The article re-examines the polemics between Theodore Beza and Gilbert Génébrard over the ques tion of the Hugue not poet’s versified Latin paraphrases of the Psalms (1579) and the Song of Solomon (1584). The two controversialists have similar interpretations of the second book, our sole focus here, in terms of both the allegorical method they adopt and the ecclesiastical meaning they attribute to the bucolic parable foreshadowing Christ and the Church. In other words, the controversy is not so much about dogma as poetics and ethics ; the Hebrew scholar and philologist maintains that there is only one type of sacred prosody suited to versifying the Bible in Latin, while the poet allows himself to use various lyrical meters. This only goes to show how, throughout his life, Beza was first and foremost a poet.