Song of Songs

4 through your tresses. Your neck is like the Tower of David, built in splendor, a s thousand shields adorning it, the shields of all the heroes. Your two breasts are 6 like young twins of a she-gazelle, pasturing in lilies. Until the day has breathed its light, and the shadows have flown, I am going to the hill of myrrh, to the 7 slopes of frankincense. And all of you is beauty, my love, is flawless; wholly. 8 Come with me from Lebanon, bride, come down with me from Lebanon; from the peak of Amana descend, from the peaks of Senir and Hermon, from the 9 lions’ haunts, the leopards’ hills. You have taken my heart, my sister, my bride; either one of your eyes would take my heart, any strand of the necklace you 10 wear. How beautiful your love is, my sister, my bride, how much better than 1 any wine your love, and finer than all perfumes the scent of your oils. Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk lie under your tongue, and on your dress lingers Lebanon's scent. 13 Alocked garden is my sister, my bride, a locked well, a spring sealed up - yet your dry ground is a grove of pomegranates, of the sweetest of fruits, henna plants, 14 musk-root; musk-root and saffron, calamus, cinnamon, every kind of fragrant 1S tree. With myrrh plants and aloe, with all the finest spices; and a spring to water gardens, a well of living waters, waters flowing down from Lebanon. 16 [She] Wake now, north wind, south wind, come: breathe life into my garden, let its perfumes flow. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat his sweetest fruits. 51 [He] I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh and my balsam, I have eaten my honeycomb with honey, I have drunk my wine with milk - [Friends] Eat, loved ones, eat; drink, drink deep of love. 2 [She] Iam asleep; my heart is awake — my beloved’s voice, knocking - “Open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfection, for my head is covered with 3 dew, my locks with fragments of the night.” “I have taken off my dress, how can 4 I put it on again? I have already washed my feet, how can I dirty them?” My S_ beloved stretches his hand through the door - and my being longs for him. I rise to open the door for my beloved; my hands are dripping with myrrh, my fingers 6 are streaming with myrrh oil, all over the handles of the latch. I open for my beloved — he has slipped away; gone. I had fainted for him as he spoke - I search 7 for him, I cannot find him; I call out, but he does not answer. The guards find me, those who go around the town; they beat me, they wound me, they pull my 8 scarffrom me, those guardians of the walls. Swear to me, daughters of Jerusalem; if you find my beloved, swear that you will tell him — tell him I am sick with love. 9 [Friends] What makes your lover so much more than other lovers, you most beautiful of women? What makes your lover so much more than other men, that this is what you have us swear?