The De Rossi Manuscript No. 541, at Parma, was discovered by S. Buber to contain, among other things, midrashim on four of the five "megillot": Canticles, Book of Ruth, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes; these he published (Berlin, 1894) under the title of "Midrash Zuṭa," to distinguish them from the "Midrash Rabbah."
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Further, Naḥmanides (in Torat ha-Adam, p. 102c) cites it as "Midrash Shir ha-Shirim"; so does his pupil (teacher?) Azriel, in the commentary on Canticles generally ascribed to Naḥmanides himself; Abraham, son of Maimonides (see A. Neubauer, Ḳobeẓ 'Al Yad, iv. 63, Berlin, 1888), calls it "Agadat Shir ha-Shirim"; Recanati, in his commentary on the Pentateuch (on Beha'aloteka), cites the same passage quoted by Judah b. Barzilai.
Shir ha-Shirim Zutta, midrash, or, rather, homiletic commentary, on Canticles
The actors who played the soldiers who expelled the villagers in the TV drama "Khirbet Hiz'ah". From left to right: Amos Tal Shir | Shir ha-Shirim Zutta | Seder 'Olam Zuṭṭa | Seder Olam Zutta | Devarim Zutta | Ali-Shir Nava'i |
Jellinek thinks (l.c.) that there were several haggadic midrashim to Canticles, each of which interpreted the book differently, one referring it to the exodus from Egypt, another to the revelations on Mt. Sinai, and a third to the Tabernacle or the Temple in Jerusalem; and that all these midrashim were then combined into one work, which, with various additions, forms the present Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah.
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Some scholars (I.H. Weiss, Dor iii. 263-264; and Adolf Jellinek, in a letter to Theodor, reprinted in Monatsschrift, 1879, pp. 237 et seq.), moreover, have assumed a direct connection between such ancient discourses and the present Canticles Rabbah, regarding this midrash as an old collection of these discourses, increased by various later additions.