שיר השירים חSong of Songs 8

If only it could be as with a brother,
As if you had nursed at my mother’s breast:
Then I could kiss you
When I met you in the street,
And no one would despise me.

I would lead you, I would bring you
To the house of my mother,
Of her who taught me—
I would let you drink of the spiced wine,
Of my pomegranate juice.

His left hand was under my head,
His right hand caressed me.

I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem:
Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!

Who is she that comes up from the desert,
Leaning upon her beloved?
Under the apple tree I roused you;
It was there your mother conceived you,
There she who bore you conceived you.

Let me be a seal upon your heart,
Like the seal upon your hand.
For love is fierce as death,
Passion is mighty as Sheol;
Its darts are darts of fire,
A blazing flame.

Vast floods cannot quench love,
Nor rivers drown it.
If someone offered all his household’s wealth for love,
He would be laughed to scorn.

“We have a little sister,
Whose breasts are not yet formed.
What shall we do for our sister
When she is spoken for?

If she be a wall,
We will build upon it a silver battlement;
If she be a door,
We will panel it in cedar.”

I am a wall,
My breasts are like towers.
So I became in his eyes
As one who finds favor.

Solomon had a vineyard
In Baal-hamon.
He had to post guards in the vineyard:
Anyone would give for its fruit
A thousand pieces of silver.

I have my very own vineyard:
You may have the thousand, O Solomon,
And the guards of the fruit two hundred!

O you who linger in the garden,
A lover is listening;
Let me hear your voice.

“Hurry, my beloved,
Swift as a gazelle or a young stag,
To the hills of spices!”