people (more on this below), yet their voices (along with the supporting chorus, often called the “daughters of Jerusalem”) provide a kind of consistency throughout the book. It is not that new poems introduce different characters. Rather, different poems deal with the same characters but do not tell a single, unified story. In addition, the Song has a kind of coherence that is provided by two refrains that are repeated in the book. On two occasions, the woman says, “His left hand is under my head,