Canticle of Canticles 5

¹ LOVER: I come into my garden, my sister, my promised bride, I pick my myrrh and balsam, I eat myhoney and my honeycomb, I drink my wine and my milk. POET: Eat, friends, and drink, drink deep, my dearestfriends.

² BELOVED: I sleep, but my heart is awake. I hear my love knocking. 'Open to me, my sister, my beloved,my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair 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 love thrust his hand through the hole in the door; I trembled to the core of my being.

⁵ Then I got up to open to my love, myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle ofthe bolt.

⁶ I opened to my love, but he had turned and gone. My soul failed at his flight, I sought but could not findhim, I cal ed, but he did not answer.

⁷ The watchmen met me, those who go on their rounds in the city. They beat me, they wounded me, theytook my cloak away from me: those guardians of the ramparts!

⁸ I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you should find my love, what are you to tel him? -That I amsick with love!

⁹ CHORUS: What makes your lover better than other lovers, O loveliest of women? What makes yourlover better than other lovers, to put us under such an oath?

¹⁰ BELOVED: My love 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 like doves beside the water-courses, bathing themselves in milk, perching on a fountain-rim.

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

¹⁴ His hands are golden, rounded, set with jewels of Tarshish. His bel y a block of ivory covered withsapphires.

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

¹⁶ His conversation is sweetness itself, he is altogether lovable. Such is my love, such is my friend, Odaughters of Jerusalem.