3 In the night I dreamed that I sought the one whom I love. [She said] I looked for him but could not find him.^(A)

² So I decided to go out into the city, into the streets and broad ways [which are so confusing to a country girl], and seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I could not find him.

³ The watchmen who go about the city found me, to whom I said, Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

⁴ I had gone but a little way past them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.^(B)

⁵ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field that you stir not up nor awaken love until it pleases.

⁶ Who or what is this [she asked] that comes gliding out of the wilderness like stately pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh, frankincense, and all the fragrant powders of the merchant?

⁷ [Someone answered] Behold, it is the traveling litter (the bridal car) of Solomon. Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel.

⁸ They all handle the sword and are expert in war; every man has his sword upon his thigh, that fear be not excited in the night.

⁹ King Solomon made himself a car or a palanquin from the [cedar] wood of Lebanon.

¹⁰ He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple, the inside of it lovingly and intricately wrought in needlework by the daughters of Jerusalem.

¹¹ Go forth, O you daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon wearing the crown with which his mother [Bathsheba] crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of his gladness of heart.