1Friends Where has your lover gone, most beautiful of women? Which way did your lover turn, that we may look for him with you?
2Beloved My lover has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies.
3I am my lover’s and my lover is mine; he browses among the lilies.
4Lover You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners.
5Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead.
6Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is alone.
7Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.
8Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number;
9but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.
10Friends Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?
11Lover I went down to the grove of nut trees to look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom.
12Before I realized it, my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people.
13Friends Come back, come back, O Shulammite; come back, come back, that we may gaze on you! Lover Why would you gaze on the Shulammite as on the dance of Mahanaim?