The Man Speaks to the Woman

Your feet are beautiful in sandals,

you daughter of a prince.

Your round thighs are like jewels

shaped by an artist.

² Your navel is like a round drinking cup

always filled with wine.

Your stomach is like a pile of wheat

surrounded with lilies.

³ Your breasts are like two fawns,

like twins of a gazelle.

⁴ Your neck is like an ivory tower.

Your eyes are like the pools in Heshbon

near the gate of Bath Rabbim.

Your nose is like the mountain of Lebanon

that looks down on Damascus.

⁵ Your head is like Mount Carmel,

and your hair is like purple cloth;

the king is captured in its folds.

⁶ You are beautiful and pleasant;

my love, you are full of delights.

⁷ You are tall like a palm tree,

and your breasts are like its bunches of fruit.

⁸ I said, “I will climb up the palm tree

and take hold of its fruit.”

Let your breasts be like bunches of grapes,

the smell of your breath like apples,

⁹ and your mouth like the best wine.

The Woman Speaks to the Man

Let this wine go down sweetly for my lover;

may it flow gently past the lips and teeth.

¹⁰ I belong to my lover,

and he desires only me.

¹¹ Come, my lover,

let’s go out into the country

and spend the night in the fields.

¹² Let’s go early to the vineyards

and see if the buds are on the vines.

Let’s see if the blossoms have already opened

and if the pomegranates have bloomed.

There I will give you my love.

¹³ The mandrake flowers give their sweet smell,

and all the best fruits are at our gates.

I have saved them for you, my lover,

the old delights and the new.