6 Where has your beloved gone,
    O most beautiful among women?
Where has your beloved turned,
    that we may seek him with you?

² My beloved has gone down to his garden
    to the beds of spices,
to graze^[a] in the gardens
    and to gather lilies.
³ I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine;
    he grazes among the lilies.

⁴ You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,
    lovely as Jerusalem,
    awesome as an army with banners.
⁵ Turn away your eyes from me,
    for they overwhelm me—
Your hair is like a flock of goats
    leaping down the slopes of Gilead.
⁶ Your teeth are like a flock of ewes
    that have come up from the washing;
all of them bear twins;
    not one among them has lost its young.
⁷ Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
    behind your veil.
⁸ There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,
    and virgins without number.
⁹ My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,
    the only one of her mother,
    pure to her who bore her.
The young women saw her and called her blessed;
    the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.

¹¹ I went down to the nut orchard
    to look at the blossoms of the valley,
to see whether the vines had budded,
    whether the pomegranates were in bloom.
¹² Before I was aware, my desire set me
    among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.^[b]

^13 [c] Return, return, O Shulammite,
    return, return, that we may look upon you.

Why should you look upon the Shulammite,
    as upon a dance before two armies?^[d]