What happens when the speaker finally opens the door to her beloved?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The beloved knocks, but by the time the speaker opens the door he has gone. Her search brings injury from the city keepers. She asks Jerusalem’s daughters for help and describes the beloved’s beauty to them.

Chapter breakdown

The beloved is invited into his garden to eat its fruit. A reply announces that he has come, gathered myrrh and spices, eaten honeycomb and honey, and drunk wine and milk. Friends are invited to feast. Challoner interprets the garden as Christ’s Church and its fruit as the good works of the elect.

The next scene begins with sleep and a wakeful heart. The beloved knocks, his head wet with dew, and asks to enter. The speaker hesitates: she has removed her garment and washed her feet. His hand reaches through the keyhole, stirring her. She rises with myrrh dripping from her hands and opens the bolt, but he has turned away. She seeks and calls without finding him or receiving an answer. The city keepers strike and wound her and take her veil. Challoner interprets this suffering as the Church’s persecution and the loss of her places of worship and their ornaments.

She asks Jerusalem’s daughters to tell the beloved that she languishes with love if they find him. They ask what makes him special. She describes him as white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands. Gold, raven-black hair, doves, spices, lilies, precious stones, ivory, marble, and cedars fill her praise. She calls him lovely and her friend. Challoner reads the description as the Church making Christ known to those who do not know him. The daughters then ask where he has gone and offer to search with her.

The story inside

The chapter opens with a garden feast, then moves to the beloved knocking at night. The speaker hesitates over her removed garment and washed feet. She rises to open, but finds him gone. After a fruitless search and an attack by the keepers, she turns to Jerusalem’s daughters. Her detailed praise leads them to offer to search with her.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Opening the door does not bring an immediate reunion: the beloved has already turned away (5:5–6).
2
Challoner interprets the wounded and stripped speaker as the persecuted Church in his note on 5:4.
3
The account of the beloved’s appearance answers the daughters’ question and leads to their offer of help (5:9–17).

Test your recall

How do the city keepers treat the speaker, and what do Jerusalem’s daughters offer at the end?

Show answer

The keepers strike and wound her and take away her veil. After hearing her description of her beloved, Jerusalem’s daughters ask where he has gone and offer to search with her (5:7, 17).

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 71268–71271
I am come into my garden, O my sister, my spouse, I have gathered my myrrh, with my aromatical spices: I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey, I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved.
Lines 71277–71279
I sleep, and my heart watcheth: the voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the nights.
Lines 71299–71301
I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved: but he had turned aside, and was gone. My soul melted when he spoke: I sought him, and found him not: I called, and he did not answer me.
Lines 71306–71307
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love.
Lines 71313–71313
My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands.
Lines 71334–71335
His throat most sweet, and he is all lovely: such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.