The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find thee without, and kiss thee, and now no man may despise me?

²I will take hold of thee, and bring thee into my mother's house: there thou shalt teach me, and I will give thee a cup of spiced wine and new wine of my pomegranates.

³His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.

⁴I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor awake my love till she please.

⁵Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.

⁶Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames.

v.6

VERS. 6.-- *Set me.* We set Christ *as a seal upon the heart,* when we so learn the things which he said as though they were truly the words of the divine wisdom. We are wont to carry about some sign bound upon the finger or the arm, whereby we may be put in mind of that thing whereof we wish to have the more frequent remembrance. We set him, as a sign, upon the arm, when we so strive to hear and to follow the things which he did, as though they were examples of true virtue. *For love is strong as death.* After the corruption of the mother, he fitly subjoins concerning love, that it may be shown to have been given to the Church not out of merits. *As death.* As death separates the soul from the body, so does the love of God [separate it] from the love of temporal things. *Hard as hell,* etc. Because by no temptations of the enemy could it be called back from the care of our salvation: as hell is softened by no torments of the wretched, nor is it changed from the severity of its sentence. The harsher the comparison, the keener is the affection of the Lord who is jealous for us commended. *The lamps thereof.* That is, the hearts of the faithful, in which love is contained as in a vessel, are *fire:* because inwardly they glow with the love of God and of their neighbour. They are also *a flame,* because outwardly they shine with the works of justice. These lamps are not put out at the coming of the Bridegroom.

⁷Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing.

⁸Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?

v.8

VERS. 8.-- *Our sister,* etc. O you ministers and fellow soldiers of mine, this Church is new and tender for the retaining of a new love. *Our sister is little.* The Church, before she grows through the increase of virtues, cannot offer the breasts of preaching to weak hearers; she is called grown up when, joined to the word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, she is defiled through the ministry of preaching in the conceiving of sons, whom by exhorting she travails with, and by converting she brings forth. *What shall we do to our sister,* etc. As if he should say openly: Small indeed in number is the Church of the Gentiles, and she does not yet suffice to undergo the ministry of the word. What then seems to thee, O Synagogue, to be done concerning the care of her, our sister that is, at that time when I shall have begun to speak to her through my apostles and the successors of the apostles? Whether, as to one still little, we should commit to her small secrets of the heavenly mysteries, or should now render her greater by increase, so that, advancing well, she may be able to be capable of more perfect virtues? And to her, keeping silence, and rather listening for what he himself may will, he straightway discloses what it is fitting should be done, subjoining thus:

⁹If she be a wall: let us build upon it bulwarks of silver: if she be a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar.

¹⁰I am a wall: and my breasts are as a tower since I am become in his presence as one finding peace.

v.10

VERS. 10.-- *I am a wall.* Now he speaks generally of the whole Church begun from the foundation of the apostles, because from that time there were breasts in the Church, even unto the last times. *I am a wall.* The Church, hearing these counsels or promises of her Redeemer, now one does not wait for another, but each answers for himself with a devout voice. *Since which.* All these things I could not have of myself, but since he bestowed on me the gift of his peace, through the word of his reconciliation. *As one finding peace.* Well do I say, finding peace, because in that peace which I have spoken of the vineyard was established for *the peaceable* Christ: which of old was foretold by the law and the prophets. Which peace contains not one nation of the Jews only, but has many peoples gathered out of the whole world, not by any merits of men, but by that peace alone which he came to make between God and man: and since that vineyard is the Lord's care, and since it is profitable to men that they be made partakers of it, it is rightly subjoined:

¹¹The peaceable had a vineyard, in that which hath people: he let out the same to keepers, every man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver.

¹²My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for thee, the peaceable, and two hundred for them that keep the fruit thereof.

¹³Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear thy voice.

v.13

VERS. 13.-- *Thou that dwellest in the gardens.* The Church, or any faithful soul, dwells in gardens; she who is now filled with the greenness of hope and of good works. For dry is the hope of this world, because all things that are loved here wither with haste: *She therefore that dwells in the gardens,* it behoves that, for the Bridegroom, she *make her voice to be heard,* that is, that she send forth the good things of preaching in so far as he whom she desires is delighted; because *the friends hearken,* namely all the elect, who, that they may live again unto the heavenly country, desire to hear the words of life. *Thou that dwellest.* And since with me a reward is kept for each one according to his merits, and a twofold recompense for the teachers: therefore, while the time of meriting is at hand, while the wedding day is deferred, let each one, as much as he is able, persist in the tilling of this vineyard. *The friends.* That is, the angels, whom I have given thee as helpers; and the spirits of the just, who are already with God, and pray for their brethren. *Make me hear.* I require of thee that thou dwell, one that will depart for no tumult; and afterwards I also require that thou make me hear thy voice.

¹⁴Flee away, O my beloved, and be like to the roe, and to the young hart upon the mountains of aromatical spices.

v.14

VERS. 14.-- *Flee, my beloved.* The Church, assenting, answers: As long as thou wilt, be absent: defer thy presence; I with long-suffering hope will bear or do whatsoever thou shalt command. *Flee, my beloved.* She speaks not by way of wishing, for who ought to flee him whom he loves? but mindful of her own condition, she consents to his will. *Flee, my beloved.* As if: Thou indeed, who from the flesh hast been made comprehensible, from thy divinity surpass the understanding of our sense, and in thyself remain incomprehensible to us. This the Church cries to the Lord in a prophetic spirit, after she has described the death and resurrection of the Lord and his ascension. He is said to flee us, when that which we wish to remember does not come to mind: when we do not hold in memory that which we wish. *Be thou like.* So flee, that most frequently, through the grace of compunction, thou mayest appear to the hearts of the faithful; who are *the mountains of spices,* because, all covetings being despised and their vices purged away, they are held by the love of heavenly things, and are fragrant with the odour of virtues, and are the good odour of Christ.