(t5) Thy two nipples. Here we cannot, we ap prehend, adopt any other rendering, for the simile seems to allude to two young red antelopes, who, feeding among lilies, and being much shorter than the flowers, are wholly obscured by them, except the tips of their noses, which they put up to reach the flowers, growing on their majestic stems. As these red tips are seen among the white lilies, so are the nipples just discernible through the trans parent gauze, or muslin, which covers the lady's bosom. Otherwise, the breast itself is compared to lilies, on account of its whiteness, above which peeps up the red nose of the beautiful gazelle.
(16) Lebanon. This may be understood as if he had said, "Your Egypt is a low, a level coun try, but we have here most delightful and exten sive prospects. What a vast country we see from Mount Lebanon!" etc. And this may very pos sibly be the true sense of the invitation ; but we submit, whether these appellations were not names of places within the precincts of the royal park. Such occur in the East, and to such, we suspect, is the allusion of this passage.
(t7) Carried coptive my heart, robbed me of my heart and carried it off, as a prisoner of war, into slavery; so we say among ourselves, such a one has "lost his heart," "his heart is captivated," which is the idea here.
(IS) By one sally of thine eyes—that is, of which I just get a glimpse, behind or between thy veil ; or, of which the sparkles, shooting through thy veil, reach me, and that with irresistible ef fect, even to my heart's captivity, as above. The comparison of glances of the eyes to darts, or other weapons, is common in the poets.
(19) Spouse. The first time we meet with this word, calah, it implies bride; but, we think it is capable of being referred to either sex, like our word spouse. The bridegroom adds, iny sister (see ABRAHAM), but the bride, in her answer, though she adopts the word spouse, yet omits the term brother: we suppose, because that was understood to convey a freedom not yet becoming her modesty to assume; she goes so far, but no farther. The reader will perceive several words attached, in elucidation of this appellation, to the places where it occurs.
(2o) Around thee shoot plonts—literally, "thy shoots are plants," etc. By means of this supple ment, we presume, the ideas of the poet are, for the first time, rendered clear, correct and con nected. The importance of water, fountains, springs, etc., in the East is well known; but the peculiar importance of this article to a garden, and that garden appropriated to aromatic plants, must be very striking to an Oriental reader. By way of meeting some ideas that have been sug gested, we shall add, that the bride is a fountain, etc., securely locked up from the bridegroom. at present; that is, he is not yet privileged to have complete access to her. What the advantages of water to a garden of aromatics might be we may guess from the nature of the plants. The follow
ing extract from Swinburne may contribute to assist our conjectures: "A large party of sprightly damsels and young men that were walk ing here were much indebted to us for making the water-works play by means of a small bribe to the keeper. Nothing can be more delicious than these sprinklings on a hot day; all the flowers seemed to acquire new vigor; the odors exhaled from the orange, citron and lemon trees grew more poignant, more balsamic, and the company ten times more alive than they were; it was a true April shower. \Ve sauntered near two hours in the groves, till we were quite in ecstasy with sweets. It is a most heavenly residence in spring, and I should think the summer heats might be tempered and rendered supportable enough by the profusion of water that they enjoy at Seville." (Travels in Spain, p. 252.) The following de scription of his mistress, by an Arabian lover, in Richardson's Arab. Gram. (p. 151), bears much similitude to several allusions in the poem be fore us: Her mouth was like the Solomon's seal, And her cheeks like anemones, And her lips like two carnations, And her teeth like pearls set in coral, And her forehead like the new moon; And her lips were sweeter than honey, And colder than the pure water.
How very different from our own is that cli mate wherein the coldness of pure water is a sub ject of admiration !—a comparison to the lips of the fair ! (21) The nard. As this plant occurs in the close of the former verse, should it again occur here? Can the words be differently connected? or is a word unfortunately dropped? or what fra grant shrub should be substituted for the ;lard? but observe that in one passage the word nord is singular, in the other it is plural. (See NERD.) (22) We are so accustomed to consider the aloc as a bitter, because of the medical drug of that name (an inspissated juice), that we are hardly prepared to receive this allusion to the delicious scent of the flowers of this plant ; but that it justly possesses and maintains a place among the most fragrant aromatics, we are well assured: "This morning, like many of the foregoing ones, was delicious ; the sun rose gloriously out of the sea, and the air all around was perfumed with the effluvia of the aloe, as its rays sucked up the dew from the leaves." (Swinburne's Travels in Spain. Letters xii.) (23) Sink, thou southern gale. On this avertive sense of the word BA, see the article Sitmort. Had this sentiment been uttered in England we should have reversed the injunction; but in Judea the heat of the south wind would have suffocated the fragrancy of the garden, to which the north wind would have been every way favorable. To desire the north wind to blow at the same time when the south wind blows is surely perverted philosophy.