1 Solomon’s Most Excellent Love Song. 2 The Beloved to Her Lover: Oh, how I wish you would kiss me passionately!⁠a For your lovemaking is more delightful than wine.⁠b 3 The fragrance of your colognes is delightful; your name is like the finest perfume. No wonder the young women adore you! 4 Draw me after you; let us hurry! May the king bring me into his bedroom chambers! The Maidens to the Lover: We will rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine. The Beloved to Her Lover: How rightly the young women adore you! 5 The Beloved to the Maidens: I am dark but lovely, O maidens of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Qedar, lovely like the tent curtains of Salmah. 6 Do not stare at me because I am dark, for the sun has burned my skin. My brothers were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards. Alas, my own vineyard I could not keep! 7 The Beloved to Her Lover: Tell me, O you whom my heart loves, where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you rest your sheep during the midday heat? Tell me lest I wander around beside the flocks of your companions! 8 The Lover to His Beloved: If you do not know, O most beautiful of women, simply follow the tracks of my flock, and pasture your little lambs beside the tents of the shepherds. 9 The Lover to His Beloved: O my beloved, you are like a mare among Pharaoh’s stallions.⁠c 10 Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments; your neck is lovely with strings of jewels. 11 We will make for you gold ornaments studded with silver. 12 The Beloved about Her Lover: While the king was at his banqueting table, my nard gave forth its fragrance. 13 My beloved is like a fragrant pouch of myrrh spending the night between my breasts. 14 My beloved is like a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En Gedi. 15 The Lover to His Beloved: Oh, how beautiful you are, my beloved! Oh, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves! 16 The Beloved to Her Lover: Oh, how handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how delightful you are! The lush foliage is our canopied bed; 17 the cedars are the beams of our bedroom chamber; the pines are the rafters of our bedroom.