How does the praise of the beloved become an image of an enclosed garden?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The beloved’s beauty is praised through animals, a strong tower, honey, and fragrant plants. She is then called an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain. Challoner interprets these images as the Church and the gifts of the sacraments.

Chapter breakdown

The beloved praises his love’s beauty. Her eyes are like doves, her hair like goats coming from Galaad, and her teeth like washed sheep bearing twins. Scarlet lips and sweet speech lead to cheeks compared with a pomegranate. Her neck is like David’s fortified tower with a thousand shields, and her breasts like twin young roes among lilies. Challoner interprets the praise as images of the Church’s purity, simplicity, and stability. He reads the twins as the joined love of God and neighbor, nourished by the mysteries of faith and the sacraments.

The speaker will go to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense until daybreak. He calls his love entirely fair and invites her from Libanus, naming Amana, Sanir, Hermon, lions’ dens, and leopards’ mountains. Her glance has wounded his heart. Her love and perfumes surpass wine and spices; honey and milk describe her speech, and frankincense the scent of her clothes.

She is an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain. Challoner interprets these as the Church containing the faithful and the sacramental gifts received within her. The garden holds pomegranates, orchard fruits, cypress, spikenard, saffron, sweet cane, cinnamon, myrrh, aloes, and fragrant trees. Its living waters flow from Libanus. The chapter ends by calling the north and south winds to blow through the garden and release its perfumes.

The story inside

The praise moves from eyes, hair, teeth, and lips to the strength of David’s tower. A call from Libanus leads into words about a wounded heart and the sweetness of love. The garden image gathers fruit, spices, and flowing water into one setting. The chapter ends by calling the winds to release its fragrance.

Lessons worth keeping

1
David’s tower brings an image of strength into the praise of beauty (4:4).
2
Challoner reads the twin young roes as the joined love of God and neighbor in his note on 4:5.
3
The enclosed garden and sealed fountain receive a specific Church and sacramental interpretation in Challoner’s note on 4:12.

Test your recall

What do the garden and fountain images describe, and what are the winds asked to do?

Show answer

The speaker calls his sister and spouse an enclosed garden and a sealed fountain. The north and south winds are asked to blow through the garden so that its spices release their fragrance (4:12–16).

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 71194–71196
How beautiful art thou, my love, how beautiful art thou! thy eyes are doves’ eyes, besides what is hid within. Thy hair is as flocks of goats, which come up from mount Galaad.
Lines 71224–71224
Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee.
Lines 71230–71231
Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes, and with one hair of thy neck.
Lines 71241–71242
My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.
Lines 71255–71256
The fountain of gardens: the well of living waters, which run with a strong stream from Libanus.
Lines 71258–71259
Arise, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow through my garden, and let the aromatical spices thereof flow.