Study Desk

Your feet are beautiful in sandals, you daughter of a prince. Your round thighs are like jewels shaped by an artist.

Your navel is like a round drinking cup always filled with wine. Your stomach is like a pile of wheat surrounded with lilies.

Your breasts are like two fawns, like twins of a gazelle.

Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon near the gate of Bath Rabbim. Your nose is like the mountain of Lebanon that looks down on Damascus.

Your head is like Mount Carmel, and your hair is like purple cloth; the king is captured in its folds.

You are beautiful and pleasant; my love, you are full of delights.

You are tall like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its bunches of fruit.

I said, "I will climb up the palm tree and take hold of its fruit." Let your breasts be like bunches of grapes, the smell of your breath like apples,

and your mouth like the best wine.

The Woman Speaks to the Man

Let this wine go down sweetly for my lover; may it flow gently past the lips and teeth.

I belong to my lover, and he desires only me.

Come, my lover, let's go out into the country and spend the night in the fields.

Let's go early to the vineyards and see if the buds are on the vines. Let's see if the blossoms have already opened and if the pomegranates have bloomed. There I will give you my love.

The mandrake flowers give their sweet smell, and all the best fruits are at our gates. I have saved them for you, my lover, the old delights and the new.

I wish you were like my brother who fed at my mother's breasts. If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and no one would look down on me.

I would lead you and bring you to my mother's house; she is the one who taught me. I would give you a drink of spiced wine from my pomegranates.

My lover's left hand is under my head, and his right arm holds me tight.

Women of Jerusalem, promise not to awaken or excite my feelings of love until it is ready.

Who is this coming out of the desert, leaning on her lover?

The Man Speaks to the Woman

I woke you under the apple tree where you were born; there your mother gave birth to you.

Put me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm. Love is as strong as death; jealousy is as strong as the grave. Love bursts into flames and burns like a hot fire.

Even much water cannot put out the flame of love; floods cannot drown love. If a man offered everything in his house for love, people would totally reject it.

We have a little sister, and her breasts are not yet grown. What should we do for our sister on the day she becomes engaged?

If she is a wall, we will put silver towers on her. If she is a door, we will protect her with cedar boards.

I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. So I was to him, as one who brings happiness.

Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He rented the vineyards for others to tend, and everyone who rented had to pay twenty-five pounds of silver for the fruit.

But my own vineyard is mine to give. Solomon, the twenty-five pounds of silver are for you, and five pounds are for those who tend the fruit.

You who live in the gardens, my friends are listening for your voice; let me hear it.

Hurry, my lover, be like a gazelle or a young deer on the mountains where spices grow.