Song of Songs
Chapter 6
XVI. Memories
Where has your lover gone,most beautiful woman?Where has your lover turned,that we may help you look for him?
My lover has gone down to his garden,to the beds of spices,to pasture his flock in the garden and to gather lilies.
My lover is mine, and I am his;he shepherds his flock among the lilies.
My love, you are lovely as Tirzah, beautiful as Jerusalem,majestic as bannered troops.
Turn your eyes away from me for they bewitch me. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down the heights of Gilead.
Your teeth are like sheep coming in droves from the washing, each one opposing its twin, not one has been left alone.
Your cheeks behind your veil are like halves of a pomegranate.
XVII. The Abducted Wife
Sixty queens, eighty concubines, virgins beyond number—
but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter and favorite of her mother.She was called blessed by the virgins and praised by queens and concubines:
“Who is this coming like the dawn,fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as bannered troops?”
I went to the nut orchard to look over the valley in bloom, to see if the vines had flowered,or if the pomegranates had blossomed.
Before I became aware of it, my desire had set me on the chariot with the daughter of the prince.
Commentaries
Memories. 6:1-3
Although the woman is called “the most beautiful of women,” as in 1:8 (the prostitute), the two characters should not be confused. The prostitute does not know where her beloved is; she dreams, searches for him, and cannot find him. The woman in this short epigram knows very well where her beloved is. The two young people meet again. Previously, both had fantasized. The new encounter, more a memory than a present reality, causes the girl to relive the past intensely. Desires start to be fulfilled.
Memories. 6:4-7
This idyll complements that of 4:1-7 by highlighting the beauty of Tirzah (the former capital of the Northern Kingdom) and the charm of Jerusalem (the girl was already aware that she was “charming”). In other words, the beauty and appeal of the two capitals are symbolically reflected in the girl’s body, which is described the same way as in 4:1-7. If this is a repetition added after the exile, it was done with conviction: nothing from the old has lost its relevance. It’s possible that the rabbis of the first century added it when they interpreted the song. We do not know.
The Abducted Wife.
Several voices follow one another in this song. The mother’s voice is somewhere between plaintive, resigned, and even grateful. She has been stripped of her favorite, who, moreover, is very beautiful: “most beautiful dove.” To make matters worse, her daughter has been taken to the king’s large harem. The mother’s pain is eased by the fact that maidens, queens, and concubines praise her abducted daughter. Their chorus is unified: they congratulate and praise the abducted woman; they also wonder about her identity. This woman seems divine. She is a luminous epiphany who, from high above, ends the darkness on earth. She appears with the dawn, emerging from the eastern balcony, still contemplating the world in darkness. She is “candid” or “beautiful” like the moon, warm and fiery like the sun. All the stars twinkle in her; she is commanding, like a battalion. The king’s voice is faint. Perhaps he forms a duet with the mother’s, and together they declare: she is my most beautiful dove. The last voice we hear is that of the abducted woman. She responds to the choral question, recalling that she had gone down to contemplate when, without understanding how, someone abducted her.