12; Lam. iv. 2.); and accordingly ought to be rendered so here: “thy head is as gold, gold.” As this, however, would produce tautology, it is therefore best to take ‏פָּז‎ as a contraction of ‏אוּפָז‎ (a variation of ‏אוֹפּיר‎; see Gesenius, s.v.; Henderson on Jer. x. 9, and Stuart on Dan. x. 5), with which this word goes together, 1 Kings x. 18; Jer. x. 9; Dan. x. 5. As ‏אוּפָן‎ = ‏כֶּתֶם אוֹפִיר‎, is regarded as the best gold; hence the rendering of the Vulg. aurum optimum, and Chald. ‏דְהַב טָב‎. Black as the raven, i.e. of the purest and most jet black, so highly esteemed by the Orientals as well as by the classical writers. Thus Hafiz, as quoted by Dr. Good:— “Thy face is brighter than the cheek of day. Blacker thy locks than midnight’s deepest sway.” And Ossian, Fingal, 2: “Her hair was the wing of the raven.” Comp. also Anac. xxix.; Ovid. Am. El. xiv. 9. ‏תַּלְהַּלִּים‎, is rendered by the Sept. ἐλαταί, the young leaves of the palm; so the Vulg. sicut elatæ palmarum; similarly Gesenius, De Wette, &c., pendulous branches of the palm; but this signification does not lie in the root ‏תָּלַל‎, which simply means waving, hanging, or flowing down; hence ‏תַּלְתַּלִּים‎ (according to the analogy of ‏זַלְזַלִּים‎ and ‏סַלְסַלִּים‎, comp. Ewald, § 158, b) flowing curls, locks. 12. His eyes, like doves, &c. The vivid and black pupils of his eyes, sparkling forth from the encircling lactean white, in which they are, as it were, bathing and sitting on the fountain of tears, resemble doves bathing gaily in pellucid streams. The doves themselves, and not their eyes, are the point of comparison (vide supra, i. 15, and iv. 1.) Doves are very fond of bathing, and hence choose for their abode regions abounding with streams (Boch. Hieroz. ii. 1, c. 2.) The deep blue or grey dove, reflecting the lustrous dark hue about its neck when bathing in the limpid brook, suggested this beautiful simile. A similar figure occurs in the Gitagovinda: “The glances of her eyes played like a pair of water-birds of azure plumage, that sport near a full-blown lotos in a pool in the season of dew.” The words ‏רֹחֲצוֹת בֶּחָלָב‎, bathing in milk, referring to the eyes, are descriptive of the milky white in which the black pupils of the eyes are, as it were, bathing. ‏עַל מִלֵּאת‎, on the fulness, also referring to the eyes, correspond to the ‏עַל אֲפִיקֵי מַיִם‎, by the brooks of water, which are predicated of the doves. Hodgson’s rendering of ‏יֹשְׁבוֹת עַל מִלֵּאת‎, by “and dwell among the ripe corn,” is absurd.