Solomon
Song of Solomon 7:11ESV·traditional attribution
Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages;
Keil & Delitzsch Lutheran
The shepherd theory collapses under its own weight: Solomon speaks to Shulamith, she answers not to him but soliloquizes to an invisible shepherd wandering in moonlight, a phantom lover more shadowy than credible. How much sounder to read her as genuinely thinking of Solomon himself under shepherd imagery, since she calls him shepherd and remains a shepherdess in heart even as queen.
AI summary