9. To my steed, &c. The court-ladies having turned from her and told her to go back to her menial employment, her severest trial begins. The king, having watched his opportunity, enters at that moment, and thus begins his flattering address. He first praises her beauty and gracefulness by comparing her to his stately and noble chariot steed. The anonymous MS. commentary rightly remarks, ‏מוסב למעל שאמרה שחורה אנו והוא אמר לה דמיתיך לסוסתי ברכבי פרעה שהם שחורים וסוס השחור יפה הוא יותר משאר סוסים‎, that this simile was suggested by the reference which the damsel has made in the preceding verse to her dark complexion. The king, therefore, compares her to his noble steed, whose dark colour renders it more beautiful than the other horses. Such a comparison must have been very striking and flattering in the East, where this animal was so much celebrated for its preeminent beauty. “A young chestnut mare,” says Layard, Nineveh, i. 91, “belonging to the sheik, was one of the most beautiful creatures I ever beheld. As she struggled to free herself from the spear to which she was tied, she showed the lightness and elegance of the gazelle. Her limbs were in perfect symmetry; her ears long, slender, and transparent; her nostrils high, dilated and deep red, her neck gracefully arched; and her mane and texture of silk.... No one can look at the horses of the early Assyrian sculptures without being convinced that they were drawn from the finest models.” Compare also the exquisite and inimitable description of this noble animal in Job xxxix. 19, &c. and Rosenmüller, Orient. iv. 941. The same comparison is used by the Greek and Roman poets. Thus Theocritus, Idyl. xviii. 30, 31:— ἢ κάπῳ κυπάρισσος ἢ ἅρματι Θεσσαλὸς ἵππος, ὧδε καὶ ἁ ῥοδόχρως Ἑλένα Λακεδαίμονι κόσμος. “As towers the cypress mid the garden’s bloom, As in the chariot proud Thessalian steed, Thus graceful rose-complexion’d Helen moves.” Compare also Horace, Ode iii. 11. This shows the futility both of those who affirm that the strangeness of the simile is against the literal meaning of this Song, and of those who accuse the writer of uncouthness. Besides, is this comparison more strange or uncouth than that of a man with a bony ass? (Gen. xlix. 14.) Mark also the other comparison used in the same chapter, such as of an ox, serpent, &c. ‏סוּסָה‎ is not equitatus, (Vulg. Rashi, Rashbam, English Version,) but as Ibn Ezra and Immanuel rightly remark, ‏נקבת סוס‎, mare, the regular feminine of ‏סוּס‎. The ‏–ִי‎ in ‏לְסוּסָתִי‎ is the suffix of the first person, as the ancient versions have it; and refers to a well-known and celebrated mare which Solomon possessed and highly prized, and which he always put into one of Pharaoh’s chariots. ‏בְּרִכְבֵי פַרְעֹה‎, one of Pharaoh’s chariots, like ‏בְּעָרֵי גִלְעָד‎, one of the cities of Gilead. Judg. xii. 7.