“We stood amazed to see your mistress mourn; Unknowing that she pined for your return: We wonder’d why she kept her fruit so long, For whom so late th’ ungather’d apples hung: But no, the wonder ceases, since I see She kept them only, Tityrus, for thee.” ‏דּוּדָאִים‎, which occurs only once more, (Gen. xxx. 14), is, according to the testimony of the ancient versions, the mass of commentators and modern travellers, the mandrake-plant, Atropa mandragora, called yabrochack by the Arabs, the fruit of which is highly valued by the Orientals for its supposed exhilarating, aphrodisiac, and procreative properties. “It grows low, like lettuce, to which its leaves have a strong resemblance, except that they have a dark green colour. The flowers are purple, and the root is for the most part forked. The fruit, when ripe, in the beginning of May, is of the size and colour of a small apple, exceedingly ruddy, and of a most agreeable flavour.” See Kitto, Cyclop. Bib. Lit.; Winer, Bib. Dict. s.v. Here, however, this plant is mentioned merely to fill out the picture of charming and highly prized plants, without reference to any supposed internal properties, and has evidently been suggested by the preceding ‏דּוֹדִי‎, beloved. ‏דּוּדָאִים‎, lit. love-apples, is the plural of ‏דּוּדַי‎, from the root ‏דּוּד‎, to love, with the termination ‏–ַי‎, like ‏לוּלָאוֹת‎, the plural of ‏לוּלַי‎, from the root ‏לוּל‎. Gesen. § 93, 6, 6; Ewald, § 189 g. ‏וְעַל פְּתַחֵינוּ‎ is well explained by Rashbam, ‏אצל פתח פרדס שלנו‎, “in our garden, close to our door,” &c. ‏עַל‎ has not unfrequently the sense of neighbourhood and contiguity. Gesen. Lexicon, ‏עַל‎ 3. Others however render ‏עַל‎, over, i.e. “and over our doors grow,” &c.; others again translate in, i.e. “in our house are,” &c., taking ‏פֶּתַח‎ in the sense of house; comp. Prov. xiv. 19, but with less probability. Houbigant’s transposition of letters, viz. ‏על תפחינו‎, in nostris malis aureis, instead of ‏על פתחינו‎, is an idle conjecture.