4 Behold, you are beautiful, my love,
    behold, you are beautiful!
Your eyes are doves
    behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
    leaping down the slopes of Gilead.
² Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes
    that have come up from the washing,
all of which bear twins,
    and not one among them has lost its young.
³ Your lips are like a scarlet thread,
    and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
    behind your veil.
⁴ Your neck is like the tower of David,
    built in rows of stone;
on it hang a thousand shields,
    all of them shields of warriors.
⁵ Your two breasts are like two fawns,
    twins of a gazelle,
    that graze among the lilies.
⁶ Until the day breathes
    and the shadows flee,
I will go away to the mountain of myrrh
    and the hill of frankincense.
⁷ You are altogether beautiful, my love;
    there is no flaw in you.
⁸ Come with me from Lebanon, my bride;
    come with me from Lebanon.
Depart from the peak of Amana,
    from the peak of Senir and Hermon,
from the dens of lions,
    from the mountains of leopards.

Let my beloved come to his garden,
    and eat its choicest fruits.

5 I came to my garden, my sister, my bride,
    I gathered my myrrh with my spice,
    I ate my honeycomb with my honey,
    I drank my wine with my milk.

Eat, friends, drink,
    and be drunk with love!

² I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My beloved is knocking.
“Open to me, my sister, my love,
    my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is wet with dew,
    my locks with the drops of the night.”
³ I had put off my garment;
    how could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet;
    how could I soil them?
⁴ My beloved put his hand to the latch,
    and my heart was thrilled within me.
⁵ I arose to open to my beloved,
    and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
    on the handles of the bolt.
⁶ I opened to my beloved,
    but my beloved had turned and gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but found him not;
    I called him, but he gave no answer.
⁷ The watchmen found me
    as they went about in the city;
they beat me, they bruised me,
    they took away my veil,
    those watchmen of the walls.
⁸ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
    if you find my beloved,
that you tell him
    I am sick with love.

⁹ What is your beloved more than another beloved,
    O most beautiful among women?
What is your beloved more than another beloved,
    that you thus adjure us?

¹⁰ My beloved is radiant and ruddy,
    distinguished among ten thousand.
¹¹ His head is the finest gold;
    his locks are wavy,
    black as a raven.
¹² His eyes are like doves
    beside streams of water,
bathed in milk,
    sitting beside a full pool.
¹³ His cheeks are like beds of spices,
    mounds of sweet-smelling herbs.
His lips are lilies,
    dripping liquid myrrh.
¹⁴ His arms are rods of gold,
    set with jewels.
His body is polished ivory,
    bedecked with sapphires.
¹⁵ His legs are alabaster columns,
    set on bases of gold.
His appearance is like Lebanon,
    choice as the cedars.
¹⁶ His mouth is most sweet,
    and he is altogether desirable.
This is my beloved and this is my friend,
    O daughters of Jerusalem.

6 Where has your beloved gone,
    O most beautiful among women?
Where has your beloved turned,
    that we may seek him with you?

² My beloved has gone down to his garden
    to the beds of spices,
to graze in the gardens
    and to gather lilies.
³ I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;
    he grazes among the lilies.

⁴ You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,
    lovely as Jerusalem,
    awesome as an army with banners.
⁵ Turn away your eyes from me,
    for they overwhelm me—
Your hair is like a flock of goats
    leaping down the slopes of Gilead.
⁶ Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
    that have come up from the washing;
all of them bear twins;
    not one among them has lost its young.
⁷ Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
    behind your veil.
⁸ There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,
    and virgins without number.
⁹ My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,
    the only one of her mother,
    pure to her who bore her.
The young women saw her and called her blessed;
    the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.

¹¹ I went down to the nut orchard
    to look at the blossoms of the valley,
to see whether the vines had budded,
    whether the pomegranates were in bloom.
¹² Before I was aware, my desire set me
    among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.

¹³ Return, return, O Shulammite,
    return, return, that we may look upon you.

Why should you look upon the Shulammite,
    as upon a dance before two armies?