There are times when details, images, words, and ideas align beyond mere coincidence. When story writers across disconnected cultures echo one another, one can only guess a few possibilities: God guided them, or there’s a common intuition within our human nature, or the cultures involved came into contact somehow.

In Princess Mononoke, a powerful connection shows itself in a beautiful way, where the Japanese tale hearkens the Jewish Song of Solomon (aka: Canticle of Canticles, or Song of Songs). Without spoiling too much of the film: a village prince named Ashitaka becomes the victim of a curse, and is thus banished from the only home he has known. Just before going into exile, his sister surprises him to say farewell (although bidding him goodbye was forbidden by village law). She gives him a crystal gem that had been carved into a dagger, that she had worn around her neck. He refuses the gift, but she insists, explaining it was to remind him never to forget her, never to forget the love of a sister for her brother. This gift then becomes Ashitaka’s dearest possession: the sole little bit of home that he will never be able to return to. Yet, this seemingly passing moment has massive ramifications…

Toward the end of the film, during the mounting moment crisis, Princess Mononoke (aka: San) is furious with Ashitaka and never wants to see him again. He decides to give to San the very gem necklace that was his sister’s, handing it off to a wolf to deliver to San before they separate and both run off into battles that may separate them forever.

That’s when it hit me… echoing the Song of Songs, Chapter Four:

9 You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride,
    you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,
    with one jewel of your necklace.
10 How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!
    how much better is your love than wine,
    and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!
11 Your lips distill nectar, my bride;
    honey and milk are under your tongue;
    the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.
12 A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
    a garden locked, a fountain sealed.

And there lie the “coincidences” between the verses and the film : necklace, jewel and crystal gem; sister and bride; garden, fountain, and pool; fragrance and forest, and glance of your eyes… when Ashitaka had first seen San glaring at him from the tip of the sword in her hand, and he called her beautiful. That moment had disarmed her, stunned her silent, her violence and rage dissipated, and her behavior markedly changed from that time forward in the film. As if the long-awaited recognition of her beauty by a sincere heart made her human. No longer was she an offspring of her wolf caretakers, but she became a woman, at exactly when a man saw her and loved her as he would love his sister: with purity, honesty, and dignity.

Ashitaka extended to San the love he has for his sister, a genuine and devoted love with good intentions. He sees in San what he remembers of his sister, and San is the living memory of her. San is someone Ashitaka knows his sister would not mind receiving the gift of her crystal gem. And the fact that the gem is a blade shows that the beauty of San has cut into his heart, cut where he had worn the necklace for love of his sister. She has ravished him.

And that’s the shockingly aligned images I saw within Princess Mononoke and the Song of Songs. Don’t tell me it’s just luck.

P.S. This Ashitaka-gesture makes me hope there can be a tradition, where a girl gives something small yet precious to her brother, for him to safeguard and keep for love of her, and then to discover a woman to whom he can offer this precious gift to as his bride. I think this would go a long way to help boys become good husbands and seek good wives.