Cantar de los Cantares 7

¹What shalt thou see in the Sulamitess but the companies of camps? How beautiful are thy steps in shoes, O prince's daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, that are made by the and of a skilful workman. How beautiful are thy steps, etc. . .By these metaphors are signified the power and mission of the church in propagating the true faith.

²Thy navel is like a round bowl never wanting cups. Thy belly is like a heap of wheat, set about with lilies.

³Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

⁴Thy neck as a tower of ivory. Thy eyes like the fishpools in Hesebon, which are in the gate of the daughter of the multitude. Thy nose is as the tower of Libanus, that looketh toward Damascus.

⁵Thy head is like Carmel: and the hairs of thy head as the purple of the king bound in the channels. Thy head is like Carmel. . .Christ, the invisible head of his church, is here signified.

⁶How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights!

⁷Thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.

⁸I said: I will go up into the palm tree, and will take hold of the fruit thereof: and thy breasts shall be as the clusters of the vine: and the odour of thy mouth like apples.

⁹Thy throat like the best wine, worthy for my beloved to drink, and for his lips and his teeth to ruminate.

¹⁰I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me.

¹¹Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us abide in the villages.

¹²Let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vineyard flourish, if the flowers be ready to bring forth fruits, if the pomegranates flourish: there will I give thee my breasts.

¹³The mandrakes give a smell. In our gates are all fruits: the new and the old, my beloved, I have kept for thee.

¹⁴Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thy inheritance, them that dwell alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel: they shall feed in Basan and Galaad, according to the days of old.

¹⁵According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt, I will shew him wonders.

¹⁶The nations shall see, and shall be confounded at all their strength: they shall put the hand upon the mouth, their ears shall be deaf.

¹⁷They shall lick the dust like serpents, as the creeping things of the earth, they shall be disturbed in their houses: they shall dread the Lord, our God, and shall fear thee.

¹⁸Who is a God like to thee, who takest away iniquity, and passest by the sin of the remnant of thy inheritance? he will send his fury in no more, because he delighteth in mercy.

¹⁹He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities: and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.

²⁰Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham: which thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old.