Thus far the poem has been entirely in the second person as the young man addresses the young woman. Suddenly in this verse there is a shift to first person. It is as if the young man is overcome by his own words and wants to find his lover as soon as possible.

On the opening phrase see comments on 2.17. The meaning is “Before morning dawns and the darkness disappears.”

I will hie me: the Hebrew is unusual here. Revised Standard Version and New Jerusalem Bible translate hie, or “go,” with a reflexive verb (New Jerusalem Bible “I will betake me”). There may be urgency in his statement, “I must go…,” or perhaps determination, “I am determined to go….” Contemporary English Version translates “I will hurry.” The young man appears overcome by his lover’s physical beauty. When he says “I shall take myself to…,” he is not thinking of traveling somewhere. The following terms mountain and hill are clearly metaphors for her breasts.

Good News Translation translates the verb “go” by “stay” and reverses the order of the clauses, “I will stay on the hill … until the morning….” This way of putting it suggests, however, that he is already there, and so does not seem to reflect the original meaning faithfully.

The mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense are parallel phrases. On the two spices, myrrh and frankincense, see the comments in 3.6. Reference here is to the young woman’s body, her breasts in particular. This understanding fits with the mention in 1.13 of the young man lying between her breasts like a sachet containing myrrh.

In some languages a literal translation may be understood to refer to two locations, a high mountain and a low hill. If the real sense of these terms is a reference to the woman’s breasts, such an understanding is inappropriate. Therefore it may be more helpful to reduce the parallelism and say “mountains of myrrh and frankincense.” Contemporary English Version adds a demonstrative, “those hills,” making a direct reference back to “breasts” in verse 5. This shows very clearly the transition between the two verses and gives quite a poetic effect:

• I will hurry to those hills
covered with perfume
and stay there until dawn.

Other possible translations are:

• I shall go to your mountain of myrrh and hill of frankincense.

• I shall come to your spiced [or, sweet-smelling] mountains.

For the entire verse, we can suggest:

• Before day breaks and shadows flee,
I will go to your mountains of spice.

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 .