Song of Songs 5

¹ I come into my garden, my sister, my promised bride, I gather my myrrh and balsam, I eat my honey and my honeycomb, I drink my wine and my milk. Eat, friends, and drink, drink deep, my dearest friends.

² I sleep, but my heart is awake. I hear my Beloved knocking. ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of night.’

³ – ‘I have taken off my tunic, am I to put it on again? I have washed my feet, am I to dirty them again?’

⁴ My Beloved thrust his hand through the hole in the door; I trembled to the core of my being.

⁵ Then I rose to open to my Beloved, myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle of the bolt.

⁶ I opened to my Beloved, but he had turned his back and gone! My soul failed at his flight. I sought him but I did not find him, I called to him but he did not answer.

⁷ The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds in the City. They beat me, they wounded me, they took away my cloak, they who guard the ramparts.

⁸ I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you should find my Beloved, what must you tell him…? That I am sick with love.

⁹ What makes your Beloved better than other lovers, O loveliest of women? What makes your Beloved better than other lovers, to give us a charge like this?

¹⁰ My Beloved is fresh and ruddy, to be known among ten thousand.

¹¹ His head is golden, purest gold, his locks are palm fronds and black as the raven.

¹² His eyes are doves at a pool of water, bathed in milk, at rest on a pool.

¹³ His cheeks are beds of spices, banks sweetly scented. His lips are lilies, distilling pure myrrh.

¹⁴ His hands are golden, rounded, set with jewels of Tarshish. His belly a block of ivory covered with sapphires.

¹⁵ His legs are alabaster columns set in sockets of pure gold. His appearance is that of Lebanon, unrivalled as the cedars.

¹⁶ His conversation is sweetness itself, he is altogether lovable. Such is my Beloved, such is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.