Romantic love in Song of Song!!

This is one of my exegetical study that i have a few weeks ago. I have posted only one verse from Song of Songs 2:1-17. I will continue to post little by little. Hope you enjoy it. Love is pure, and sex is Holy. It is a gift from God to be used in appropriate manner, time and to the right person.
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{2.1}I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley.

In this verse we can understand that it is the girl’s self-appraisal the Sulamith. But does it meant that the Sulamith is beautiful than any other? Is she proclaiming herself the most beautiful women of king’s wives? There are different translation in this verse; I am a meadow-flower of Sharon, a lily of the valley. I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys.

The word “rose” is found elsewhere only in Isa. 35:1, but it appears in Akkadian, meaning “meadow saffron” or crocus; it assuredly does not mean rose, but “saffron” or crocus.Crocus (plural: crocuses, croci) is a genus of perennial flowering plants, native to a large area from coastal and subalpine areas of central and southern Europe (including the islands of the Aegean), North Africa and the Middle East, across Central Asia to western China. Nevertheless it is really uncertain as to what kind of flower is meant here.

Sharon refers to a low-lying costal plain in the south of the Carmel range.

Pic i: Crocus flower in coastal plain.

In the previous verse we read the sulamith herself announce that she has dark complexion. It is possible that she is not such a beautiful lady. This verse could be the proof. When she says “I am the crocus or rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley” it means that I am simply one of the crocuses in the valley which can be understood as common flower. It sounds like she suddenly awakened up by a realization that her true self does not match the praises of her lover. She is aware that she is not really as beautiful as her lover says. So she compares herself to some common flower in the Sharon plain. She also likens herself or compares herself as one of the lily among the thousand lilies in valley as above picture.

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