Shulamith—
“As the apple tree among forest trees
So is my beloved among the sons.
I sat down under his shadow with great delight,
And his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
Thus we find the damsel anointing the king with her spikenard, but for her the precious fragrance is her shepherd. Against the plaits of gold and studs of silver offered in the palace (i. 2) her lover can only point to his cottage of cedar and fir, and a couch of grass. She is content to be only a flower of the plain and valley, not for the seraglio. Nevertheless she remains to dance in the palace; a sufficient time there is needed by the poet to illustrate the impregnability of true love against all other splendors and attractions, even those of the Flower of Kings. He however puts no constraint on her, one song, thrice repeated, saying to the ladies of the harem—
“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
By the (free) gazelles, by the hinds in the field,
That ye stir not up, nor awaken love,
Until it please.”