Song of Solomon 1:2–8:14

Colloquy of the Young Woman and Friends

²Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

For your love is better than wine;^*

³your anointing oils are fragrant;

your name is perfume poured out;

therefore the maidens love you.^*

⁴Draw me after you; let us make haste.

The king has brought me into his chambers.

We will exult and rejoice in you;

we will extol your love more than wine;

rightly do they love you.^*

⁵I am black and beautiful,

O daughters of Jerusalem,

like the tents of Kedar,

like the curtains of Solomon.^*

⁶Do not gaze at me because I am dark,

because the sun has gazed on me.

My mother’s sons were angry with me;

they made me keeper of the vineyards,

but my own vineyard I have not kept!^*

⁷Tell me, you whom my soul loves,

where you pasture your flock,

where you make it lie down at noon,

for why should I be like one who is veiled

beside the flocks of your companions?^*

⁸If you do not know,

O fairest among women,

follow the tracks of the flock

and pasture your kids

beside the shepherds’ tents.^*

Colloquy of the Young Man, Friends, and the Young Woman

⁹I compare you, my love,

to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.^*

¹⁰Your cheeks are comely with ornaments,

your neck with strings of jewels.^*

¹¹We will make you ornaments of gold,

studded with silver.

¹²While the king was on his couch,

my nard gave forth its fragrance.

¹³My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh

that lies between my breasts.

¹⁴My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms

in the vineyards of En-gedi.^*

¹⁵Ah, you are beautiful, my love;

ah, you are beautiful;

your eyes are doves.^*

¹⁶Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved,

truly lovely.

Our couch is green;

¹⁷the beams of our house are cedar;

our rafters^a are pine.^*

²I am a rose of Sharon,

a lily of the valleys.^*

²As a lily among brambles,

so is my love among maidens.

³As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,

so is my beloved among young men.

With great delight I sat in his shadow,

and his fruit was sweet to my taste.^*

⁴He brought me to the banqueting house,

and his intention toward^b me was love.^*

⁵Sustain me with raisins,

refresh me with apples,

for I am faint with love.^*

⁶O that his left hand were under my head

and that his right hand embraced me!^*

⁷I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the wild does:

do not stir up or awaken love

until it is ready!^*

Springtime Rhapsody

⁸The voice of my beloved!

Look, he comes,

leaping upon the mountains,

bounding over the hills.^*

⁹My beloved is like a gazelle

or a young stag.

Look, there he stands

behind our wall,

gazing in at the windows,

looking through the lattice.^*

¹⁰My beloved speaks and says to me:

“Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away,^*

¹¹for now the winter is past,

the rain is over and gone.

¹²The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

is heard in our land.^*

¹³The fig tree puts forth its figs,

and the vines are in blossom;

they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away.^*

¹⁴O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,

in the covert of the cliff,

let me see your face;

let me hear your voice,

for your voice is sweet,

and your face is lovely.^*

¹⁵Catch us the foxes,

the little foxes,

that ruin the vineyards—

for our vineyards are in blossom.”^*

¹⁶My beloved is mine, and I am his;

he pastures his flock among the lilies.^*

¹⁷Until the day breathes

and the shadows flee,

turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle

or a young stag on the cleft mountains.^c*

Love’s Dream

³Upon my bed at night

I sought him whom my soul loves;

I sought him but found him not;

I called him, but he gave no answer.^d*

²“I will rise now and go about the city,

in the streets and in the squares;

I will seek him whom my soul loves.”

I sought him but found him not.^*

³The sentinels found me,

as they went about in the city.

“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”^*

⁴Scarcely had I passed them,

when I found him whom my soul loves.

I held him and would not let him go

until I brought him into my mother’s house

and into the chamber of her that conceived me.^*

⁵I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the wild does:

do not stir up or awaken love

until it is ready!^*

The Young Man and His Party Approach

⁶Who is that coming up from the wilderness

like a column of smoke,

perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,

with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?^*

⁷Look, it is the litter of Solomon!

Around it are sixty mighty men

of the mighty men of Israel,

⁸all equipped with swords

and expert in war,

each with his sword at his thigh

because of alarms by night.^*

⁹King Solomon made himself a palanquin

from the wood of Lebanon.

¹⁰He made its posts of silver,

its back of gold, its seat of purple;

its interior was inlaid with stone.

Daughters^e of Jerusalem,^*

¹¹come out and look^f

at King Solomon,

at the crown with which his mother crowned him

on the day of his wedding,

on the day of the gladness of his heart.

The Young Woman’s Beauty Extolled

⁴How beautiful you are, my love,

how very beautiful!

Your eyes are doves

behind your veil.

Your hair is like a flock of goats,

moving down the slopes of Gilead.^*

²Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes

that have come up from the washing,

all of which bear twins,

and not one among them is bereaved.^*

³Your lips are like a crimson thread,

and your mouth is lovely.

Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate

behind your veil.^*

⁴Your neck is like the tower of David,

built in courses;

on it hang a thousand bucklers,

all of them shields of warriors.^*

⁵Your two breasts are like two fawns,

twins of a gazelle,

that feed among the lilies.^*

⁶Until the day breathes

and the shadows flee,

I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh

and the hill of frankincense.^*

⁷You are altogether beautiful, my love;

there is no flaw in you.^*

⁸Come with me from Lebanon, my bride;

come with me from Lebanon.

Depart^g from the peak of Amana,

from the peak of Senir and Hermon,

from the dens of lions,

from the mountains of leopards.^*

⁹You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride;

you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes,

with one jewel of your necklace.^*

¹⁰How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!

How much better is your love than wine

and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!^*

¹¹Your lips distill nectar, my bride;

honey and milk are under your tongue;

the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.^*

¹²A garden locked is my sister, my bride,

a garden^h locked, a fountain sealed.^*

¹³Your channelⁱ is an orchard of pomegranates

with all choicest fruits,

henna with nard,^*

¹⁴nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,

with all trees of frankincense,

myrrh and aloes,

with all chief spices—^*

¹⁵a garden fountain, a well of living water,

and flowing streams from Lebanon.^*

¹⁶Awake, O north wind,

and come, O south wind!

Blow upon my garden

that its fragrance may be wafted abroad.

Let my beloved come to his garden

that he may eat its choicest fruits.^*

⁵I come to my garden, my sister, my bride;

I gather my myrrh with my spice;

I eat my honeycomb with my honey;

I drink my wine with my milk.

Eat, friends, drink,

and be drunk with love.^*

Another Dream

²I was sleeping, but my heart was awake.

The sound of my beloved knocking!

“Open to me, my sister, my love,

my dove, my perfect one,

for my head is wet with dew,

my locks with the drops of the night.”^*

³I had put off my garment;

how could I put it on again?

I had bathed my feet;

how could I soil them?^*

⁴My beloved thrust his hand into the opening,

and my inmost being yearned for him.

⁵I arose to open to my beloved,

and my hands dripped with myrrh,

my fingers with liquid myrrh,

upon the handles of the bolt.^*

⁶I opened to my beloved,

but my beloved had turned away and was gone.

My soul failed me when he spoke.

I sought him but did not find him;

I called him, but he gave no answer.^*

⁷Making their rounds in the city

the sentinels found me;

they beat me; they wounded me;

they took away my mantle,

those sentinels of the walls.^*

⁸I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

if you find my beloved,

tell him this:

I am faint with love.^*

Colloquy of Friends and the Young Woman

⁹What is your beloved more than another beloved,

O fairest among women?

What is your beloved more than another beloved,

that you thus charge us?^*

¹⁰My beloved is all radiant and ruddy,

distinguished among ten thousand.

¹¹His head is the finest gold;

his locks are wavy,

black as a raven.

¹²His eyes are like doves

beside springs of water,

bathed in milk,

fitly set.^j*

¹³His cheeks are like beds of spices,

yielding fragrance.

His lips are lilies,

dripping liquid myrrh.^*

¹⁴His arms are rounded gold,

set with jewels.

His body is an ivory panel,^k

decorated with sapphires.

¹⁵His legs are alabaster columns,

set upon bases of gold.

His appearance is like Lebanon,

choice as the cedars.

¹⁶His speech is most sweet,

and he is altogether desirable.

This is my beloved, and this is my friend,

O daughters of Jerusalem.^*

⁶Where has your beloved gone,

O fairest among women?

Which way has your beloved turned

that we may seek him with you?^*

²My beloved has gone down to his garden,

to the beds of spices,

to pasture his flock in the gardens

and to gather lilies.^*

³I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine;

he pastures his flock among the lilies.^*

The Young Woman’s Matchless Beauty

⁴You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,

comely as Jerusalem,

terrible as an army with banners.^*

⁵Turn away your eyes from me,

for they overwhelm me!

Your hair is like a flock of goats,

moving down the slopes of Gilead.^*

⁶Your teeth are like a flock of ewes

that have come up from the washing;

all of them bear twins,

and not one among them is bereaved.^*

⁷Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate

behind your veil.^*

⁸There are sixty queens and eighty concubines

and maidens without number.^*

⁹My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,

the darling of her mother,

flawless to her who bore her.

The maidens saw her and called her happy;

the queens and concubines praised her.^*

¹⁰“Who is this that…