“darling.” See commentary on Song 1:9.

“your eyes are doves.” This is a metaphor, a comparison by representation, and metaphors can be powerful and expressive, but also confusing. In this case, although it was obviously powerful when the Love spoke to his Beloved, almost 3,000 years later we don’t really know what he meant. We do know that since women were usually very modestly covered, her eyes were very important. Jacob’s wife Leah, for example, is only described by the fact that she had “weak” eyes (or “tender eyes,” the meaning is not clear; Gen. 29:17). There are many suggestions as to the Lover’s meaning, including: the color of her eyes was a beautiful light brown like a dove or they glistened like a dove’s feathers glisten in the light; her eyes were peaceful and gentle like the dove is; her eyes were alert and quickly moving like the quickness of a dove’s movement; or, she fluttered her eyes like a dove quickly flutters its wings.

[For more on the figures of comparison simile, metaphor, and hypocatastasis, and how metaphor and hypocatastasis can be confusing, see commentary on Rev. 20:2, “dragon.”]