cobblers or carpenters
…” (Lucian, The Double Indictment;
trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL 130:94–95). A vigorous man is described as one who has
“hard muscles and a manly stride, who shows heavy tan on his body, and is
bold-eyed and alert” (Lucian, A Professor
of Public Speaking; trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL 162:144–45). Most interesting
is the passage in Aristophanes’s Ecclesiazusae
(Assemblywomen), when, seeking to
disguise themselves as men, the women attempt to tan their skin: “whenever my
husband went off to the agora, I oiled myself and stood in the sun all day
getting a tan” (Assemblywomen, lines
62–63; trans. Jeffrey Henderson; LCL 180:252–53).
Our woman in the Song is not
trying to pass herself off as a man; on the contrary, through no fault of her
own, she has become suntanned, that is, in Greek culture, manlike, defeminized.
(One wonders whether this poem is serious or jesting.)
So, has our woman lost her
color/beauty (as Jewish literature expresses it), or has she taken on the tan
coloring of a man (as in Greek culture)? In either case, she is complaining
about a perceived loss of her natural (feminine) beauty. I lean toward seeing
this as the biblical trope wherein the loss of color indicates the loss of
beauty, but, in light of the Greek influence on the Song, we may consider that
the woman’s suntan is a refashioned Grecism, signaling the antithesis of
femininity. (Adele Berlin, Song
of Songs: A Commentary [Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on
the Bible [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2025], 41-43)
