1:1 Solomon’s Most Excellent Love Song.
The Beloved to Her Lover:
1:2 Oh, how I wish you would kiss me passionately!
For your lovemaking is more delightful than wine.
1:3 The fragrance of your colognes is delightful;
your name is like the finest perfume.
No wonder the young women adore you!
1:4 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!
The Beloved to the Maidens:
1:5 I am dark but lovely, O maidens of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Qedar,
lovely like the tent curtains of Salmah.
1:6 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!
The Beloved to Her Lover:
1:7 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!