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Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded. Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib. Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee.
Turning Shulamite, Symon of Worcester rode slowly down the hill, passed southward, and entered the city by Friar's Gate; and so to the Palace, where Hugh d'Argent waited. The Bishop led him, through a postern, into the garden; and there on a wide lawn, out of earshot of any possible listeners, the Bishop and the Knight walked up and down in earnest conversation.
Then the joys of love, depicted with equal liveliness, amplifications as usual of the erotic hyperboles of the Shulamite and her lover; the phenomenon, to whose uncouth strangeness devotional poetry accustoms us even now-a-days, which we remarked in Gottfried von Strasburg and Frauenlob, and on which it is needless further to insist.
"Well, at length Brother Philip returned, leading the palfrey. I had been riding upon the heights above the town, on my comely black mare, Shulamite." Again the Bishop paused, and shot a merry challenge at Hugh d'Argent; but realising at once that the Knight could brook no more delay, he hastened on.
But whether it describes the ardent affection which Solomon bore to his young Egyptian bride; or the still more beautiful love of the innocent Shulamite maiden for her betrothed shepherd feeding his flock among the lilies, unseduced by all the influences of the royal court, and triumphant over the seductions of rank and power; or whether it is the rapt soul of the believer bursting out in holy transports of joy, like a Saint Theresa in the anticipated union with her divine Spouse, it is still a noble tribute to what is most enchanting of the great certitudes on earth or in heaven; and it is expressed in language of exquisite and incomparable elegance.
A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse: a spring shut up a fountain sealed. Some day she will cry out, with the Shulamite, 'Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. She belongs to us, my dear Larinski my dear partner; she had yielded, and you and I share the honour of the victory. I presented myself before her, and my presence did not displease her.
If the Chinese custom had prevailed among the ancient Hebrew people, think you that King Solomon in singing of the graces of the Shulamite, who represents the Church mystically, would ever have exclaimed, "How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!"
Here the lovely Shulamite of the lovelier Scripture lyric fed her flocks by the shepherd's tents. Hither came Solomon, first disguised as a shepherd, to win her love, and afterwards in his royal litter perfumed with myrrh and frankincense to take her to his Cedar House. This, too, was the country of Adonis.
He pulled out the lobe of his left ear. "See you not the scar of the awl?" "I see it," she said; "and, oh, I see how thou didst love my mother!" "Love her, Esther! She was to me more than the Shulamite to the singing king, fairer, more spotless; a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
The heart of a nun was a thing well known to the Bishop, and he trembled at thought of this, which he had helped to bring about. Also he marvelled greatly that the Prioress should have changed her mind; and he sought in vain to conjecture the cause of that change. Arrived in the courtyard of the Palace, he called for Brother Philip. "Saddle me Shulamite," he said.
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