cribe her beloved at large (v. 10-vi.
3). The structure of these dialogues is so simple, and their purpose is
so strictly limited to the exhibition of the character and affection of
the maiden, that it is only natural to find them supplemented by a free
use of pure monologue, in which the heroine recalls the happiness of
past days, or expresses her rising hope of reunion with her shepherd,
and restoration to the simple joys of her rustic life. The vivid
reminiscence of ii. 8-17 takes the form of a dialogue within the main
dialogue of the poem, a picture within a picture--the picture of her
beloved as he stood at her window in the early spring time, and of her
own merry heart as she laughingly answered him in the song with which
watchers of the vineyards frighten away the foxes. It is, of course, a
fault of perspective that this reminiscence is as sharp in outline and
as strong in colour as the main action. But no one can expect
perspective in such early art, and recollection of the past is clearly
enough separated from present reality by ii. 16, 17. The last monologue
(vii. 10-viii. 3), in which the hope of immediate return with her lover
is tempered by maidenly shame, and a maiden's desire for her mother's
counsel, is of special value for a right appreciation of the psychology
of the love which the poem celebrates, and completes a picture of this
flower of the northern valleys which is not only firm in outline, but
delicate in touch. The subordinate action which supports the portraiture
of the maiden of Galilee is by no means easy to understand.

We come next to chapter vi., which again sings the praises of the
heroine, and takes occasion in this connexion to introduce, with the
same want of perspective as we observed in ch. ii., a dialogue
descriptive of Solomon's first meeting with the maiden. We learn that
she was an inhabitant of Shulem or Shunem in Issachar, whom the king and
his train surprised in a garden on the occasion of a royal progress
through the north. Her beauty drew from the ladies of the court a cry of
admiration. The maiden shrinks back with the reply--"I was gone down
into my garden to see its growth.... I know not how my soul hath brought
me among the chariots of princes"; but she is commanded to turn and let
herself be seen in spite of her bashful protest--"Why do ye gaze on the
Shulamite as at a dance of Mahanaim (a spectacle)?" Now the person in
whose mouth this relation is placed must be an eye-w