---
title: "Song of Songs 5 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/song-of-songs/5/
description: "Christ calls his spouse: she languishes with love: and describes him by… Song of Songs 5 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Song of Songs 5

Song of Songs 5 is chapter 5 of 8 in the Song of Songs. Here are all 17 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> Christ calls his spouse: she languishes with love: and describes him by his graces.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Song of Songs 5 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Bride: May my beloved enter into his garden, and eat the fruit of his apple trees.
2. Groom to Bride: I have arrived in my garden, O my sister, my spouse. I have harvested my myrrh, with my aromatic oils. I have eaten the honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, O most beloved.
3. Bride: I sleep, yet my heart watches. The voice of my beloved knocking:
4. Groom to Bride: Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my immaculate one. For my head is full of dew, and the locks of my hair are full of the drops of the night.
5. Bride: I have taken off my tunic; how shall I be clothed in it? I have washed my feet; how shall I spoil them?
6. My beloved put his hand through the window, and my inner self was moved by his touch.
7. I rose up in order to open to my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the finest myrrh.
8. I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved. But he had turned aside and had gone away. My soul melted when he spoke. I sought him, and did not find him. I called, and he did not answer me.
9. The keepers who circulate through the city found me. They struck me, and wounded me. The keepers of the walls took my veil away from me.
10. I bind you by oath, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, announce to him that I languish through love.
11. Chorus to Bride: What kind of beloved is your beloved, O most beautiful among women? What kind of beloved is your beloved, so that you would bind us by oath?
12. Bride: My beloved is white and ruddy, elect among thousands.
13. His head is like the finest gold. His locks are like the heights of palm trees, and as black as a raven.
14. His eyes are like doves, which have been washed with milk over rivulets of waters, and which reside near plentiful streams.
15. His cheeks are like a courtyard of aromatic plants, sown by perfumers. His lips are like lilies, dripping with the best myrrh.
16. His hands are smoothed gold, full of hyacinths. His abdomen is ivory, accented with sapphires.
17. His legs are columns of marble, which have been established over bases of gold. His appearance is like that of Lebanon, elect like the cedars. His throat is most sweet, and he is entirely desirable. Such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. Chorus to Bride: Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? To where has your beloved turned aside, so that we may seek him with you?

## Song of Songs 5 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Veniat dilectus meus in hortum suum, et comedat fructum pomorum suorum. Veni in hortum meum, soror mea, sponsa; messui myrrham meam cum aromatibus meis; comedi favum cum melle meo; bibi vinum meum cum lacte meo; comedite, amici, et bibite, et inebriamini, carissimi.
2. Ego dormio, et cor meum vigilat. Vox dilecti mei pulsantis: Aperi mihi, soror mea, amica mea, columba mea, immaculata mea, quia caput meum plenum est rore, et cincinni mei guttis noctium.
3. Expoliavi me tunica mea: quomodo induar illa? lavi pedes meos: quomodo inquinabo illos?
4. Dilectus meus misit manum suam per foramen, et venter meus intremuit ad tactum ejus.
5. Surrexi ut aperirem dilecto meo; manus meæ stillaverunt myrrham, et digiti mei pleni myrrha probatissima.
6. Pessulum ostii mei aperui dilecto meo, at ille declinaverat, atque transierat. Anima mea liquefacta est, ut locutus est; quæsivi, et non inveni illum; vocavi, et non respondit mihi.
7. Invenerunt me custodes qui circumeunt civitatem; percusserunt me, et vulneraverunt me. Tulerunt pallium meum mihi custodes murorum.
8. Adjuro vos, filiæ Jerusalem, si inveneritis dilectum meum, ut nuntietis ei quia amore langueo.
9. Qualis est dilectus tuus ex dilecto, o pulcherrima mulierum? qualis est dilectus tuus ex dilecto, quia sic adjurasti nos?
10. Dilectus meus candidus et rubicundus; electus ex millibus.
11. Caput ejus aurum optimum; comæ ejus sicut elatæ palmarum, nigræ quasi corvus.
12. Oculi ejus sicut columbæ super rivulos aquarum, quæ lacte sunt lotæ, et resident juxta fluenta plenissima.
13. Genæ illius sicut areolæ aromatum, consitæ a pigmentariis. Labia ejus lilia, distillantia myrrham primam.
14. Manus illius tornatiles, aureæ, plenæ hyacinthis. Venter ejus eburneus, distinctus sapphiris.
15. Crura illius columnæ marmoreæ quæ fundatæ sunt super bases aureas. Species ejus ut Libani, electus ut cedri.
16. Guttur illius suavissimum, et totus desiderabilis. Talis est dilectus meus, et ipse est amicus meus, filiæ Jerusalem.
17. Quo abiit dilectus tuus, o pulcherrima mulierum? quo declinavit dilectus tuus? et quæremus eum tecum.

## The saints

- “Where have You hidden, Beloved, and left me moaning? You fled like the stag after wounding me; I went out calling You, and You were gone.” — St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, stanza 1, 1584 (On this theme: verse 6)

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 1: Garden, mystically the church of Christ, abounding with fruit, that is, the good works of the elect.
- Verse 4: The spouse of Christ, his church, at times as it were penned up by its persecutors, and in fears, expecting the divine assistance, here signified by his hand: and ver. 6, but he had turned aside and was gone, that is, Christ permitting a further trial of suffering: and again, ver. 7, the keepers, etc., signifying the violent and cruel persecutors of the church taking her veil, despoiling the church of its places of worship and ornaments for the divine service.
- Verse 10: “My beloved” … In this and the following verses, the church mystically describes Christ to those who know him not, that is, to infidels in order to convert them to the true faith.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).