¶ The Bride's Desire and Praise
A reading from the Book of Song of Solomon.
🔇 Silence
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. 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. I had put off my garment. How could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet. How could I soil them? My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me. I rose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the boat. 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.
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. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with the love of the 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 up? My beloved is radiant and rooty, distinguished among ten thousand,
His head is the finest gold. His locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves, beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting beside a full pool. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet smelling herbs. His lips are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh. His arms are rods of gold, set with jewels. His body is polished ivory, bedecked with sapphire. His legs are alabaster collins, set on bases of gold.
His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved. And this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. Where is your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He grazes among the lilies.
¶ The Beloved's Adoration for Her
You are beautiful as Tizar, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, leaping down the slopes of Gilead. 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. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins without number.
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. Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners? 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.
Before I was aware, my desire set me among the chariots of my kinsmen a prince. Return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon you. Why should you look upon the Shulamite as upon the dance before two armies? How beautiful are your feet and sandals, O noble daughter, your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies.
Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshban. By the gate of Bathrabin, Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like caramel, and your flowing locks are like purple. A king is held captive in the tresses. How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delight.
Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh, may your breast be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth. I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages. Let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded. Whether the grape blossoms have opened, and the pomegranates are in bloom, there I will give you my love. The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved. Oh, that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mother's breast.
If I found you outside I would kiss you, and none would despise me. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, she who used to teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate, His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me.
¶ The Strength of Love's Bond
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I had wakened you. There your mother was in labor with you. There she who bore you was in labor. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. We have a little sister, and she has no bread. What shall we do for our sister? On the day when she is spoken for If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers, then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace and Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Haman. He led out the vineyards to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is before me. You, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred. O you who dwell in the gardens, with companions listening for your voice, let me hear it.
Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Spider.