Old and New

Chapter 7

verse 13

We have a slang term that would summarize what she is saying.  It goes something like this:  I’m going to have sexual relations with you until your brain falls out of your head.

The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
(24) p. 59. mandrakes have a whitish green flower with yellow apples the size of nutmeg and has a strong and pleasant odor.  The fruits and roots were used as an aphrodisiac and were thought to stimulate sexual arousal.
(25) mandrakes produce a small berry that ripens in the early summer.  The berry and the root were reputed to have aphrodisiac qualities.

and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my lover.
(29) p 260  Here the fruits that have been described literally are given a subtle metaphorical interpretation.  The fruits, “new as well as old,” refer to erotic pleasures—both those as yet unknown, coming as a surprise, and those that are old and proved.

(22a) p 223 The word for “doors” derives from the verb “to open” and can mean “opening.”  It is likely that this is a wordplay on “doors” and “openings” and suggestive of the erotic lovemaking Shulamith proposes in the next lyric.  The songwriter certainly could have used the word for “door” he used in 8.9, but in 8.9 the word is derived from the verb for “close” and so doesn’t have the possibility of play on “door” and “opening.”  The word is then a play on the same root word for “open” in the previous lyric describing the “opening” of the blossoms.  A beautiful play on words emerges which suggest her sexual “openings” and “openness” are like the “opening” of the glower blossoms.