Song of Songs
Chapter 4
XII. Beauty of the Beloved Body
You are beautiful, my love, oh, how beautiful you are! Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats, streaming down the heights of Gilead.
Your teeth are like sheep newly shorn, coming in droves from the washing, each one opposing its twin, not one has been left alone.
Your lips are like a thread scarlet; your voice is enchanting. your cheeks behind your veil are like halves of a pomegranate.
Your neck is the tower of David, a display of trophies, a thousand bucklers hang on it, all of them worn by heroes of the war.
Your breasts are like twin fawns of a gazelle feeding among the lilies.
Before the dawn breaks and shadows flee,I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.
You are wholly beautiful, my love, perfect and unblemished.
XIII. The Intoxication of Love
Come from Lebanon, my bride,come with me from Lebanon.Come down from the summit of Amana,from the crest of Senir and Hermon,from the dens of lions,from the mountain haunts of leopards.
You have ravished my heart,my sister, my bride;you have ravished my heart with one of your glances,with one bead of your necklace.
How sweet is your love,my sister, my bride!How delicious is your love more than wine,and the fragrance of your perfume, than any spice!
Your lips distill nectar, my bride;milk and honey are under your tongue. Your garments have the scent of Lebanon.
You are a garden enclosed,my sister, my bride; a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, all with choice fruits, with henna and nard,
nard and saffron,calamus, and cinnamon with every kind of incense trees, myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.
You are a garden fountain,a well of living water streaming down from Lebanon.
Arise, north wind! Awake, south wind! Blow upon my garden and spread its fragrance abroad. Let my lover come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.
Commentaries
Beauty of the Beloved Body.
The idyll of 2:8-17 ends with a strong desire. This new idyll (where the refrain of 2:17 repeats in 4:6, along with the phrase “to graze/delight among the roses”: 2:16b and 4:5) describes the girl’s naked body. It begins and ends by praising the beauty of the beloved, though the ending adds a nuance: “there is no flaw in you.” If we include the isolated verses of 6:4-5a, fascination deepens the appreciation of beauty, revealing how the girl, the second female figure in the Song, presents herself. This addition might add a second nuance: the girl is “imposing like a battalion” (6:4). In 2:14, the girl was a “dove.” In this idyll, her eyes are doves, which the boy says keep him at bay because they “disturb” or “excite” him (6:5). This idyll is mainly descriptive: her hair flying in the wind, jumping like goats descending Gilead’s mountains; her teeth as white as newly shorn sheep emerging from the bath; her lips; her speech, sweet like the woman in Sirach 36:22-23; her cheeks; her neck, like the tower of David, adorned with war trophies; her playful, bouncing breasts, like gazelle fawns. The young man shows his excitement, expressing his desire: Why not spend the night on the mountain, on the hill of incense? For now, it remains only a desire. From the idyll of 2:8-17, we transition from imagery to reality and the awakening of passion.
The Intoxication of Love.
This lyrical wedding song relates to the first epigram. At the end of the poem, friends are invited to become intoxicated with love (cf. 1:4b). The epithalamium begins with a somewhat strange invocation: Why call the bride if she is present? How can she come from so many and such fierce places at once? It gives the impression that we are dealing with a prayer addressed to the goddess of love. Whoever invokes or prays in this way shows that they are a prisoner of love, that they are in love. The poet repeats phrases from the first epigram: your loves are sweet and fragrant (cf. 1:2f). They are sweet like nectar, like honey, scented like the aromas of Lebanon. There is no comparison for her beauty, unless milk and honey allude to the beauty and fertility of the Promised Land. The wife, moreover, is a virgin: a garden and a spring with a lock, a sealed fountain. Exquisite fruits and exotic aromas gather in the woman’s bosom. She herself is an unstoppable fountain that springs from the fresh springs of Lebanon. The husband’s words, which are more of a collection of sayings than poetic inspiration, begin with a prayer and end with an invocation to the north and south winds: may they blow through the garden and cause it to exhale its aromas. The wife’s brief words add a touch of warmth and poetic inspiration: “Enter my beloved into his garden and eat his exquisite fruits.” The spouses’ union is fulfilled. Four verbs describe it: “enter, gather, eat, drink.” The husband, ecstatic after his romantic experience, invites his companions to become intoxicated with love.