Canticles 4:9
Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes, and with one hair of thy neck.
Open Canticles 4:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa ; vulnerasti cor meum in uno oculorum tuorum, et in uno crine colli tui.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐκαρδίωσας ἡμᾶς, ἀδελφή μου νύμφη· ἐκαρδίωσας ἡμᾶς ἑνὶ ἀπὸ ὀφθαλμῶν σου, ἐν μιᾷ, ἐν θέματι τραχήλων σου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- לִבַּבְתִּ֖נִי אֲחֹתִ֣י כַלָּ֑ה לִבַּבְתִּ֨ינִי֙ באחד מֵעֵינַ֔יִךְ בְּאַחַ֥ד עֲנָ֖ק מִצַּוְּרֹנָֽיִךְ
Haydock's commentary
Wounded. Symmachus, "given." Septuagint, Protestants, "ravished." Mystic writers suppose, that the spouse had been guilty of some negligence; or, on the contrary, that her deportment was most enchanting, bent on God, and on good works. (Calmet)
Sister. So Assuerus styles himself brother of Esther, xv. 12. Christ died for the unity of his Church. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter I
It is not lawful for me to delay, O Arete, after such discourses, seeing that I confide undoubtingly in the manifold wisdom of God, which gives richly and widely to whomsoever it wills. For sailors who have experience of the sea declare that the same wind blows on all who sail; and that different persons, managing their course differently, strive to reach different ports. Some have a fair wind; to others it blows across their course; and yet both easily accomplish their voyage. Now, in the same way, the “understanding Spirit, holy, one only,” gently breathing down from the treasures of the Father above, giving us all the clear fair wind of knowledge, will suffice to guide the course of our words without offence. And now it is time for me to speak. …
St Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter II
Chapter II. The Interpretation of that Passage of the Canticles.
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Abigaus
2. You should not grieve that you are destitute of those bodily eyes which ants, flies, and creeping things have as well as men; rather you should rejoice that you possess that eye of which it is said in the Song of Songs, “Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes.” This is the eye with which God is seen and to which Moses refers when he says: “I will now turn aside and see this great sight.” We even read of some philosophers of this world that they have plucked out their eyes in order to turn all their thoughts upon the pure depths of the mind. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book I
30. I pass to the Song of Songs, and whereas our opponent thinks it makes altogether for marriage, I shall show that it contains the mysteries of virginity. Let us hear what the bride says before that the bridegroom comes to earth, suffers, descends to the lower world, and rises again.“We will make for thee likenesses of gold with ornaments of silver while the king sits at his table.” Before the Lord rose again, and the Gospel shone, the bride had not gold, but likenesses of gold. As for the silver, however, which she professes to have at the marriage, she not only had silver ornaments, but she had them in variety, in widows, in the continent, and in the married. …