Vulgate in Use: Intertextual References

Cellar or Bedroom? Observations on Song 1,3vulg (1,4)

Abstract

Bernhard of Clairvaux explains in his 23^rd sermon on the Song of Songs why the king leads his bride into different rooms. Starting point is Song 1,3vulg (1,4), where she boasts that the king has led her into the pantry. Readers may now wonder: Was it really the pantry and not the bedroom? While the Hebrew word heder generally refers to a room within a house, Jerome chose in his translation into Latin the word cellarium, which tends to point to a basement. In this paper, various approaches are discussed, which explain why Jerome could have come to this rather strange translation, especially as even the Vetus Latina uses the expected cubiculum.