Song of Solomon 8 WYC
Summary: The woman wishes her beloved were like a brother she could kiss openly without shame and bring to her mother's house, again repeating the refrain against awakening love before its time. A poem on love's power follows, one of the book's best-known passages: "love is strong as death... many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it" (v. 6-7), and love cannot be bought with all a man's wealth. The scene shifts to a memory of a young sister with no breasts yet, and brothers debating how to guard her depending on whether she is a "wall" or a "door"; the woman answers that she is a wall whose breasts are like towers, bringing her beloved contentment, alongside a note about Solomon's own vineyard let out to keepers. The book closes with the beloved wanting to hear her voice and her final words urging him to be swift, "like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices" (v. 14).
1Who `mai grante to me thee, my brother, soukynge the tetis of my modir, that Y fynde thee aloone without forth, and that Y kisse thee, and no man dispise me thanne?
2Y schal take thee, and Y schal lede thee in to the hous of my modir, and in to the closet of my modir; there thou schalt teche me, and Y schal yyue to thee drink of wyn maad swete, and of the must of my pumgranatis.
3His lefthond vndur myn heed, and his riythond schal biclippe me.
4Ye douytris of Jerusalem, Y charge you greetli, that ye reise not, nether make the dereworthe spousesse to awake, til sche wole.
5Who is this spousesse, that stieth fro desert, and flowith in delices, and restith on hir derlynge? Y reiside thee vndur a pumgranate tre; there thi modir was corrupt, there thi modir was defoulid.
6Set thou me as a signet on thin herte, as a signet on thin arm; for loue is strong as deth, enuy is hard as helle; the laumpis therof ben laumpis of fier, and of flawmes.
7Many watris moun not quenche charite, nether floodis schulen oppresse it. Thouy a man yyue al the catel of his hous for loue, he schal dispise `that catel as nouyt.
8Oure sistir is litil, and hath no tetys; what schulen we do to oure sistir, in the dai whanne sche schal be spokun to?
9If it is a wal, bilde we theronne siluerne touris; if it is a dore, ioyne we it togidere with tablis of cedre.
10I am a wal, and my tetis ben as a tour; sithen Y am maad as fyndynge pees bifore hym.
11A vyner was to the pesible; in that citee, that hath puplis, he bitook it to keperis; a man bryngith a thousynde platis of siluer for the fruyt therof.
12The vyner is bifore me; a thousynde ben of thee pesible, and two hundrid to hem that kepen the fruytis therof.
13Frendis herkene thee, that dwellist in orchertis; make thou me to here thi vois.
14My derlyng, fle thou; be thou maad lijk a capret, and a calf of hertis, on the hillis of swete smellynge spices.
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