The Lovers Together (2:1-7): As this section opens, the two lovers are clearly together: they become partners in dialogue. The woman and the man first exchange playful banter, then admiring comments. The admiration closes with the woman speaking to or about the man. She then speaks for the first time a verse which will recur. This verse is clear in imagery although not in time (2:6). Then there follows the first instance of another recurring verse, the adjuration to the daughters of Jerusalem (2:7).

2:1–7  Again (or still), the lovers are together. The woman, perhaps remaining in the verdant setting of 1:16–17, proclaims her own loveliness. Interpreters disagree over whether her comparison of herself to flowers is modest (she is a simple wild flower, not a cultivated hybrid) or extravagant …