And the tresses of thy head as crimson.
The king is captivated by the ringlets:
How beautiful and how charming,
O love, in thy fascinations!
7 This thy growth is like a palm-tree,
And thy bosom like its clusters.
even in this country ladies used to dress their hair in a somewhat similar manner. The rendering of the ancient versions of [HE: k.ar^emol], by Mount Carmel, which the majority of modern interpreters follow: they take the simile to be between the beautiful appearance of the bride's head and the charming, luxuriant, and picturesque summit of this celebrated mountain; but this is against the parallellism and 2 Chron. ii. 16, 13; iii. 14. [HE: k.ar^emel] = [HE: k.ar^emiyl] is derived from [HE: k.oram/], to be shiningly red, with [HE: —iyl] appended, according to the analogy of [HE: p.^etiygiyl]; vide Fürst, Lexicon in voce; or it may be that this shell-fish was so called because it was found on the shore near Carmel. At all events, there is no need to look for the etymology of this word out of the Shemitic family.
And the tresses, &c. Fine hair is frequently compared by the Greeks and Romans with purple. Thus Anacreon, xxviii. 11, 13.
[GR: gra/fe d' e)x o(/lês pareiê=s
u(po\ porfu/raisi chai/stais
e)lefa/ntinon me/tôpon.]
Then paint, from her full cheeks,
Beneath her purple hair,
Her ivory forehead.
Compare also Virgil, Georg. i. 405; Tibul. i. 4, 63. The purple here referred to is that kind which Pliny describes as "nigrans adspectu indemque suspectu refulgens." [HE: 'ar^eg.omon/], the costly colour extracted from the shell-fish, is from [HE: rogam/], kind. [HE: roqam/], to colour, with the prostetic [HE: '] and termination [HE: —on/]; vide supra, chap. iii. 9.
The king is captivated, &c. The ringlets, like the lashes of the eyelids, are frequently represented as the net of love. Prov. vi. 25; Sirach ix. 3, 4. Thus Jami, in his Joseph and Zuleikha, chap. i., as quoted by Dr. Good, says:—
"When Love in graceful ringlets plants his toils,
The fool he catches, and the wise man foils;
But, thence released, the sage his snare discerns,
And Reason's lamp with wonted lustre burns."
[HE: melek/^e] stands for [HE: ham.elek/^e]; the article is not unfrequently omitted in poetry; comp. Ps. ii. 2; xxi. 2; Gesen. § 109; Ewald, § 277, b. [HE: rohiyT], a ringlet, so called from its flowing down over the shoulders; vide supra, chap. i. 16. The construction of [HE: melek/^e] with [HE: 'ar^eg.omon/], i.e. royal purple (one of the Greek translators in the Hexapla, Vulgate, Syriac, Luther, Houbigant, &c.), is against the punctuation and the evenness of the metre, interferes with the interpretation of the remaining words, and has evidently arisen from a misunderstanding of the passage. Besides, no people is known by such a name. It was owing to a feeling of being consistent that the editor of Calmet felt himself constrained to take [HE: 'ar^eg.omon/] as a proper name, Argamen, to correspond with the parallel [HE: k.ar^emel]; and to explain this clause as alluding to a particular mode of plaiting the hair, like the weaving of Arech, a city in Babylonia, supposed to be famous for its weaving manufactories.
How beautiful, &c. The captivated king, having described the beauty of the several parts of the body, now combines the separate members into one lovely form, and endows it with life and fascination, which none of the inanimate beauties to which he had compared her, however admirable, possessed. [HE: 'aha:boh], love, abstract for concrete, loved one, vide supra, chap. v. 1. [HE: t.a`a:nv.g], charm, attraction, such as living beings possess. Aquila and the Syria, separating the word [HE: b.^et.a`a:nugiym/], render it [GR: thuga/têr trufô=n], [HE: b.at `a:nugiym/].
7. This thy growth, &c. The beautiful growth of the palm-tree, like that of the cedar and cypress, supplied a forcible image to the ancients.
