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

    I have gathered my myrrh with my spice,

  I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey,

    I have drunk my wine with my milk!

  Eat, O friends! Drink and become drunk with love!

 

2   I was asleep but my heart was awake.

    A sound! My beloved knocking!

  “Open to me, my sister, my beloved,

    my dove, my perfect one!

  For my head is full of dew,

    my hair drenched from the moist night air.”

3   I have taken off my tunic, must I put it on?

    I have bathed my feet, must I soil them?

4   My beloved thrust his hand into the opening,

    and my inmost yearned for him.

5   I myself arose to open to my beloved;

    my hands dripped with myrrh,

  my fingers with liquid myrrh

    upon the handles of the bolt.

6   I opened myself to my beloved,

    but my beloved had turned and gone;

  my heart sank when he turned away.

  I sought him, but I did not find him;

    I called him, but he did not answer me.

7   The sentinels making rounds in the city found me;

    they beat me, they wounded me;

  they took my cloak away from me -

    those sentinels on the walls!

 

8   I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem,

    if you find my beloved, what will you tell him?

  Tell him that I am lovesick!

 

9   How is your beloved better than another lover,

    O most beautiful among women?

  How is your beloved better than another lover,

    that you adjure us thus?

10   My beloved is radiant and ruddy,

    distinguished among ten thousand.

11   His head is gold, refined gold;

    his locks are wavy, black as a raven.

12   His eyes are like doves beside springs of water,

    bathed in milk, set like mounted jewels.

13   His cheeks are like beds of spice, a tower of fragrances;

    his lips are lilies dripping liquid myrrh.

14   His arms are rods of gold engraved with jewels;

    his belly is polished ivory covered with sapphires.

15   His legs are columns of alabaster, set on bases of gold;

    his appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars.

16   His mouth is sweet,

    and he is altogether desirable.

  This is my beloved;

    this is my friend, O young women of Jerusalem.