The BELOVED continues.
“How fair and how pleasant are you, O love, for delights! This your stature is like to a palm-tree, And your breasts to its clusters. I said, I will climb up into the palm-tree, I will take hold of its branches, Let your breasts be as clusters of the vine, And the smell of your breath like apples, And your mouth like the best wine --.”
He now describes her statuesque beauty and compares her with a palm tree, with her breasts like coconuts, so that he can shin up the tree and sample her delights by grabbing hold of its branches; or like clusters of grapes on the vine. And he ends his idyllic picture with a description of the sweetness of her breasts, and the fact that her mouth is like the best wine. It is at this point that his wife then takes over the theme.
While we might find these long descriptions somewhat overextended, the people of Israel at their feasts no doubt delighted in these theoretical description of themselves in the Lord's eyes, as it described His delight in them. (We say theoretical because it strictly only applied to the righteous among them). The same descriptions, of course apply to us. We too can delight in the descriptions, but we must remember that we are only beautiful in His eyes if we are truly His, and it is being revealed in our lives. It is only then that He can climb up and partake of our fruits.
His YOUNG WIFE takes up her husband's rhythm and replies (note the use of ‘my beloved' which indicates the change).