Epithalamium as drama; the four speaking persons

This little book is an epithalamium — that is, a wedding song — and seems to me written by Solomon in the manner of a drama. He sang it in the likeness of a bride who is marrying and who burns with heavenly love toward her Bridegroom, who is the Word of God. For she has loved him — whether the soul made in his image, or the church. And this same Scripture also teaches us with what words this magnificent and perfect Bridegroom himself has spoken to the soul or church joined to him. We likewise learn from this same little book titled the Song of Songs what the Bride’s companions — the young women set with the Bride — have said, and also what the Bridegroom’s friends and companions have said. For leave is given even to the Bridegroom’s friends to say some things — at least those things they had heard from the Bridegroom himself — rejoicing at the Bride’s union. So speech comes from the Bride not only to the Bridegroom but also to the young women; and again the Bridegroom’s speech is directed not only to the Bride but also to the Bridegroom’s friends. And this is what we said above: the wedding song is written in the manner of a drama. For a drama is so called as a story is usually acted on stages, where diverse persons are introduced, and as some enter and others even depart, the fabric of the narrative is filled out from different speakers and toward different hearers. This Scripture contains each of these in its own order, and its whole body is shaped by mystical utterances.