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Chapter 8
- Oh, I wish you were my brother,
who nursed at my mother's breasts.
Then I could kiss you no matter who was watching,
and no one would criticize me.
- I would bring you to my childhood home, and there you would teach me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
my sweet pomegranate wine.
- Your left arm would be under my head,
and your right arm would embrace me.
-
Promise me, O women of Jerusalem, not to awaken love until the time is right.
-
Who is this sweeping in from the desert,
leaning on her lover? I aroused you under the apple tree,
where your mother gave you birth,
where in great pain she delivered you.
- Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave.
Love flashes like fire,
the brightest kind of flame.
- Many waters cannot quench love,
nor can rivers drown it.
If a man tried to buy love
with all his wealth,
his offer would be utterly scorned.
- We have a little sister
too young to have breasts.
What will we do for our sister
if someone asks to marry her?
- If she is a virgin, like a wall,
we will protect her with a silver tower.
But if she is promiscuous, like a swinging door,
we will block her door with a cedar bar.
- I was a virgin, like a wall;
now my breasts are like towers.
When my lover looks at me,
he is delighted with what he sees.
- Solomon has a vineyard at Baal-hamon,
which he leases out to tenant farmers.
Each of them pays a thousand pieces of silver
for harvesting its fruit.
- But my vineyard is mine to give,
and Solomon need not pay a thousand pieces of silver.
But I will give two hundred pieces
to those who care for its vines.
- O my darling, lingering in the gardens,
your companions are fortunate to hear your voice.
Let me hear it, too!
- Come away, my love! Be like a gazelle
or a young stag on the mountains of spices.