The Beloved about Her Lover:
3:1 All night long on my bed
I longed for my lover.
I longed for him but he never appeared.
3:2 “I will arise and look all around throughout the town,
and throughout the streets and squares;
I will search for my beloved.”
I searched for him but I did not find him.
3:3 The night watchmen found me – the ones who guard the city walls.
“Have you seen my beloved?”
3:4 Scarcely had I passed them by
when I found my beloved!
I held onto him tightly and would not let him go
until I brought him to my mother’s house,
to the bedroom chamber of the one who conceived me.
The Adjuration Refrain
The Beloved to the Maidens:
3:5 I admonish you, O maidens of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles and by the young does of the open fields:
“Do not awake or arouse love until it pleases!”