How Fair and Pleasant Art Thou, O Love
The man’s admiration becomes openly erotic. The woman is compared to a palm tree, her breasts to clusters, her breath to fruit, and her mouth to excellent wine. The imagery is agricultural, fragrant, tactile, and reciprocal rather than clinical.
The Song’s frankness is part of its canonical distinctiveness. It celebrates embodied desire without turning the lovers into abstract theological symbols. That plain sense matters even for readers who also see a wider biblical theology of covenant love.
Ancient Egyptian love songs are especially useful here because they show that flowers, fruit, perfume, bodily praise, and intoxication were normal poetic resources in the broader ancient world. Similarity illuminates genre; it does not prove direct copying.