Behold you are beautiful; our couch is shaded
Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, and fair. Our couch is shaded; the beams of our houses are cedar, our paneling cypress. The Bride no longer speaks only of her own blackness, but proclaims the Bridegroom’s beauty. The shaded couch: a soul strewn with flowers of virtues. Cedar and cypress are incorruptible: faith and hope and charity.
Latin
Ecce tu pulcher es, dilecte mi, et decorus. Lectulus noster floridus; tigna domorum nostrarum cedrina, laquearia nostra cypressina. Sponsa iam non de sua nigredine sola loquitur, sed pulchritudinem sponsi praedicat. Lectulus floridus: anima floribus virtutum strata. Cedrus et cypressus imputribilia: fides et spes et caritas.
About this text
Origen’s Commentary on the Song of Songs, Liber II (Rufinus’s Latin). Complete on this page: §§1–20.
English follows Baehrens, Origenes Werke VIII (GCS 33, 1925), Rufinus’s Latin of Commentary Liber II. Lawson ACW 26 was not used as wording. This page is Liber II §§1–20 (closeout).
Witnesses
- Copy-text Baehrens, Origenes Werke VIII = GCS 33 (1925) (Latin · Commentary Liber II §§1–20)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Latin on each section (or the Latin source witness link) for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.