TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   XXIII.   Twenty-third Love Poem: Be Like a Gazelle (8:13-14)

Young Man

13 O my darling, lingering in the gardens,

your companions are fortunate to hear your voice.

Let me hear it, too!

Young Woman

14 Come away, my love! Be like a gazelle

or a young stag on the mountains of spices.

NOTES

8:14 mountains of spices. The reference to “mountains of spices” may contain a double reference. The mountains are obstacles that the man needs to traverse in order to be in the presence of the woman, but these perfumed mountains could, at the same time, evoke the idea of the perfumed breasts of the woman herself. In other words, she is inviting him to enjoy her sexual pleasures.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The final poem makes a very important point about love. It is never satiated, never completely fulfilled. If the Song wanted to say otherwise, it would end with a final love scene where the man and the woman would melt into each other’s arms and feel perfect contentment and satisfaction. But that would not be honest or true to reality. Nowhere this side of heaven do men and women reach the point of ultimate and complete fulfillment in relationship.

Therefore, it is appropriate in a song about a love that is achievable and wonderfully intoxicating, though imperfect, to end with a statement of continuing desire to be in one another’s presence. In the final poem we hear the voices of both the man and the woman expressing their desire to be in each other’s presence. The man says to the woman, who is in the garden, that he wants to hear her voice. For her part, the woman once again (2:17) wants her man, like a gazelle or a young stag, quick and nimble, to traverse the mountains of spices and come to her.

Thus ends the Song of Songs. Love is a powerful emotion, a potent physical act. At first, we are surprised that God has guided his people to acknowledge such a book—one that celebrates the joys of the flesh—as worthy to be included in Holy Scripture. On further reflection, however, we find we must rejoice and thank God for the good gifts he has given us on earth, which, in a shadowy manner, anticipate the utter bliss that we will have in heaven.