You who dwell in the gardens with friends in attendance, let me hear your voice! Come away, my lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains. (Song of Songs 8: 13-14)

The Lover (and Beloved) calls to hear the voice of the Beloved (and Lover).

The one within the garden responds: Come away, go away, even run away.

Be as a wild thing, be something primal, be very real.

The most ancient love story we know involves a beauty within the walls attempting to domesticate a beast from the forest. (Gilgamesh)

In this Song of Songs the beauty within the walls instead encourages fleeing to the mountains. Love does not bind, it frees and empowers.

St. John of the Cross concludes his Canticle with,

Let us rejoice, Beloved,
and let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty,
to the mountain and to the hill,
to where the pure water flows,and further, deep into the thicket.

And then we will go onto the high caverns in the rock
which are so well concealed;
there we shall enter
and taste the fresh juice of the pomegranates.

There you will show me
what my soul has been seeking,
and then you will give me,

you, my life, will give me there
what you gave me on that other day:
the breathing of the air,
the song of the sweet nightingale,
the grove and its living beauty
in the serene night,
with a flame that is consuming and painless.

Above is from the Rothschild Canticle. In the upper register the Beloved is in a deep sleep under a midday sun. Below her, Christ addresses the daughters of Jerusalem while pointing up toward the Beloved with his right hand. With his left hand, Christ points to the roes and stags in the bottom register.

This concludes over fifty days with the Song of Songs. Please join me in a new study of the kingdom sayings of Jesus at http://kingdomsayings.blogspot.com/