1 Durante as noites, no meu leito, busquei aquele que meu coração ama; procurei-o, sem o encontrar.

2 Vou levantar-me e percorrer a cidade, as ruas e as praças, em busca daquele que meu coração ama; procurei-o, sem o encontrar.

3 Os guardas encontraram-me quando faziam sua ronda na cidade. Vistes acaso aquele que meu coração ama?

4 Mal passara por eles, encontrei aquele que meu coração ama. Segurei-o, e não o largarei antes que o tenha introduzido na casa de minha mãe, no quarto daquela que me concebeu.

5 - Conjuro-vos, ó filhas de Jerusalém, pelas gazelas e corças dos campos, não desperteis nem perturbeis o amor, antes que ele o queira.

6 - Que é aquilo que sobe do deserto como colunas de fumaça, exalando o perfume de mirra e de incenso, e de todos os aromas dos mercadores?

7 É a liteira de Salomão, escoltada por sessenta guerreiros, sessenta valentes de Israel;

8 todos hábeis manejadores de espada, e exercitados no combate; cada um deles leva a espada ao lado por causa dos terrores noturnos.

9 O rei Salomão mandou fazer para si uma liteira de madeira do Líbano.

10 Suas colunas são feitas de prata, seu encosto de ouro, seu assento de púrpura. O interior é bordado pelo amor das filhas de Jerusalém.

11 Saí, ó filhas de Sião, contemplai o rei Salomão, ostentando o diadema recebido de sua mãe no dia de suas núpcias, no dia da alegria de seu coração.

1 By night on my bed I was looking for him who is the love of my soul: I was looking for him, but I did not see him.

2 I will get up now and go about the town, in the streets and in the wide ways I will go after him who is the love of my soul: I went after him, but I did not see him.

3 The watchmen who go about the town came by me; to them I said, Have you seen him who is my heart's desire?

4 I was but a little way from them, when I came face to face with him who is the love of my soul. I took him by the hands, and did not let him go, till I had taken him into my mother's house, and into the room of her who gave me birth.

5 I say to you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes of the field, let not love be moved till it is ready.

6 Who is this coming out of the waste places like pillars of smoke, perfumed with sweet spices, with all the spices of the trader?

7 See, it is the bed of Solomon; sixty men of war are about it, of the army of Israel,

8 All of them armed with swords, trained in war; every man has his sword at his side, because of fear in the night.

9 King Solomon made himself a bed of the wood of Lebanon.

10 He made its pillars of silver, its base of gold, its seat of purple, the middle of it of ebony.

11 Go out, O daughters of Jerusalem, and see King Solomon, with the crown which his mother put on his head on the day when he was married, and on the day of the joy of his heart.