However our ancestors obtained it, honey came to represent pleasure and fulfillment
to them, and is a prominent metaphor in some of the earliest literature we know. A love poem inscribed 4,000 years ago on a Sumerian clay tablet describes a bridegroom as “honeysweet,” the bride’s caress as “more savory than honey,” and their bedchamber as “honeyfilled.”
In the Old Testament, the promised
land is pictured several times as a land flowing with milk and honey, a metaphor of delightful plenty that is itself used figuratively
in the Song of Songs, where