5:1
LOVER: I come into my garden, my sister, my promised bride, I pick my myrrh and balsam, I eat my honey and my honeycomb, I drink my wine and my milk. POET: Eat, friends, and drink, drink deep, my dearest friends.
5:2
BELOVED: I sleep, but my heart is awake. I hear my love knocking. 'Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my hair with the drops of night.'
5:3
-'I have taken off my tunic, am I to put it on again? I have washed my feet, am I to dirty them again?'
5:4
My love thrust his hand through the hole in the door; I trembled to the core of my being.
5:5
Then I got up to open to my love, myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle of the bolt.
5:6
I opened to my love, but he had turned and gone. My soul failed at his flight, I sought but could not find him, I called, but he did not answer.
5:7
The watchmen met me, those who go on their rounds in the city. They beat me, they wounded me, they took my cloak away from me: those guardians of the ramparts!
5:8
I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you should find my love, what are you to tell him? -That I am sick with love!
5:9
CHORUS: What makes your lover better than other lovers, O loveliest of women? What makes your lover better than other lovers, to put us under such an oath?
5:10
BELOVED: My love is fresh and ruddy, to be known among ten thousand.
5:11
His head is golden, purest gold, his locks are palm fronds and black as the raven.
5:12
His eyes are like doves beside the water-courses, bathing themselves in milk, perching on a fountain-rim.
5:13
His cheeks are beds of spices, banks sweetly scented. His lips are lilies, distilling pure myrrh.
5:14
His hands are golden, rounded, set with jewels of Tarshish. His belly a block of ivory covered with sapphires.
5:15
His legs are alabaster columns set in sockets of pure gold. His appearance is that of Lebanon, unrivalled as the cedars.
5:16
His conversation is sweetness itself, he is altogether lovable. Such is my love, such is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
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