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Expressions of Praise

7How graceful are your feet in sandals,
   O queenly maiden!
Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
   the work of a master hand.
² Your navel is a rounded bowl
   that never lacks mixed wine.
Your belly is a heap of wheat,
   encircled with lilies.
³ Your two breasts are like two fawns,
   twins of a gazelle.
⁴ Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are pools in Heshbon,
   by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon,
   overlooking Damascus.
⁵ Your head crowns you like Carmel,
   and your flowing locks are like purple;
   a king is held captive in the tresses.^*

⁶ How fair and pleasant you are,
   O loved one, delectable maiden!^*
7 You are stately^* as a palm tree,
   and your breasts are like its clusters.
⁸ I say I will climb the palm tree
   and lay hold of its branches.
O may your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
   and the scent of your breath like apples,
⁹ and your kisses^* like the best wine
   that goes down^* smoothly,
   gliding over lips and teeth.^*

¹⁰ I am my beloved’s,
   and his desire is for me.
¹¹ Come, my beloved,
   let us go forth into the fields,
   and lodge in the villages;
¹² let us go out early to the vineyards,
   and see whether the vines have budded,
whether the grape blossoms have opened
   and the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.
¹³ The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
   and over our doors are all choice fruits,
new as well as old,
   which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.

8O that you were like a brother to me,
   who nursed at my mother’s breast!
If I met you outside, I would kiss you,
   and no one would despise me.
² I would lead you and bring you
   into the house of my mother,
   and into the chamber of the one who bore me.^*
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
   the juice of my pomegranates.
³ O that his left hand were under my head,
   and that his right hand embraced me!
⁴ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
   do not stir up or awaken love
   until it is ready!

Homecoming

⁵ Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
   leaning upon her beloved?

Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labour with you;
   there she who bore you was in labour.

⁶ Set me as a seal upon your heart,
   as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
   passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
   a raging flame.
⁷ Many waters cannot quench love,
   neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
   all the wealth of one’s house,
   it would be utterly scorned.

⁸ We have a little sister,
   and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister,
   on the day when she is spoken for?
⁹ If she is a wall,
   we will build upon her a battlement of silver;
but if she is a door,
   we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
¹⁰ I was a wall,
   and my breasts were like towers;
then I was in his eyes
   as one who brings^* peace.
¹¹ Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
   he entrusted the vineyard to keepers;
   each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.
¹² My vineyard, my very own, is for myself;
   you, O Solomon, may have the thousand,
   and the keepers of the fruit two hundred!

¹³ O you who dwell in the gardens,
   my companions are listening for your voice;
   let me hear it.

¹⁴ Make haste, my beloved,
   and be like a gazelle
or a young stag
   upon the mountains of spices!