Here we have an example of a chapter division that does not reflect a break in thought or in continuity. 5.1 belongs with what comes before it and flows from it. In 4.16 we hear the young woman inviting her lover to come into his garden. In 5.1 we have the young man’s response, echoing her invitation:
(4.16) “Let my beloved come to his garden”
(5.1) “I come to my garden, my sister, my bride….”

His response is followed by a call that signals the end of the section and of the entire poem.

The first four lines of this verse are spoken by the young man, so we may indicate this in the margin.

The young man accepts his lover’s invitation (4.16) and enters the garden. The two main verbs, “come” and “eat,” are echoed in his response and repeated for emphasis.

What we find in this verse is a collection of images for lovemaking. The text itself is very poetic, including alliteration, parallelism, and even rhyme. The words “I” and “my” in English appear in Hebrew as pronoun suffixes (-i) on almost every verb and noun. As the Revised Standard Version translation shows, lines 2, 3, and 4 are grammatically parallel.

I come to my garden is the young man’s joyful response to the his lover’s call in 4.16, that he enter “his garden.” It is a garden no longer locked but open to him. We have already observed how the suffix “my” begins to dominate the text from here on. It reminds us that the young man is taking the invitation seriously; everything about her he calls “my” or “mine.” In some languages it may be very difficult to communicate this idea. We may have to use a longer phrase, “your garden, which belongs to me,” though such expressions certainly disrupt the poetry of the passage. Another possibility is to include a clause near the beginning of the poem such as “You are mine,” and then proceed to translate the rest of the metaphors without the possessive “my”: “I have entered your garden. You are mine.” Admittedly this changes the focus of the passage, but it may be the only way to express the images clearly.

All the verbs in this series (come … gather … eat … drink) are in the perfect aspect in Hebrew. Normally we assume that this verb form denotes completed action; thus “I have come,” “I have gathered,” and so on. But grammatical rules do not always apply so strictly in poetry, so we may use present forms, “I come,” “I gather,” and so on. Good News Translation gives the first verb in the perfect, “I have entered,” but renders the other verbs as progressives. “I am gathering … eating … drinking.” This allows the emphasis on the present action. Since the final line is a call to the young lovers to enjoy their love, this is an effective way to render the passage and a good model to follow.

My sister, my bride: refer to comments in 4.9, 12 above.

I gather my myrrh with my spice: the Hebrew verb rendered gather has several meanings, and Pope further demonstrates its relationship to similar sounding words, “lion” (occurring in 4.8) and “honey” (4.11; 5.1c). Here, however, the sense behind Revised Standard Version gather is “picking with a view to eating.”

My myrrh with my spice: myrrh and spice refer to the spiced fruits found in the young woman’s garden (see 4.14 for comments). It is clear that these terms have sexual associations, but again it seems best to translate the literal meaning of the words and leave the explanation of these aspects to a brief note in the Introduction to the book.

The preposition with connects these noun phrases and the rest of the noun phrases that follow. If a literal translation of this word is awkward, we can substitute a simple conjunction “and,” as Good News Translation and Revised English Bible have done, “my myrrh and my spice.” In some languages the repetition of the possessive pronoun my may not be appropriate, in which case we can follow Good News Translation, “my myrrh and spice.” In other languages heavy or long noun phrase objects are preferred at the beginning of a sentence. If that is so we can reverse the order: “my myrrh and my spice, I gather [them].”

As noted above, each of the parallel lines contains the preposition with, a form of expression already seen in 4.13-14. In that passage the subject matter was the same, a description of the woman’s “garden” and all its delights. That list, containing many unusual or rare words, was both repetitive and rhythmic. Here too it seems that the reason for pairing the words my myrrh with my spice, my honeycomb with my honey, and my wine with my milk is to establish rhythm and to express the overflowing joy and pleasure the lovers feel. In translating these lines the translator should strive for poetic effect. In this verse it may be hard, for example, to reduce a clause like “myrrh and spices” to one general term “spices” without disrupting the rhythm established in the rest of the poem. This and the following lines must be translated together for the translation to be effective.

I eat my honeycomb with my honey: the verb eat echoes the second verb in the young woman’s invitation (4.16). To speak of “eating and drinking” means to enjoy love. In some languages these two verbs may not carry these same associations, so it may be necessary to use other verbs that can have a double meaning, such as “relish,” “taste,” or “enjoy.” Alternatively we can add a few descriptive words to express this meaning; for example, “eat with pleasure.”

Honeycomb here may not refer to the place where bees store their honey, but may be a figure referring to the honey taken directly from it. The term then describes the same substance as the following term honey. It is also very close to the Hebrew word translated “nectar” in 4.11. Several translations follow Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version. New English Bible, however, suggests “my honey and my syrup,” while New American Bible has “my honey and my sweetmeats.” A possible solution is to say “I eat honey from my honeycomb.”

I drink my wine with my milk: although the verb drink has not been used in the woman’s invitation, it is understood because “honey” and “milk” are referred to together in 4.10-15. My wine and my milk are ways of speaking about her and her love (see 4.10).

To preserve the parallelism and rhythm in this passage will not be easy. If vocabulary is available, these three lines can be translated rather literally, following Revised Standard Version. If not, we may be forced to reduce the numerous phrases to more general ones.

• I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride!
I gather my exotic spices.
I eat my delicious honey.
I drink my wine and my milk.

• I have entered my garden, my sister, my bride.
[You are mine!]
I delight in gathering your spices,
Eating your sweet honey,
Drinking your milk and wine.

Eat, O friends, and drink repeats in imperative form the two key verbs, eat and drink. They call for full enjoyment of the delights of the garden. This final part of the verse is as poetic as the first part. The i sound continues, this time coupled with u. Further there is rhyme at the ends of the lines.

Though seemingly straightforward this last part of the verse raises some problems for interpretation. The first problem is to determine who is speaking. Does the speech of the young man continue? Or is this call from an unknown third person, perhaps the daughters of Jerusalem? Second, there is an ambiguous grammatical structure, since the words translated in Revised Standard Version as vocatives, O friends and O lovers, can be interpreted as direct objects of the verbs eat and drink. This gives an altogether different meaning: “eat the love[s that the beloved offers]” and “drink the caresses.” Actually the two problems are related. How we solve one will influence how we solve the other.

In Hebrew the two imperatives eat and drink are plural forms, so it is possible to think of the two lovers being called by some unknown persons. Good News Translation is one of many translations that takes this view. We have seen that the daughters appear at intimate moments, and it is the lovers who address them (2.7; 3.5). But here it is the daughters who are speaking, encouraging the lovers to enjoy their love.

However, if the words translated as friends and lovers in Revised Standard Version are actually objects of the verbs eat and drink, then the meaning is something like “eat your fill of love” and “drink deep of caresses.” On the other hand, we have seen elsewhere that the lovers sometimes use plural forms when addressing one another (see discussion under 1.2-4). It is quite possible therefore that the young man is saying to his beloved “Let us be filled with love. Let us get drunk on caresses.”

This latter is the solution we recommend; but translators should note that there is no final solution to this problem, and so a footnote pointing out the difficulty is also recommended. The footnote can say “the probable meaning of a difficult Hebrew text.”

Drink deeply represents the imperative form of two verbs “drink” and “get drunk,” so we can express its meaning as “drink your fill of…” or “get drunk on….” In societies where excessive drinking or drunkenness are problems, this idiom will need to be rendered with care to avoid giving a very negative sense. Perhaps we can say “until love fills you beyond measure.”

If we decide it is the young man speaking to his lover, we may say:

• Eat until you are full, my love; drink your fill of love.

• Eat, my beloved; drink all the love you want.

• My love, eat and drink all the love you want.

If we decide that others are speaking, we can say:

• Friends, be satisfied with love!
Lovers, drink deeply of love
Drink your fill!

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Zogbo, Lynell. A Handbook on the Book of Song of Songs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1998. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .