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The Friends

Where has your lover gone,
most beautiful of women?
Where did your lover turn?
We will look for him with you.

I Am His. He Is Mine.

The Woman

My lover has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens,
and to gather lilies.

I am my lover’s, and my lover is mine.
He browses among the lilies.

You Are Beautiful

The Man

You are as beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah,[a]
lovely as Jerusalem,
majestic as troops with banners.

Turn your eyes away from me,
because they arouse me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
flowing down from Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin. Not one of them is alone.
Your cheeks behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.
There may be sixty queens,
and eighty concubines,
and virgins beyond number,
but my dove, my perfect one, is one of a kind.
She is the only daughter of her mother,
pure to the one who bore her.
The girls saw her and called her blessed.
The queens and concubines also praised her.

The Friends

10 Who is this woman that appears like the dawn,
beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun,
majestic as the stars in procession?

A Puzzling Interlude

The Woman or The Man[b]

11 I went down to the grove of nut trees,
to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see whether the vines had budded,
    whether the pomegranates had blossomed.

12 Before I realized it, my desire set me
among the chariots of my willing people.[c]

Beautiful From Bottom to Top

The Friends

13 Turn back, turn back, O Shulammite.
Turn back, turn back, so that we may look at you![d]

Footnotes

  1. Song of Songs 6:4 Tirzah is a city in Israel. Its name means delightful.
  2. Song of Songs 6:11 The identity of the speaker of these verses is uncertain.
  3. Song of Songs 6:12 This is a difficult verse of uncertain meaning.
  4. Song of Songs 6:13 English verse 6:13 is 7:1 in Hebrew. In the rest of chapter 7, the English verse numbers are one lower than the Hebrew verse numbers.