Song of Songs 8

¹ ^[1]I would that thou, O my kinsman, wert he that sucked the breasts of my mother;

when I found thee without, I would kiss thee;

yea, they should not despise me.

² I would take thee, I would bring thee into my mother’s house,

and into the chamber of her that conceived me;

I would make thee to drink of spiced wine,

of the juice of my pomegranates.

³ His left hand should be under my head,

and his right hand should embrace me.

⁴ I have charged you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,

by the virtues of the field,

that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.

⁵ Who is this that cometh up all white,

leaning on her kinsman?

I raised thee up under an apple tree;

there thy mother brought thee forth;

there she that bare thee brought thee forth.

⁶ Set me as a seal upon thy heart,

as a seal upon thine arm;

for love is strong as death;

jealousy is cruel as the grave,

her shafts are shafts of fire, even the flames thereof.

⁷ Much water will not be able to quench love,

and rivers shall not drown it;

if a man would give all his substance for love,

men would utterly despise it.

⁸ Our sister is little, and hath no breasts;

what shall we do for our sister,

in the day wherein she shall be spoken for?

⁹ If she is a wall, let us build upon her silver bulwarks;

and if she is a door, let us carve for her cedar panels.

¹⁰ I am a wall, and my breasts are as towers;

I was in their eyes as one that found peace.

¹¹ Solomon had a vineyard in Beelamon;

he let his vineyard to keepers;

every one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.

¹² My vineyard, even mine, is before me;

Solomon shall have a thousand,

and they that keep its fruit two hundred.

¹³ Thou that dwellest in the gardens,

the companions hearken to thy voice:

make me hear it.

¹⁴ Away, my kinsman, and be like a doe

or a fawn on the mountains of spices.

Notes