Love Is Better than Wine
1 This is Solomon's
most beautiful song.
She Speaks:
2 Kiss me tenderly!
Your love is better than wine,
3 and you smell so sweet.
All the young women adore you;
the very mention of your name
is like spreading perfume.
* 4 Hurry, my king! Let's hurry.
Take me to your home.
The Young Women Speak:
We are happy for you!
And we praise your love
even more than wine.
She Speaks:
Young women of Jerusalem,
it is only right
that you should adore him.
5 My skin is dark and beautiful,
like a tent in the desert
or like Solomon's curtains.
6 Don't stare at me
just because the sun
has darkened my skin.
My brothers were angry with me;
they made me work in the vineyard,
and so I neglected
my complexion.
7 My darling, I love you!
Where do you feed your sheep
and let them rest at noon?
Don't let the other shepherds
think badly of me.
I'm not one of those women
who shamelessly follow
after shepherds.
He Speaks:
8 My dearest, if you don't know,
just follow the path
of the sheep.
Then feed your young goats
near the shepherds' tents.
9 You move as gracefully
as the pony that leads
the chariot of the king.
10 Earrings add to your beauty,
and you wear a necklace
of precious stones.
11 Let's make you some jewelry
of gold, woven with silver.
She Speaks:
12 My king, while you
were on your couch,
my aroma was a magic charm.
13 My darling, you are perfume
between my breasts;
14 you are flower blossoms
from the gardens of En-Gedi.
He Speaks:
15 My darling, you are lovely,
so very lovely—
your eyes are those of a dove.
She Speaks:
16 My love, you are handsome,
truly handsome—
the fresh green grass
will be our wedding bed
17 in the shade of cedar
and cypress trees.
1 Let him kisse me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy loue is better then wine. 2 Because of the sauour of thy good ointments thy name is as an ointment powred out: therefore the virgins loue thee. 3 Drawe me: we will runne after thee: the King hath brought me into his chabers: we will reioyce and be glad in thee: we will remember thy loue more then wine: the righteous do loue thee. 4 I am blacke, O daughters of Ierusalem, but comely, as the tentes of Kedar, and as the curtaines of Salomon. 5 Regard ye me not because I am blacke: for the sunne hath looked vpon mee. The sonnes of my mother were angry against mee: they made me the keeper of ye vines: but I kept not mine owne vine. 6 Shewe me, O thou, whome my soule loueth, where thou feedest, where thou liest at noone: for why should I be as she that turneth aside to the flockes of thy companions? 7 If thou knowe not, O thou the fairest among women, get thee foorth by the steps of the flocke, and feede thy kiddes by the tents of the shepheards. 8 I haue compared thee, O my loue, to the troupe of horses in the charets of Pharaoh. 9 Thy cheekes are comely with rowes of stones, and thy necke with chaines. 10 We will make thee borders of golde with studdes of siluer. 11 Whiles the King was at his repast, my spikenard gaue the smelll thereof. 12 My welbeloued is as a bundle of myrrhe vnto me: he shall lie betweene my breasts. 13 My welbeloued is as a cluster of camphire vnto me in the vines of Engedi. 14 My loue, beholde, thou art faire: beholde, thou art faire: thine eyes are like the doues. 15 My welbeloued, beholde, thou art faire and pleasant: also our bed is greene: 16 The beames of our house are cedars, our rafters are of firre.