CHAPTER 4

                ¹O you are fair, my friend,

                    O you are fair.

                Your eyes are doves

                    through the screen of your tresses.

                Your hair is like a herd of goats

                    that have swept down from Mount Gilead.

                ²Your teeth like a flock of matched ewes

                    that have come up from the washing,

                all of them alike,

                    and none has lost its young.

                ³Like a scarlet thread, your lips,

                    and your tongue—desire.

                Like cut pomegranate your cheekbones

                    through the screen of your tresses.

                ⁴Like the tower of David your neck

                    built gloriously.

                A thousand shields are hung on it,

                    all the warriors’ bucklers.

                ⁵Your two breasts are like two fawns,

                    twins of a gazelle,

                          that graze among the lilies.

                ⁶Till morning’s breeze blows

                    and the shadows flee,

                I will go to the mountain of myrrh

                    and to the hill of frankincense

                ⁷You are wholly fair, my friend,

                    there is no blemish in you.

                ⁸With me from Lebanon, bride,

                    with me from Lebanon come.

                Gaze from the peak of Amanah,

                    from the peak of Senir and Hermon,

                from the lions’ dens,

                    from the leopards’ mountains.

                ⁹You have captured my heart, my sister, bride.

                    You have captured my heart with one glance of your eyes,

                          with one bead of your necklace.

                ¹⁰How beautiful your loving, my sister, bride,

                    how much better your loving than wine,

                          and the scent of your unguents than all perfumes.

                ¹¹Nectar your lips drip, bride,

                    honey and milk are under your tongue,

                and the scent of your robes

                    like Lebanon’s scent.

                ¹²A locked garden, my sister, bride,

                    a locked well, a sealed spring.

                ¹³Your branches, an orchard of pomegranates

                    with luscious fruit,

                          henna and spikenard,

                ¹⁴spikenard and saffron,

                    cane and cinnamon

                          with every tree of frankincense,

                myrrh and aloes

                    with every choice perfume.

                ¹⁵A garden spring,

                    a garden of fresh water

                          and streams from Lebanon.

                ¹⁶—Arise, O north, and come, O south,

                    blow on my garden, let its perfumes flow,

                Let my lover come to his garden

                    and eat its luscious fruit.

                ^5:1—I have come to my garden, my sister, bride,

                    I have gathered my myrrh with my perfume,

                I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey,

                    I have drunk my wine with my milk.

                —Eat, friends, and drink,

                    be drunk with loving.