Chapter 8

1 Oh that thou wert as my brother,
That sucked the breasts of my mother!
[When] I should find thee without, I would kiss thee;
Yea, and none would despise me.
2 I would lead thee, [and] bring thee into my mother's house,
Who would instruct me;
I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine,
Of the juice of my pomegranate.
3 His left hand [should be] under my head,
And his right hand should embrace me.

4 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
That ye stir not up, nor awake [my] love,
Until he please.

5 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness,
Leaning upon her beloved?

Under the apple-tree I awakened thee:
There thy mother was in travail with thee,
There was she in travail that 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 Sheol;
The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
A very flame of Jehovah.
7 Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can floods drown it:
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
He would utterly be contemned.

8 We have a little sister,
And she hath no breasts:
What shall we do for our sister
In the day when she shall be spoken for?

9 If she be a wall,
We will build upon her a turret of silver:
And if she be a door,
We will inclose her with boards of cedar.

10 I am a wall, and my breasts like the towers [thereof]
Then was I in his eyes as one that found peace.
11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;
He let out the vineyard unto keepers;
Every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand [pieces]
of silver.
12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:
Thou, O Solomon, shalt have the thousand,
And those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.

13 Thou that dwellest in the gardens,
The companions hearken for thy voice:
Cause me to hear it.

14 Make haste, my beloved,
And be thou like to a roe or to a young hart
Upon the mountains of spices.