Fathers

Song of Solomon 6

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Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies. You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing, of which every one has twins; not one is bereaved among them. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil. There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines saw her, and they praised her. Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots. Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

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What the Fathers say

Song of Solomon 6:5

Western Saints

Ambrose of Milan

So he says to her, as if to one who is perfect, … "Turn your eyes from me," because she cannot withstand the fullness of his divinity and the splendor of the true light.Yet we can also take "turn your eyes from me" as follows: "Although you have been perfected, I must still redeem other souls and strengthen them. For you exalt me by looking upon me, but I have descended so that I may exalt all humankind. …

On Isaac and the Soul 7.57 ↗

Bede

Hair like a flock of goats, etc. These verses and the following ones placed above have been fully explained to the best of our understanding; but let us not hesitate to reiterate in explanation what the author of the sacred song did not hesitate to repeat in writing, so that we may either recall what was said before to memory or, with the help of divine grace, do something new usefully. …

Commentary on the Song of Songs ↗

Bonaventure

The mind cannot see it with intellectual eyes, and so they must be turned away. Hence it is said in the Canticle: "Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me flee away." For Christ goes away when the mind attempts to behold this wisdom through intellectual eyes; since it is not the intellect that can go in there, but the heart.

Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 2 ↗