This is her lover’s response to her comment. Since the young man is responding, we should add a marginal note to indicate this change of speaker, as in Good News Translation.

As a lily among brambles: we have suggested that there is an underlying purpose in what the young woman says about herself; she wants her lover to tell her she is no ordinary beauty but something special. Notice how he does exactly that; he takes up her reference to lily and builds his words around that. She is a lily, but an outstanding one. Other women are like brambles in comparison.

Brambles, or “thorns” (Revised English Bible, Good News Translation), represent all other women, perhaps even the women of Jerusalem. The brambles may have flowers, but they also have sharp thorns, whereas the flower is soft, delicate, and pretty. The young man flatters her, just as she hoped he would.

There is a slight problem here in knowing whether the poet is speaking of two plants or one. If they are two different plants, a lily and a thornbush, then the lily is growing alongside the thornbush. It contrasts with the thornbush because of its beautiful and delicate flower. If he is referring to one plant, then the reference is probably to one plant (such as a rose) whose branches are covered with thorns, but from which blossoms a beautiful flower. As we have really no way of knowing which is the case, either view is acceptable. The important point is to contrast a plant with no beauty with one of stunning beauty. For translation, then, we can say “like a lily growing among thorny plants” or “like a flower among thorns.”

The opening phrase in this speech begins with the particle “Like,” “As,” and is balanced in the second half by the adverb “thus,” “so.” These features create an internal parallelism in the verse:
as lily
among the thorns
so my darling
among the maidens

Note again how brief this poetic verse is. Revised Standard Version renders the brief form and balance well, and so can be used as a model. In some languages, however, we may have to state clearly the object of the comparison; so we can say “As a lily stands out among thorns, so does my love among women” or “As a lily exceeds thorns [in beauty], so my love exceeds all other women.”

My love among maidens: in 1.9 we commented on the term of endearment my love. Just as the flower stands out colorfully and beautifully against the thornbush, so is his beloved outstanding among the other women.

Maidens is the Hebrew term “daughters” and is almost certainly a reference to the young women of Jerusalem in 1.5. By using this term the young man shows that he agrees with her earlier comment that, despite being burned by the sun, she is still beautiful. Following the text strictly we can translate “so my love is more beautiful than the daughters of Jerusalem”; but probably a wider sense is in view here: “so my love is more beautiful than other [women].”

Many languages are likely to have an idiom in which the beauty of a flower is contrasted with a thorn plant or something similar. In such a case, if the saying carries the same purpose as the idiom here, we can use it to make our translation culturally more meaningful.

In the verse that follows, the young woman echoes the young man by comparing him to other young men (“sons” in Hebrew). To preserve the poetic structure and impact of this passage, it will be important to use the same expressions in the next verse as those that appear here.

For translation we suggest:

• As a flower is more beautiful than a thorn, so is my darling more beautiful than all other women.

• As a lily stands out among thorns,
So you, my love, stand out among all other women.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Song of Songs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1998. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .