Song of Solomon 1:8

"If you do not know yourself, go out, you, in the tracks of the flocks, and graze your goats in the tents of the shepherds." Go out in the tracks, not of the flock but of the flocks, and graze, not like Peter my sheep but your goats; in the tabernacles, not of the shepherd but of the shepherds; not of unity but of division, not established in the place where there is one flock and one shepherd.By this answer she has been stiffened, built up, made stronger as the beloved wife, ready to die for her husband and live with her husband.

If you do not know yourself, O fairest among women, go forth, etc. Why, he says, do you speak in such a way as if you could by any means be abandoned by me amidst temptation, and you complain that you have been darkened by the excessive fervor in guarding our vineyard from the enemies, as if by the sun of midday, which I myself have endowed through the washing of regeneration to be already fair among women, that is, among the synagogues of other doctrines, but I have decided that you should be rendered much fairer by the examination of tribulations? But if you perhaps do not know this, do you not now remember that no one is crowned unless he has competed according to the rules (II Tim. II)? Withdraw from my company, and follow after the footsteps of the flocks; that is, imitate the acts of those who err, although I have decreed you rather to be the keeper of my one flock, which was to have one fold and one shepherd.

If you do not know yourself, O beautiful among women, go forth in the tracks of the flocks, and feed your goats in the tents of the shepherds. In the tracks, he says, of the shepherds you will become the last; not among the sheep, but among your goats, dwelling with whom you cannot be with me, that is, with the good shepherd. I have likened you to my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh. If you wish to understand, O bride, how you ought to know yourself, learn to whom I have compared you, and now you will see that you are such a one as ought not to be disfigured, when you have known your own beauty. What, then, is it? I have likened you to my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh. I know the bridegroom to be a horseman, the prophet saying: And his riding is salvation. You are likened, therefore, to my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh. As much as my cavalry — I who am the Lord, and drown in the waves Pharaoh, and his crested ones, and his riders, and his horses, and his chariots — as much, I say, as my cavalry differs from the horses of Pharaoh, so much are you, O bride, O soul of the Church, better than all the daughters, better than all souls that are not of the Church. If, then, you are a soul of the Church, you are better than all souls; if you are not better, you are not of the Church. I have likened you to my cavalry among the chariots of Pharaoh, my love. Then he describes the beauty of the bride with spiritual love.