Together in the Garden

The Friends

1Where has your beloved gone,

O fairest among the women?

Where has your beloved turned aside,

that we may seek him with you?

The Bride

2My beloved has gone to his garden,

to the beds of spice,

to graze in the gardens

and to gather up the lilies.

3I am unto my beloved and my beloved is unto me;

he is grazing among the lilies.

The Bridegroom

4You are beautiful as Tirzah, my darling,

lovely as Jerusalem,

awesome as bannered hosts.

5Turn away your eyes from me,

for they have overcome me.

Your hair is like a flock of the goats

streaming down from the Gilead.

6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes

that have come up from the washing;

each has its twin,

and not a bereaved one is among them.

7Like the halves of the pomegranate is your temple

behind your veil.

8Sixty are they, the queens, and eighty the concubines,

and maidens without number.

9One she is, my dove, my perfect one;

one she is, pure for her mother, she who bore her.

The daughters saw her, and called her blessed;

and the queens and the concubines, they praised her.

The Friends

10Who is this one shining like the dawn,

beautiful as the moon,

pure as the sun,

awesome as bannered hosts?

The Bridegroom

11To the garden of the nut tree I went down,

to look on the green of the valley,

to see the vine had sprouted

and the pomegranates had bloomed.

12I did not know it, my soul had set me

among the chariots of my noble people.†

The Friends

13Return, return, O Shulammite!

Return, return, that we may gaze on you.

The Bridegroom

Why should you⁺ gaze on the Shulammite

as on the dance in of Mahanaim?†