שיר השירים 5

Song of Solomon 5 begins in a garden and ends in the streets, and in between is one of the truest scenes about love in the Bible. The wedding night of chapter 4 closes with the man feasting in his garden and a chorus telling the couple to drink their fill. Then the mood changes. The bride is in bed, half asleep, and hears her beloved knocking, wet with the night dew, asking her to open. She hesitates. She has taken off her robe and washed her feet; must she really get up? By the time desire wins over comfort and she goes to the door with myrrh running from her fingers onto the bolt, he has gone. What follows is a search through a dark city, a beating from the watchmen, and a plea to the women of Jerusalem: if you find him, tell him I am sick with love. They ask her what is so special about this man, and her answer is the only place in the Song where the man's body is described, feature by feature, from his golden head and black wavy hair to his marble legs and his sweet mouth. He is altogether lovely, she says, and then adds the word that lifts the poem above desire: this is my beloved, and this is my friend. Christians have read the knock at the door as Christ and the delay as the soul's; read simply as poetry, the chapter knows that love can be lost by a moment's laziness and found again by praise.