Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return …: repeating the opening imperative adds emphasis to it. The Hebrew verb used can mean “turn,” “return,” “repent,” “go back.” Our question is about its particular sense in this context. If we consider the young man to be speaking, are we to assume that his lover is far away, in some distant place? We have seen elsewhere (2.10, 13; 4.8) that imperatives like these are more likely expressions of the young man’s desire to have his lover close to him than actual calls for her to come. With this understanding, “come” or “come back” (Revised English Bible) in an acceptable translation of the imperatives here.

Some versions interpret the verb to refer to the dancing movements of the young woman. Good News Translation translates “Dance, dance,” and Bible en français courant “turn around, turn around!” But the majority of commentators reject this interpretation.

O Shulammite: various proposals have been made for the meaning of this word. Some see a connection to a Mesopotamian goddess of love and war, Shulmanitu, others a connection to Solomon, and still others a connection to a town called Shunem. The noun has the definite article attached, meaning that it is not a person’s name. The most likely sense is that the term comes from the Hebrew root shlm “be perfect,” “be complete.” Thus it depicts a person (female) who is perfect. “Perfect one” gets the idea across well.

That we may look upon you: the first plural we may look seems to suggest a group of people speaking to the young woman. As we have seen above, this is certainly a possibility, in which case the line can be translated rather literally. However, we have also seen in 1.2-4 how the Song mixes plural and singular forms. If the preferred sense is that the young man is speaking to his lover, the first plural form actually carries singular meaning, and we can say “Let me look at you.”

Why should you look upon the Shulammite…?: as we have seen above, this line can be interpreted in various ways, depending on who is speaking. Here again commentators and translations differ. The opening clause is literally “What will you see [look at].” We can note that the pronoun you is masculine plural; but unfortunately no masculine plural group is identified in this context. The statement can be addressed to the young man, assuming a plural form for a singular person.

If, on the other hand, the young woman is responding to her lover, she is teasing him. Good News Translation “Why would you want to watch me…?” takes the term that Revised Standard Version renders as the Shulammite to be a way she refers to herself. She asks him this question knowing full well that he adores her and enjoys looking at all her physical qualities. If we decide to interpret in this way, you must be rendered by a singular form in languages that make that distinction.

If Shulammite is the term the young woman uses to refer to herself, presumably it is because her lover has described her in those terms. Thus we can render its sense as “your perfect one.”

As upon a dance before two armies is another problem text. The Hebrew text may be understood literally as “like the dance of two camps,” but it is quite uncertain. Jerusalem Bible suggests “dancing as though between two rows of dancers”; Good News Translation and New English Bible are similar. New American Bible thinks it means “as the dance of two companies.” One possible meaning here is that the phrase is the name for a certain type of dance. New Jerusalem Bible takes it to be a dance connected with a place Mahanaim, and the New Revised Standard Version footnote suggests this meaning also. These last two suggestions have the merit of fitting the grammatical construction more closely, as “dance” is a dependent noun, literally “a dance of….” On the other hand the Hebrew root for dance has several meanings: “writhe in pain or joy,” “twist,” “dance,” “whirl about,” “give birth.” Furthermore the possibility that the phrase is an idiom or euphemism needs to be considered, even though we cannot decide with any measure of certainty.

Added to the above difficulties is the fact that the meaning of the Hebrew preposition k- (normally “like,” “when”), which is used at the beginning of the phrase as upon a dance, is also a problem. Fox sees this as a note of contrast and tentatively translates “Why would you gaze at the perfect one as if she were a camp dancer?” Some wish to modify the text to “in.” (Pope has “In the Dance of the Two Camps.”) The one thing that is certain is that the entire expression is very difficult to understand, so whatever translation we give will be largely the result of guesswork. Lacking any convincing alternative, perhaps we are best advised to take a very conservative position such as that found in Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version and not introduce yet another possible but uncertain translation. We will again need a footnote to remind the reader that our translation is not certain.

A possible translation, following a rather formal rendering, may be:

• Young man
“Come, Come back, O perfect one!
So I* can gaze at you.”

Young woman
“Why do you want to gaze at me
As I dance between the rows?”**
Footnote 1: * The Hebrew text has “we.”
Footnote 2: ** The meaning of this line is uncertain in Hebrew.

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 .