In this respect, the poem is not too different from John Donne’s ‘ The Sun Rising’, in which the poet chides the sun for waking him and his lover as they lie together in bed in a state of romantic bliss.ģ:6 Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant? 3:7 Behold his bed, which is Solomon’s threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel. It’s a paean to the power of erotic love and desire and also to wifely devotion, wishing the whole city of Jerusalem to let her beloved husband sleep until he wakes naturally. This sentence acts as a sort of refrain in the Song of Songs, recurring several times. She finds him, takes him to her mother’s house, and (presumably) makes love to him in the very bed in which she herself was conceived.ģ:5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. There’s an injection of some drama and incident into the poem at this point, as the bride wakes one night to find the bed empty next to her, so she goes into the streets of the city to search for her beloved:ģ:3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? 3:4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
The turtledove has longstanding associations with romantic love, as Shakespeare’s poem ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ (where ‘turtle’ means ‘turtledove’) demonstrates.ģ:1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.ģ:2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. This is one of the more puzzling sections of the Song of Songs, because ‘voice of the turtle’ sounds odd, until we realise that ‘turtle’ refers not to the shell-covered reptiles but to the turtledove, a bird known for its (romantic) cooing sound. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. 2:11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone 2:12 The flowers appear on the earth the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land 2:13 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
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