The author of these poems has used trees (cedars) and plants (vines, flowers) as images of the two lovers. Here we find another. The young woman is likened to a palm tree. This almost certainly is a date palm rather than a coconut or other kind of palm, but in translation we may have to use a general term “palm tree” if there is no other, or use the actual name of a type of palm if there is no general term. If palm trees are unknown, then “tree” may be all that we can say. The most likely reason for using the palm tree model is that palms grow tall and slender, like a beautiful woman. This aspect of beauty is conveyed in the word stately, describing stature or height. In Hebrew the noun “your stature” has the demonstrative “this” attached, so it is rather emphatic, literally “this your stature is like….” In some languages a noun exists to refer to a person’s height, but in other languages a verbal or adjectival form will have to be used: “You stand tall like…” or “You are as tall as….”

Good News Translation suggests we give the meaning as “you are as graceful as…,” but the more accurate rendering is “you are as tall and graceful as….”

Your breasts are like its clusters: the fruit of the palm tree hangs in clusters just under its branches at the top of the tall trunk. The young man compares his lover to the palm tree by likening her breasts to these clusters. Of course the analogy cannot be carried too far. The woman has only two breasts. What he probably has in mind is that her breasts are round and full. In many parts of the world, palm trees will be a familiar item, and comparing women to these trees may be common. Where the palm is unknown we can call the clusters “fruit”: “Your breasts are like its [bunches of] fruit.”

In translation we can make the comparison clear if need be: “Your breasts are full and round like the [clusters of the] fruit of the palm,” or following on from the previous line, “Your breasts are full and round like its fruit.”

A possible translation of the whole verse is:

• You are as tall and graceful as a palm.
Your breasts are like its clusters of fruit.

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 .