¹I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride!

I have gathered my myrrh and my spices.

I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey;

I have drunk my wine and my milk.

Eat, dear friends!

Drink and get drunk on love!

A missed encounter

²I was sleeping, but my heart was awake.

A sound! My love is knocking:

“Open for me, my sister, my dearest,

³“I have taken off my tunic—

I have bathed my feet—

⁴My love put his hand in through the latch hole,

⁵I rose; I went to open for my love,

⁶I went and opened for my love,

but my love had turned, gone away.

I nearly died when he turned away.

I looked for him but couldn’t find him.

⁷They found me—the guards

They struck me, bruised me.

They took my shawl away from me,

⁸I place you under oath, daughters of Jerusalem:

If you find my love, what should you tell him?

⁹How is your lover different from any other lover,

How is your lover different from any other lover,

In praise of him

¹⁰My lover is radiant and ruddy;

¹¹His head is finest gold;

¹²His eyes are like doves

They are bathing in milk,

¹³His cheeks are like fragrant plantings,

¹⁴His arms are gold cylinders

His belly is smooth ivory

¹⁵His thighs are pillars of whitest stone

His appearance—like Lebanon,

¹⁶His mouth is everything sweet,

This is my love, this my dearest,