The Song of Songs is the Tanakh's only extensive discourse on human, erotic love. The book consists of a series of poems in which the speech of two lovers is interspersed with occasional comments by other voices. Throughout the poems, the lovers describe them­ selves and each other, and their feelings of love, desire, and longing. While the book has no narrative plot, the relationship between the lovers is marked by cycles of absence and presence. Poems which celebrate the presence of a lover alternate with poems of longing and poems of invitation. While both lovers speak within the text, the woman is the more active and articulate character. Her experiences, feelings, and perceptions are the central content of the poem. This suggests to some that a woman may have authored parts of the Song.