Saturday, February 4th, 2012
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c. 950 BC / Jerusalem

Treasure on Earth

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How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!
the joints of thy thighs are like jewels,
the work of the hands of a cunning workman.
Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor:
thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.
Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.
Thy neck is as a tower of ivory:
thy eyes like the fish pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim:
thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus.
Thy head upon thee is like Carmel,
and the hair of thy head like purple;
the king is held in the galleries.
How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!
This thy stature is like to a palm tree,
and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.
I said, “I will go up to the palm tree,
I will take hold of the boughs thereof”:
now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine,
and the smell of thy nose like apples;
and the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved,
that goeth down sweetly,
causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.

I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field;
let us lodge in the villages.
Let us get up early to the vineyards,
let us see if the vine flourish,
whether the tender grape appear,
and the pomegranates bud forth:
there will I give thee my loves.
The mandrakes give a smell,
and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old,
which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

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About the Text

From the Bible. The Song of Solomon is the Old Testament book that traditionally serves as the festal scroll for the Jewish Passover. The collection of love poems is often interpreted allegorically--read by Jews as God's love of the Israelites, by Christians as Christ's love of his church.

Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
Walter Bagehot, 1880
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Author and translator Peter Ackroyd talks with Aidan Flax-Clark about his new retelling of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and discusses a little bit about his most recent book of London history, London Under.
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