6

The Daughters of Jerusalem

  1Where has your beloved gone,
   O fairest among women?
   Where has your beloved turned aside,
   That we may seek him with you?

The Shulamite

  2My beloved has gone to his garden,
   To the beds of spices,
   To feed his flock in the gardens,
   And to gather lilies.
   3I am my beloved’s,
   And my beloved is mine.
   He feeds his flock among the lilies.

Praise of the Shulamite’s Beauty

The Beloved

  4O my love, you are as beautiful as Tirzah,
   Lovely as Jerusalem,
   Awesome as an army with banners!
   5Turn your eyes away from me,
   For they have overcome me.
   Your hair islike a flock of goats
   Going down from Gilead.
   6Your teeth are like a flock of sheep
   Which have come up from the washing;
   Every one bears twins,
   And none is barren among them.
   7Like a piece of pomegranate
   Are your temples behind your veil.
  8There are sixty queens
   And eighty concubines,
   And virgins without number.
   9My dove, my perfect one,
   Is the only one,
   The only one of her mother,
   The favorite of the one who bore her.
   The daughters saw her
   And called her blessed,
   The queens and the concubines,
   And they praised her.
  10Who is she who looks forth as the morning,
   Fair as the moon,
   Clear as the sun,
   Awesome as an army with banners?

The Shulamite

  11I went down to the garden of nuts
   To see the verdure of the valley,
   To see whether the vine had budded
   And the pomegranates had bloomed.
   12Before I was even aware,
   My soul had made me
   As the chariots of my noble people.

The Beloved and His Friends

  13Return, return, O Shulamite;
   Return, return, that we may look upon you!

The Shulamite

  What would you see in the Shulamite—
   As it were, the dance of the two camps?