Fair as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem

The beloved is compared to two royal cities—Tirzah and Jerusalem—and to an army with banners. The man repeats earlier images of eyes, hair, teeth, and pomegranates, then sets her above sixty queens, eighty concubines, and innumerable maidens: his dove, his undefiled one, is “but one.”

This creates an intriguing canonical tension with the biblical portrait of Solomon, who eventually has hundreds of wives and concubines. If the king in the Song is meant to evoke Solomon directly, the poem’s praise of one incomparable woman sits uneasily beside 1 Kings 11. That makes a strong contrast to investigate, not a license to force a specific love-triangle plot.