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From: Song of Solomon 3:1-4

Third canto: Nocturne

[1] Upon my bed by night
I sought him whom my soul loves:
I sought him but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer.
[2] “I will rise now and go about the city,
in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.”
I sought him, but found him not.
[3] The watchmen found me,
as they went about the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
[4] Scarcely had I passed them,
when I found him whom my soul loves.
I held him, and would not let him go
until I had brought him into my mother’s house,
and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

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Commentary:

3:1-5. This canto deals with a second stage of love. It is night-time, in the city;
the lover is absent, and the beloved searches for him until she finds him. The
speaker is the beloved. United in love with the one she loves (v. 5), she looks
back, recalling her first fruitless search (v. 1), and what happened then and her
second failed attempt to find him (v. 2); then, at her third attempt — success (vv.
3-4). The canto in this way describes a trial she has undergone; she overcomes,
thanks to her perseverance. ‘’If you want to stay close to Christ, seek out suffe-
ring and do not fear it. For sometimes Christ is sooner found in the midst of bodi-
ly torments and in the hands of the torturers. Scarcely had I passed them, says
the Song (v. 4). After a very short time, then, you too will he freed from the hands
of those who persecute you, and no longer will you he subject to the powers of
this world. Christ will come out to meet you, and he will not allow temptations to
threaten you for very long. The one who seeks Christ in this way and finds him
can say: I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s
house, the home of the one who bore me in her womb. What are your mother
and your home if not the most intimate and hidden parts of your soul? Keep your
house well guarded; keep the most secluded rooms well cleaned, so that the
Holy Spirit may come to live in an immaculate home […]. The ones who look for
Christ in this way, who ask for him in this way, will never he abandoned by him;
he will come to visit them often because he is with us until the end of the world’’
(St Ambrose, De virginitate, 12, 68, 74-75; 13, 77-78).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.