Camphire

Camphire is the older English name for henna — a fragrant flowering shrub, unrelated to camphor. UPDV renders the term as "henna" in both occurrences, which fall in the Song of Songs as figures for the lover and as items in the bride's catalogue of garden produce.

A Cluster of Henna in En-gedi

In the Song's first chapter the bride compares her beloved to the perfumed shrub: "My beloved is to me a cluster of henna-flowers / In the vineyards of En-gedi" (So 1:14). The image is doubly local — En-gedi is a real oasis, and henna a real shrub that grows there — and doubly figurative, since both the cluster and the vineyard are read into the lover.

Henna in the Garden

In the bride's inventory of her own "orchard" the same plant appears as one of its prized aromatics: "Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits; / Henna with spikenard plants," (So 4:13). Here henna stands beside spikenard among the costly fragrances that fill out the garden figure.