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Friends

¹ Where has your lover gone,
most beautiful of women?
Which way did your lover turn,
that we may look for him with you?
Beloved

² My lover has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
and to gather lilies.

³ I am my lover's and my lover is mine;
he browses among the lilies.

Lover

⁴ You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah,
lovely as Jerusalem,
majestic as troops with banners.

⁵ Turn your eyes from me;
they overwhelm me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from Gilead.

⁶ Your teeth are like a flock of sheep
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin,
not one of them is alone.

⁷ Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.

⁸ Sixty queens there may be,
and eighty concubines,
and virgins beyond number;

⁹ but my dove, my perfect one, is unique,
the only daughter of her mother,
the favorite of the one who bore her.
The maidens saw her and called her blessed;
the queens and concubines praised her.

Friends

¹⁰ Who is this that appears like the dawn,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
majestic as the stars in procession?

Lover

¹¹ I went down to the grove of nut trees
to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see if the vines had budded
or the pomegranates were in bloom.

¹² Before I realized it,
my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people.

Friends

¹³ Come back, come back, O Shulammite;
come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!

Lover

Why would you gaze on the Shulammite
as on the dance of Mahanaim?