12. While the king is at his table. Here we see how signally the first attempt of Solomon failed to win the affections of the Shulamite. For no sooner did he go to his repast than the damsel indulges in sweet expressions of love with her beloved shepherd. Two distinct persons are here spoken of; the king at the table, and a beloved shepherd, called “nard.” That by the expression ‏נִרְדִי‎, my nard, the Shulamite means her beloved is evident from the following verse, where, led on by the figure of this odorous plant, she continues to call him by the fragrant names, “bag of myrrh,” “bunch of cypress flowers,” &c. ‏עַד שֶׁ‎, as long as, while, Sept. ἕως, Vulg. dum. ‏מֵסַב‎ (from ‏סָבַב‎ to sit round a table, to recline. 1 Sam. xvi. 11, comp. Sept., Chald., Syriac, Arabic, Vulg. in loco,) seats set round, couches set in a circle, for reclining at the repast, according to the Oriental custom, (see Rosenmüller, Orient. iii. 631;) so the Sept. ἀνάκλισις. Vulg. accubitus, Rashbam, ‏בהסיבות אכילות המשתה‎, in the couch at the partaking of the repast; and comp. Ps. cxxviii. 3. The reading of ‏במסכו‎, in aulaeo, tentorio, instead of ‏במסבו‎, proposed by Houbigant, is both needless and unauthorized. ‏נֵרְדְּ‎, spikenard or nard, νάρδος, is the Valeriana Jatamansi, a plant peculiar to Hither India. It was obtained from India by way of Arabia and Southern Asia. The perfume extracted from it was highly prized. Thus we are told (Mark xiv. 31), when the Saviour sat at meat in Bethany, “there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious, and she broke the box, and poured it upon his head,” (comp. also John xii. 31,) which Judas, the betrayer, estimated at three hundred pence, about eight pounds ten shillings. The Romans considered this perfume so precious that Horace promises Virgil a whole cadus, about nine gallons, of wine for a small onyx-box full of spikenard. See Pliny, Hist. Nat. xiii. 2; Sir W. Jones, Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 416; Rosenmüller, Mineralogy and Botany of the Bible, p. 166; Kitto, Cyclop. Bib. Lit.; Winer, Bib. Dict. s.v.