The Beloved to Her Lover:
8:1 Oh, how I wish you were my little brother,
nursing at my mother’s breasts;
if I saw you outside, I could kiss you –
surely no one would despise me!
8:2 I would lead you and bring you to my mother’s house,
the one who taught me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the nectar of my pomegranates.
The Beloved about Her Lover:
8:3 His left hand caresses my head,
and his right hand stimulates me.
The Beloved to the Maidens:
8:4 I admonish you, O maidens of Jerusalem:
“Do not arouse or awaken love until it pleases!”
The Maidens about His Beloved:
8:5 Who is this coming up from the desert,
leaning on her beloved?
The Beloved to Her Lover:
Under the apple tree I aroused you;
there your mother conceived you,
there she who bore you was in labor of childbirth.
The Beloved to Her Lover:
8:6 Set me like a cylinder seal over your heart,
like a signet on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
passion is as unrelenting as Sheol.
Its flames burst forth,
it is a blazing flame.
8:7 Surging waters cannot quench love;
floodwaters cannot overflow it.
If someone were to offer all his possessions to buy love,
the offer would be utterly despised.
The Beloved’s Brothers:
8:8 We have a little sister,
and as yet she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister
on the day when she is spoken for?
8:9 If she is a wall,
we will build on her a battlement of silver;
but if she is a door,
we will barricade her with boards of cedar.
The Beloved:
8:10 I was a wall,
and my breasts were like fortress towers.
Then I found favor in his eyes.
The Beloved to Her Lover:
8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon;
he leased out the vineyard to those who maintained it.
Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.
8:12 My vineyard, which belongs to me, is at my disposal alone.
The thousand shekels belong to you, O Solomon,
and two hundred shekels belong to those who maintain it for its fruit.
The Lover to His Beloved:
8:13 O you who stay in the gardens,
my companions are listening attentively for your voice;
let me be the one to hear it!
The Beloved to Her Lover:
8:14 Make haste, my beloved!
Be like a gazelle or a young stag
on the mountains of spices.