I'm analysing "Punishment Without crime" and I need help identifying the part of the text that comes in italics, can anyone help me?

Bible. Old Testament. Solomon's Song (or Song of Songs, depending on translation). Chapter 4, verses 1-7

Thank you Mr Dark! Why in your opinion does B use it there? to make us understand what?

I think he uses the "Song Of Solomon" text to represent the true love Katie and George once had for each other before Katie's affair with Leonard. They had read together the Songs of Solomon as a way of expressing their love for each other. "He remembered again the words they had read so often in the good days." Immediately following that sentence is the first recitation of portions of the Song of Solomon.

The affair is what triggers George's desire to kill Katie, which is what prompts him to go do the illegal "virtual" cathartic murder of the Katie marionette.

When he sees the Katie marionette, he is so awed with her beauty that he can't bring himself to kill her. Instead, he wants to run away with her. But the Katie marionette knows this cannot happen. The virtual murder of marionette-duplicates is already illegal, and instances where people have tried to run away with the marionette-duplicate have resulted in insanity.

When the marionette-duplicate realizes George is not going to kill her, she begins to egg him on with references to: (1) his significantly senior years compared to her, (2) the subject of the affair, Leonard. She begins taunting him with these two. He pulls the gun, but not the trigger. When she begins reciting the words of the Song of Solomon, he then kills her. He can't handle the "mocking" of their formerly true love and it's loss in the affair.

"Somthing began to stir in him. His face grew pale. He knew what was happening. The hidden anger and revulsion and hatred in him were sending out faint pulses of tought. And the delicate telepathic web in her wondrous head was receiving the death impulse. The marionette. The invisible strings. He himself manipulating her body."

She picked up, telepathically, the significance of the Song of Solomon passages. When she begins to recite those, he shoots her.

I think the passages from the Song of Solomon represent their love when it was pure -- at least, he thought it was pure. When he can't pull the trigger on the virtual Katie, the marionette-duplicate picks up on this, and begins reciting them to mock him. He reacts by pumping bullets into her.

I agree with you, my problem is that the versions of the Song of Songs I've found on the internet (English versions) are slightly different from B's version, can you help me on this?

I don't know which version without doing a comparison, but with the thee's and thou's, I'd have to guess King James Version.

I agree with you but there is one word which is different , B uses the word comedy where the SS has comely, and I'm having some difficuties with it.

Could be a misprint; publishers don't always proofread properly.

I agree with Dandelion. I would guess it's a misprint. "Comedy" wouldn't make sense in the context of the story or in the scriputural passage. My sense is that "Comely" must be correct.