CHAPTER 1

¹The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

                ²Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,

                    for your loving is better than wine.

                ³For fragrance your oils are goodly,

                    poured oil is your name.

                          And so the young women love you.

                ⁴Draw me after you, let us run.

                    The king has brought me to his chamber.

                Let us be glad and rejoice in you.

                    Let us extol your loving beyond wine.

                          Rightly do they love you.

                ⁵I am dark but desirable,

                    O daughters of Jerusalem,

                like the tents of Kedar,

                    like Solomon’s curtains.

                ⁶Do not look on me for being dark,

                    for the sun has glared on me.

                My mother’s sons were incensed with me,

                    they made me a keeper of the vineyards.

                          My own vineyard I have not kept.

                ⁷Tell me, whom I love so,

                    where you pasture your flock at noon,

                lest I go straying

                    after the flocks of your companions.

                ⁸—If you do not know, O fairest of women,

                    go out in the tracks of the sheep

                and graze your goats

                    by the shepherd’s shelters.

                ⁹To my mare among Pharaoh’s chariots

                    I likened you, my friend.

                ¹⁰Your cheeks are lovely with looped earrings,

                    your neck with beads.

                ¹¹Earrings of gold we will make for you

                    with silver filigree.

                ¹²While the king was on his couch

                    my nard gave off its scent.

                ¹³A sachet of myrrh is my lover to me,

                    all night between my breasts.

                ¹⁴A cluster of henna, my lover to me,

                    in the vineyards of Ein-Gedi.

                ¹⁵O you are fair, my friend,

                    O you are fair, your eyes are doves.

                ¹⁶—O you are fair, my lover, you are sweet,

                    our bed is verdant, too.

                ¹⁷Our house’s beams are cedar,

                    our rafters evergreens.