Historia Amoris: A History of Love, Ancient and Modern Part 3

My beloved is gone from the garden.... But I am his and he is mine. He feedeth his flocks among lilies.

(_Enter_ SOLOMON.)

(_The_ SHULAMITE _looks scornfully at him._)

SOLOMON

Thou art beautiful as Tirzah, my love, and comely as Jerusalem, but terrible as an army in battle. Turn thine eyes away. They trouble me....

THE SHEPHERD

(_from without._)

There are sixty queens, eighty favorites, and numberless young girls.

But among them all my immaculate dove is unique, she is the darling of her mother. The young girls have seen her and called her blessed. The queens and the favorites have praised her.

THE CHORUS

(_astonished at the_ SHULAMITE'S _scorn of the King._)

Who is it that is beautiful as Tirzah but terrible as an army in battle?

THE SHULAMITE

(_impatiently turning her back, and relating again her abduction._)

I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the green plants in the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. But before I was aware of it, I was among the chariots of my princely people.

THE CHORUS

Turn about, turn again, O Shulamite, that we may see thee.

A DANCER

What will you see in the Shulamite whom the King has compared to an army?

SOLOMON

(_to the_ SHULAMITE.)

How beautiful are thy feet, prince's daughter,... How fair and how pleasant art thou....

THE SHULAMITE

(_impatiently as before._)

I am my beloved's and he is sighing for me.

(_Exit_ SOLOMON. _Enter the_ SHEPHERD.)

THE SHULAMITE

(_hastening to her lover._)

Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the fields, let us lodge in the villages. We will rise early and see if the vine flourishes and the grape is ripe and the pomegranates bud. There will I caress thee. The love-apples perfume the air and at our gates are all manner of rich fruit, new and old, which I have kept for thee, my beloved. Oh, that thou wert my brother, that, when I am with thee without, I might kiss thee and not be mocked at. I want to take and bring thee into my mother's house. There thou shalt instruct me and I will give thee spiced wine and the juice of my pomegranates.

(_Falling in his arms and calling to the_ ODALISQUES.)

His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me.

THE SHEPHERD

(_to the chorus._)

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not nor awake my beloved till she will.

ACT V.

THE VILLAGE OF SHULAM.

(_The_ SHULAMITE, _who has escaped from the seraglio is carried in by her lover._)

CHORUS OF VILLAGERS

Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?

THE SHEPHERD

(_to the_ SHULAMITE.)

I awake thee under the apple tree.

(_He points to the house._)

There thou wert born.

THE SHULAMITE

Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy cruel as the grave; the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord. But many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. The man who seeks to purchase it acquires but contempt.

EPILOGUE.

A COTTAGE AT SHULAM.

FIRST BROTHER OF THE SHULAMITE