Nhã Ca 6

Where has your beloved gone?

¹Where has your beloved gone, \q most beautiful of women? \q Which way has your beloved turned, \q so that we can look for him with you? ²My beloved has gone down into his garden, \q to the spice beds, \q to browse in the gardens \q and gather lilies. ³I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine; \q he grazes among the lilies. ⁴You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling, \q as lovely as Jerusalem, \q as awe-inspiring as an army with its banners.^{a 5}Turn your eyes away from me; \q they overpower me. \q Your hair is like a flock of goats \q pouring down the slopes of Gilead. ⁶Your teeth are like a flock of ewes \q that have come up from the washing; \q each one has its twin, \q and not one of them is missing. ⁷Your cheeks behind your veil \q are like halves of a pomegranate. ⁸There are sixty queens \q and eighty concubines, \q and young women beyond counting. ⁹But my dove, my perfect one, is unique, \q the one and only to her mother, \q the favorite of the one who bore her. \q The young women saw her and called her happy; \q the queens and the concubines praised her.

Like the dawn

¹⁰“Who is this who looks out like the dawn, \q as beautiful as the moon, as bright as the sun, \q as awe-inspiring as an army with its banners?”^b

The grove of nut trees

¹¹I went down to the grove of nut trees \q to look at the new growth in the valley, \q to see if the vines had budded \q and the pomegranates were in bloom.^{c 12}Before I knew it, \q my desire had set me \q among the chariots of Ammi-nadib.^de