CHAPTER 6
1Where has your lover gone,
O fairest among women.
Where has your lover turned
that we might seek him with you?
2—My lover has gone down to his garden,
to the spice beds,
to graze in the garden
and to gather lilies.
3I am my lover’s and my lover is mine,
who grazes among the lilies.
4—You are fair, my friend, as Tirzah,
lovely as Jerusalem,
daunting as what looms on high.
5Turn away your eyes from me,
for they have overwhelmed me.
Your hair is like a herd of goats
that have swept down from Mount Gilead.
6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
that have come up from the washing,
all of them alike
and none has lost its young.
7Like cut pomegranate your cheekbones
through the screen of your tresses.
8Sixty are there queens
and young women beyond number.
9Just one is my dove, my pure one,
The girls saw her and called her happy,
queens and concubines, and they praised her.
10Who is this espied like the dawn,
fair as the moon,
dazzling as the sun,
daunting as what looms on high?
11To the walnut garden I went down
to see the buds of the brook,
to see if the vine had blossomed,
if the pomegranate trees were in flower.
12I scarcely knew myself,