Page 52. Intreat me not to leave thee, etc. It will be readily understood that where a language founds its verse system upon parallelism of thought and phrase the line between prose and verse may be often difficult to draw. In a prose narrative impassioned thought will easily rise into the parallelism of verse. There are three passages of Ruth which raise the question whether they should be presented in the one form or the other. The musical entreaty of Ruth seems certainly verse; it has caught the ears of readers of many generations, and come down as a formula of faithful attachment. The other passages are more doubtful. One is a Marriage Blessing: The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house, etc. This might be expected to be verse; and it will just go into the loose form of Antique Metre: but several lines are very prosaic. The next is the felicitation on the babe's birth addressed to Naomi: as to which the same remark may be made. Page 57. It is true that I am a near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. The legal custom underlying the story seems to be an extension of what appears in the Mosaic law. This imposes on the deceased husband's brother the duty of raising up seed to the dead (Genesis, chapter xxxviii; Deuteronomy, chapter xxv. 5). The story of Ruth implies that the obligation extended, failing a husband's brother, to whoever was nearest of kin. Page 58. And the near kinsman said, I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance. Boaz had first called upon the kinsman to buy the estate of the deceased Elimelech from Naomi. Now Naomi was an old woman past hope of children, as she herself said to her daughters in law; hence the kinsman was willing to do this much, which would only involve an expenditure of money on his part, in return for which he would have the land. But when he is reminded that Elimelech's son has left a widow, a young woman to whom it would be his duty to raise up seed, the affair wears a different look: he would then be buying the land for Ruth's children, not for his own family, and he declines. 132 |