o her capture. We may
suppose that, attracted by the glitter and the splendor of the royal
cavalcade, she for a moment longed to enjoy it, and her desire was
gratified. Brought to court to comfort the old king, she remained
after his death at the palace, and Solomon, who wished to add her to
his harem, killed his own brother when he found him coveting her. The
maiden soon regrets her indiscretion in having exposed herself to
capture. She is "a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley," and she
feels like a wildflower transplanted to a palace hall. While Solomon
in all his glory urges his suit, she, tormented by homesickness,
thinks only of her vineyard, her orchards, and the young shepherd
whose love she enjoyed in them. Absent-minded, as one in a revery, or
dreaming aloud, she answers the addresses of the king and his women in
words that ever refer to her shepherd lover:[289]

"Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou
feedest thy flock." "My beloved is unto me as a cluster
of henna flowers in the vineyards of En-gedi." "Behold,
thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant: Also our couch
is green." "As the apple-tree among the trees of the
wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under
his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet
to my taste." "The voice of my beloved! behold, he
cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the
hills." "My beloved is mine, and I am his: He feedeth
his flock among the lilies," "Come, my beloved, let us
go forth into the field, let us lodge in the villages.
Let us get up early to the vineyards.... There will I
give thee my love."

The home-sick country girl, in a word, has found out that the
splendors of the palace are not to her taste, and the thought of being
a young shepherd's darling is pleasanter to her than that of being an
old king's concubine. The polygamous rapture with which Solomon
addresses her: "There are three-score queens and four-score
concubines, and maidens without number," does not appeal to her rural
taste. She has no desire to be the hundred and forty-first piece of
mosaic inlaid in Solomon's palanquin (III., 9-10), and she stubbornly
resists his advances until, impressed by her firmness, and unwilling
to force her, the king allows her to return to her vineyard and her
lover.

The view that the gist of the _Song of Songs_ is the Shulamite's love
of a shepherd and her per