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Journey of a Passage

Song of Songs 1:2–4

"Thy love is better than wine": love, or breasts?

The poem's first line in the Masoretic Text: "your love (dodekha) is better than wine," spoken by the woman to the man. The library's Greek and the Vulgate read the same consonants as "your breasts" (daddayikh): "tes mamelles," "ubera tua." The difference is in the vowels, and it changes who is speaking to whom.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. The poem as first composedUnknown (proposals from the 10th to the 3rd century BC)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from The poem as first composed
Greek
  1. Greek Song of Songs (library: Giguet's French)Greek translation 1st century BC – 1st century AD (debated); French 1872Translated from the Greek Song (Asma)
Latin
  1. Latin Vulgate (Clementine)Jerome c. AD 390s, from Hebrew; edition 1592Translated from the Hebrew text Jerome used
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (proposals from the 10th to the 3rd century BC)

    The poem as first composed

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. The oldest Hebrew copies of the Song are four Qumran manuscripts: 4Q106, 4Q107, 4Q108 (Cave 4) and 6Q6 (Cave 6), late 1st century BC to 1st century AD (reported).

  2. Jerome c. AD 390s, from Hebrew; edition 1592

    Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Osculetur me osculo oris sui; quia meliora sunt ubera tua vino, fragrantia unguentis optimis. Oleum effusum nomen tuum; ideo adolescentulæ dilexerunt te. Trahe me, post te curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum. Introduxit me rex in cellaria sua; exsultabimus et lætabimur in te, memores uberum tuorum super vinum. Recti diligunt te.

    Latin numbering: Song 1:1–3. Jerome translated the Song from Hebrew (c. AD 390s); the Clementine edition prints the title outside the verses and joins English 1:1-2.

  3. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The poem as first composed

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    יִשָּׁקֵ֙נִי֙ מִנְּשִׁיק֣וֹת פִּ֔יהוּ כִּֽי־טוֹבִ֥ים דֹּדֶ֖יךָ מִיָּֽיִן׃ לְרֵ֙יחַ֙ שְׁמָנֶ֣יךָ טוֹבִ֔ים שֶׁ֖מֶן תּוּרַ֣ק שְׁמֶ֑ךָ עַל־כֵּ֖ן עֲלָמ֥וֹת אֲהֵבֽוּךָ׃ מָשְׁכֵ֖נִי אַחֲרֶ֣יךָ נָּר֑וּצָה הֱבִיאַ֨נִי הַמֶּ֜לֶךְ חֲדָרָ֗יו נָגִ֤ילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה֙ בָּ֔ךְ נַזְכִּ֤ירָה דֹדֶ֙יךָ֙ מִיַּ֔יִן מֵישָׁרִ֖ים אֲהֵבֽוּךָ׃

    Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love (masc.) is better than wine… draw me after you; let us run; the king has brought me into his chambers

    Hebrew numbering: Song 1:2–4.

  4. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

  5. Greek translation 1st century BC – 1st century AD (debated); French 1872

    Greek Song of Songs (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek Song (Asma)

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Cantique des cantiques, qui est de Salomon. Qu’il me baise des baisers de sa bouche; car tes mamelles sont meilleures que le vin. Et la senteur de tes parfums l’emporte sur tous les aromates; ton nom est l’essence de parfum: voilà pourquoi les jeunes filles t’aiment. Elles t’attirent, et à ta suite nous courons aux senteurs de tes parfums. Le roi m’a introduite dans sa chambre secrète; nous tressaillirons, nous nous réjouirons en toi; nous aimerons tes mamelles plus que le vin; la droiture te chérit.

    Greek (digital file) numbering: Song 1:1–3. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check). Giguet also inserts speaker labels such as (Épouse) and (Époux); these are interpretation, not Greek text. A C check needs a critical Greek edition.

What changed, and why

Unpointed Hebrew DDYK allows both readings. The Masoretic vowels give dodekha (masculine "your love"), which fits "let him kiss me": the woman speaks. The Greek and Latin readings make the line praise of a woman, or were read as such by later Christian commentators (breasts as nourishing teaching). The same choice repeats in v. 4.

The voice shifts from "him" (v. 2a) to "you" (v. 2b), and from "I" to "we" (v. 4). Whether "we" is a chorus or the woman with her companions is not marked.

"The king hath brought me into his chambers" (v. 4): king as Solomon, as a lover called king, or as a fantasy? The poem leaves it open.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe Greek and the Vulgate read "breasts" in 1:2 and 1:4.
  • Independently documentedThe Hebrew consonants allow both readings.
  • Strongly supportedThe Masoretic reading "your love" fits the speaker of v. 2a.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Song of Songs 1: Your Love Is Better Than Wine →The title calls the book "the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's" (1:1). Then, without introduction, a woman speaks: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine" (v. 2). She longs to be drawn after him; "the king hath brought me into his chambers" (v. 4). She tells the daughters of Jerusalem she is "black, but comely" (or "dark and lovely"), darkened by the sun while her brothers made her keep the vineyards (vv. 5–6). She asks where her beloved pastures his flock (v. 7) and receives an answer (v. 8). A man praises her as a mare among Pharaoh's chariots (vv. 9–11); she answers with myrrh, henna and the vineyards of En-gedi (vv. 12–14); the two exchange praise and describe a house of cedar beams (vv. 15–17).
    • Investigation: The Greek Song and Its Translators →The Greek Song (Asma asmaton) is a close, word-for-word translation. Its differences from the Masoretic Text are usually differences of reading the same consonants ("your breasts" for "your love"), of translating names as words (Tirzah as "good pleasure"), or of interpretation. Later Greek versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) survive in fragments. This investigation lists the main differences found in the library's Greek and explains what kind each is.
    • Investigation: One Drama or Many Songs? →Is the Song a single story with a plot (meeting, courtship, wedding, union), a drama with a hero and a rival, songs from a wedding week, or a collection of separate love poems? Each theory has been influential. The Hebrew gives no speaker names, scene markers or narrator; refrains and repeated images suggest design; abrupt shifts suggest collection.