Praise of the Woman’s Body

Song of Songs 4:1–7

4th–2nd Century BCE

About This Entry

See the longer excerpt “The Song of Songs” in Poetry.

¹Ah, you are fair, my darling,

Ah, you are fair.

Your eyes are like doves

Behind your veil.

Your hair is like a flock of goats

Streaming down Mount Gilead.

²Your teeth are like a flock of ewes

Climbing up from the washing pool;

All of them bear twins,

And not one loses her young.

³Your lips are like a crimson thread,

Your mouth is lovely.

Your brow behind your veil

[Gleams] like a pomegranate split open.

⁴Your neck is like the Tower of David,

Built to hold weapons,

Hung with a thousand shields—

All the quivers of warriors.

⁵Your breasts are like two fawns,

Twins of a gazelle,

Browsing among the lilies.

⁶When the day blows gently

And the shadows flee,

I will betake me to the mount of myrrh,

To the hill of frankincense.

⁷Every part of you is fair, my darling,

There is no blemish in you.

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Credits

Reprinted from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

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About This Entry

See the longer excerpt “The Song of Songs” in Poetry.

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