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¹ Who shall give thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find thee without, and kiss thee, and now no man may despise me?² I will take hold of thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house: there thou shalt teach me, and I will give thee a cup of spiced wine and new wine of my pomegranates.³ His left hand under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me.⁴ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you stir not up, nor awake my love till she please.

⁵ Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.⁶ Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames.⁷ Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing.

⁸ Our sister is little, and hath no breasts. What shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to?⁹ If she be a wall: let us build upon it bulwarks of silver: if she be a door, let us join it together with boards of cedar.¹⁰ I am a wall: and my breasts are as a tower since I am become in his presence as one finding peace.¹¹ The peaceable had a vineyard, in that which hath people: he let out the same to keepers, every man bringeth for the fruit thereof a thousand pieces of silver.¹² My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for thee, the peaceable, and two hundred for them that keep the fruit thereof.

¹³ Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear thy voice.¹⁴ Flee away, O my beloved, and be like to the roe, and to the young hart upon the mountains of aromatical spices.