2* Let him give me kisses from his mouth,

for your love is better than wine.

3** Your oils are good to smell;

your name is Turak oil;

therefore the girls love you.

4*** Draw me after you; we will run;

bring me into your chambers, king!

We will be gay and glad in you;

we think more of your love than of wine;

rightly they love you.

5** I am dark but handsome, daughters of Jerusalem,

like Kedar’s tents, like Solomon’s curtains.

6* Do not notice how dark I am,

how the sun has taken a look at me;

My mother’s sons were cross with me,

set me to watch the vineyards;

my own vineyard I did not watch.

7* Tell me, you whom my soul loves,

where you are pasturing your flock,

where you are having them lie down at noon;

Why should I be like a girl wandering at random

by your comrades’ flocks?

8 —If you do not know,

most beautiful among women,

Go out on the track of the sheep

and pasture your kids by the shepherds’ tents.

9* To a pony in the Pharaoh’s chariots

I liken you, sweetheart.

10 How handsome your cheeks with face-chains,

your neck with beads!

11 We will make you gold face-chains

with silver studs.

12* —While the king was at his table

my nard gave its scent.

13 My truelove is to me the package of myrrh

lying between my breasts through the night.

14 My truelove is to me a cluster of henna-flowers

in the vineyards of ʽEn-Gedi.

15 —Ah, you are beautiful, sweetheart,

ah, you are beautiful, your eyes are doves.

16 —Ah, you are beautiful, truelove,

winsome too; our couch too is verdant.

17* The beams of our house are cedars,

our rafters are cypresses.

2 I am a narcissus on the plain,

a lily in one of the vales.

2 —Like a lily among the briers,

such is my sweetheart among the daughters.

3 —Like an apple-tree among the trees on the rocks,

such is my truelove among the sons.

I am eager to sit in his shade

and his fruit is sweet to my palate.

4* He has brought me to the winehouse,

and his banner over me is love.

5 Refresh me with raisins,

recover me with apples,

because I am breaking down with love.

6* His left arm clasps my head

and his right embraces me.

7 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the wild does,

Not to wake love or rouse it up

till it so please.

8* My truelove’s step!

here he comes

Leaping along the mountains,

bounding along the hills;

9 My truelove seems like a gazelle

or a young deer.

Here he is standing

outside the wall of our house,

Gazing through the windows,

glancing through the lattices.

10 My truelove speaks up and says to me

“Up, sweetheart;

come on, my beauty,

11 For the winter is over,

the rains are past and gone,

12 The flowers on the ground are out,

song-time has come in

and the turtledove’s note is heard in our country;

13 The fig-tree has its fruit-buds out

and the blooming grapevines are fragrant.

Up, sweetheart;

come on, my beauty.

14 My dove in the crannies of the cliff,

in the covert of the rock-ledge,

Let me see your form,

let me hear your voice,

Because your voice is sweet

and your form is lovely.”

15** “Catch foxes!

Little foxes are damaging vineyards,

and our vineyards are blooming!”

16 My truelove is mine and I am his,

who pastures his flock among the lilies

17* Till the day grows breezy

and the shadows take flight.

Truelove, come round

and do like a gazelle

Or a young deer

on the mountains of Bether.

3 On my bed of nights

I looked for the one that my soul loves,

looked for him and did not find him.

2 Let me stand up and go round in the city

in the streets and the squares

Looking for the one that my soul loves;

I looked for him and did not find him.

3 The watchmen that go round in the city found me:

“Have you seen the one that my soul loves?”

4 I had got a little past them

when I found the one that my soul loves.

I caught hold of him,

did not let go of him

Till I brought him to my mother’s house,

to my parent’s chamber.

5 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the wild does,

Not to wake love or rouse it up

till it so please.

6* Who is this coming up out of the wilderness

like columns of smoke,

Perfumed with burnings of myrrh and frankincense,

with every powder money can buy?

7 Here comes Solomon’s bed,

Sixty champions round it,

champions of Israel,

8 All of them sword-wielders,

men trained to war,

Each with sword on thigh

against night alarms.

9 King Solomon has made himself a palanquin

of wood from the Lebanon,

10* Made its legs of silver,

its back of gold,

Its seat of purple,

its body inlaid with ebony.

11 Daughters of Jerusalem, go out

and gaze at King Solomon

In the wreath his mother put on him

on his wedding-day,

the day of his heart’s gladness.

4* Ah, you are beautiful, sweetheart,

ah, you are beautiful.

Your eyes are doves

behind your veil.

Your hair is like a flock of goats

that overflow a Gilead mountain.

2 Your teeth are like the flock for clipping

as they come up from the washing,

Flock where they all have twins

and not one has lost a lamb.

3* Your lips are like scarlet thread

and your mouth is lovely.

Your temple is like a segment of pomegranate

behind your veil.

4* Your neck is like David’s tower

built for an armory,

With the thousand shields hung on it,

all the bucklers of the champions.

5 Your two breasts are like two fawns,

a gazelle’s twins

That pasture among the lilies

6 till the day grows breezy

and the shadows take flight.

I wend my way to the mountain of myrrh

and to the hill of frankincense.

7 You are beautiful all of you, sweetheart,

and there is nothing wrong about you.

8* With me from Lebanon, bride,

with me from Lebanon you shall come,

You shall look off from the top of Amana,

from the tops of Shenir and Hermon,

From lions’ haunts,

from leopards’ mountains.

9** You have driven me out of my senses, my sister, bride;

you have driven me out of my senses with one of your eyes,

with one bead of your necklace.

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

how much better than wine is your love,

and the scent of your oils than all spices!

11 Your lips drip purest honey, bride;

you have honey and milk under your tongue,

and the scent of your clothes is like that of Lebanon.

12* A locked garden is my sister, bride,

a locked garden, a sealed water-spring.

13* Your sprays are an orchard

of pomegranates and priceless fruits,

plants of henna and nard,

14 Nard and saffron, sweet flag and cinnamon,

with all frankincense-bearing trees,

Myrrh and eaglewood

with all rarest spices.

15* —The spring in my garden

is a well of living water

and a flow from Lebanon.

16 Wake, north wind, and come, south,

blow through my garden, let its spices flow.

Let my truelove come into his garden

and eat its priceless fruits.

5* —I come into my garden, my sister, bride,

gather my myrrh with my balsam,

Eat my honeycomb with my honey,

drink my wine with my milk.

—Eat, friend,

drink and carouse, truelove!

2 I was asleep but my heart was awake:

the sound of my truelove knocking!

“Open to me, my sister,

my sweetheart, my dove, my ideal,

Because my head has got full of dew,

my locks of night drops.”

3 “I have taken off my tunic;

how can I put it on?

I have washed my feet;

how can I soil them?”

4 My truelove put his hand through the hole

and my bosom was in a turmoil over him.

5 I stood up to open for my truelove,

and my hands were dripping with myrrh

And my fingers with myrrh that went over

to the handles of the bolt.

6 I did open for my truelove,

but my truelove had turned round and gone.

The life had gone out of me at his speaking;

I looked for him and did not find him,

called him and he did not answer me.

7 The guards that go round in the city

found me, beat me, wounded me;

The guards of the walls

took my mantle off me.

8 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,

if you find my truelove,

To what you are to tell him:

that I am breaking down with love.

9 “What sort of truelove is yours,

most beautiful among women?

What sort of truelove is yours,

that you adjure us like that?”

10 My truelove is white and red,

outstanding among ten thousand.

11* His head is nuggets of red gold;

his locks are waving,

black as a raven.

12* His eyes are like doves by dingles of water,

bathed in milk and laid in settings.

13 His cheeks are like beds of sweet herbs

growing perfumers’ stock;

His lips are lilies

that drip flowing myrrh.

14 His arms are cylinders of gold

set with jasper;

His waist is a block of ivory

overspread with sapphires.

15 His legs are pillars of marble

resting on bases of red gold.

The look of him is like the Lebanon,

admirable as the cedars.

16* His talk is luscious

and everything about him fascinating.

This is my truelove and this is my friend,

daughters of Jerusalem.

6 “Which way did your truelove go,

most beautiful among women?

Which way did your truelove turn?

and we will look for him with you.”

2 My truelove went down to his garden,

to the beds of sweet herbs,

To crop the gardens

and pick lilies.

3 I am my truelove’s and my truelove is mine,

who pastures his flock among lilies.

4* You are beautiful, sweetheart, as Tirsah,

lovely as Jerusalem,

terrible as the aurora.

5 Turn your eyes off me,

for they overpower me.

Your hair is like a flock of goats

that overflow Gilead.

6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes

as they come up from the washing,

Flock where they all have twins

and not one has lost a lamb.

7 Your temple is like a segment of pomegranate

behind your veil.

8 Sixty are queens and eighty concubines,

and maids innumerable;

9* One is my dove, my ideal,

her mother’s one is she,

her parent’s pure one she.

Girls saw her and felicitated her,

queens and concubines, and praised her.

10 Who is this that looks out like dawn,

beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun,

terrible as the aurora?

11* I went down to the nut-garden

to look over the things starting in the arroyo,

To see if the grapevines had broken out their buds,

if the pomegranates had blossomed.

12* I did not know;

my soul had made me ʽAmmi-Nadib’s chariots.

13 7:1 Come back, come back, Shulammite;

come back, come back, and let us have a look at you.

—What sight of the Shulammite would you have?

—In the camp dance!

7 7:2* How beautifully your feet tap with the shoes,

daughter of a nobleman!

The swing of your hips is like bangles

made by an artist’s hands.

2 7:3 Your navel is like a stirring-bowl—

may there be no lack of wine-mixture!

Your waist is like a heap of wheat

set round with lilies.

3 7:4 Your two breasts are like two fawns,

a gazelle’s twins.

4 7:5** Your neck is like the Ivory Tower.

Your eyes are like the reservoirs at Heshbon

at the Bath-Rabbim gate.

Your nose is like the Lebanon tower

looking out on the Damascus side.

5 7:6* Your head stands on you like Carmel,

and the strands of your head are like purple;

a king is fettered in the threads.

6 7:7* How beautiful you are, how winsome,

love, daughter of delight!

7 7:8 This figure of yours is the likeness of a palm tree;

and your breasts, of clusters.

8 7:9* I think I will climb the palm tree,

take hold of its bunches of fruit,

And let your breasts be like clusters of the grapevine

and the scent of your breath like that of apples,

9 7:10*** And your mouth like the best wine,

running smoothly for my throat,

gliding through my lips and teeth.

10 7:11* I am my truelove’s

and his impulse is toward me.

11 7:12 Come on, truelove, we will go out on the range,

pass the night in the villages,

12 7:13 Be in the vineyards the first thing in the morning

seeing if the grapevines have broken out their buds,

Have come into bloom,

if the pomegranates have blossomed.

There I will give you my love.

13 7:14* The mandrake-apples are giving their scent,

and at our doors are all sorts of fine fruits;

New and last year’s too,

truelove, I have laid up for you.

8* If only you were the same as a brother of mine,

one that had sucked my mother’s breasts!

Finding you in the street, I would kiss you;

they would not despise me either.

2** I would lead you, would bring you to my mother’s house,

to the chamber of her who gave me birth.

I would give you a drink of perfumed wine,

of my pomegranate-wine.

3* His left arm clasps my head

and his right embraces me.

4 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,

why should you wake love or rouse it up

till it so please?

5* Who is this coming up from the wilderness

leaning on her truelove?

Under the apple-tree I waked you up;

it was there your mother bore the birth-pains for you,

there she bore the birth-pains, brought you to birth.

6** Lay me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

For love is violent as death,

jealousy hard as the grave;

Its flashes are flashes of fire,

Jehovah’s flame-throwing.

7* Much water cannot quench love,

and rivers will not sweep it away;

If a man were to give all the goods in his house for love

they would just despise him.

8 “We have a little sister and she has no breasts;

what shall we do for our sister on the day when she is to be spoken for?

9 If she is a wall we will build silver battlements on her,

but if she is a door we will board her up with cedar planks.”

10 I am a wall and my breasts are like the towers;

then I was in his eyes like one who finds peace.

11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon;

he gave the vineyard to keepers,

each to bring in a thousand shekels of silver.

12 I have my own vineyard before me;

the thousand for you, Solomon,

and two hundred for those who keep its fruit safe!

13** You that are sitting in the garden,

comrades are listening for your voice;

let me hear it.

14 —Off with you, truelove,

and do like a gazelle

Or a young deer

on the spice mountains.