1My son, to my wisdom hearken,
to my discernment bend your ear,
2to guard cunning
so that your lips may keep knowledge.
3For the stranger-woman’s lips drip honey,
smoother than oil her open mouth.
4But in the end she’s as bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a double-edged sword.
5Her feet go down to Death,
in Sheol her steps take hold.
6No path of life she traces,
her pathways wander, and she does not know.
7And now, sons, hear me,
and do not swerve from my mouth’s sayings.
8Keep your way far from her
and do not go near the entrance of her house,
9lest you give to others your glory
and your years to a ruthless man,
10lest strangers sate themselves with your vigor,
and your toil—in an alien’s house,
11and in the end you roar
when your body and flesh waste away.
12And you will say, “How I hated reproof,
and my heart despised rebuke.
13And I did not heed my teachers’ voice,
to my instructors I did not bend my ear.
14Soon I fell into every harm
in the midst of the assembled crowd.”
15Drink water from your own well,
fresh water from your cistern.
16Your springs will spread to the street,
in the squares, streams of water.
17Let them be yours alone
and not for strangers alongside you.
18Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19Love’s doe, a graceful gazelle,
her breasts ever slake your thirst,
you will always dote in her love.
20And why dote, my son, on a stranger-woman,
21For before the LORD’s eyes are the ways of a man,
He traces all his pathways.
22The crimes of the wicked ensnare him,
in the ropes of his offense he is held.
23He will die for want of reproof,
in his great doltishness he will dote.
CHAPTER 5 NOTES
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1. My son, to my wisdom hearken. This poem begins with the usual formula of exhortation by the Mentor (this verse and the next). In this case, we have one continuous poem until the end of the chapter, a warning about the wiles of the stranger-woman and a celebration of the joys of conjugal sex. The poem is not quite narrative, like the matching poem of chapter 7, despite certain narrative elements, but it is remarkable in the way it elaborates its argument through metaphor.
3. the stranger-woman’s lips drip honey. The sensual ripeness of the alliteration in the Hebrew nofet titofna siftey zarah has a nearly identical counterpart in Song of Songs 4:11. In the translation, “lips drip” is a gesture toward this cluster of sound. The seductive lips are a counterpart to the lips that should keep knowledge in the preceding line.
open mouth. The literal meaning of ḥeikh is “palate.” Since it is in all likelihood not speech but kisses that are referred to in both halves of the line, the translation adds “open” in keeping with the erotic enticement that the poet surely had in mind. The Hebrew term used, as we shall see, sets up a strategic pun that occurs later in the poem.
4. double-edged sword. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “sword of [two] mouths,” thus called because in biblical idiom the edge of the sword consumes. The idiom in this way shrewdly loops back, in an antithesis, to the lips and mouth (or palate) of the seductress.
6. she does not know. Focused as she is on sexual pleasure and the arts of seduction, she has no sense that she is embarked on a disastrous course, far from the straight way.
7. And now, sons. The Mentor temporarily switches to the plural, perhaps to generalize the case of this particular young man, but he then switches back to the singular in the next verse.
8. the entrance of her house. More literally, this would be “the opening of her house.” Though the admonition is literally spatial—steer clear of her house, don’t even think of approaching the door—an analogy is intimated between the woman’s house and her body. (In the Talmud, this Hebrew term, petah,̣ becomes a designation of the vagina in some discussions of marital law.)
10. lest strangers sate themselves with your vigor. The causal mechanism is ambiguous. If the woman is married, like the stranger-woman in chapter 7, the young man might be stripped of his resources by a husband’s suit for damages. If she is single, she could turn out to be a gold digger who, exploiting his sexual obsession, would take him for all he’s worth.
11. your body and flesh waste away. Presumably, this would be the consequence of his lacking the wherewithal to nourish himself properly, although the possibility of venereal disease should not be excluded.
14. the assembled crowd. Literally, “the assembly and congregation,” which is here construed as a hendiadys. The idea is that the real harm suffered because of the stranger-woman will be compounded by public shaming.
15. Drink water from your own well. The association of the well with female fertility and especially with the womb (or vagina) is reflected both in the Song of Songs and in the recurrent betrothal type-scene, where the young man encounters his future bride by a well. The pure waters of the well are an antithesis to the sweet honey and smooth oil of the seductress’s mouth. It is not clear whether the young man is already married or is being urged to enter marriage and its pleasures before he succumbs to the lure of the stranger-woman.
16. Your springs will spread to the street. Many critics prefer to follow the reading of the Septuagint, “Lest your springs spread to the street” because of the idea that the husband should enjoy his own private well, within the confines of his house. But since the spring or well is associated with the woman, it is not altogether clear what this would refer to—perhaps, by a stretch, to a prospect that the wife would become promiscuous because of her husband’s infidelity, which is not entirely plausible. The line might mean, as we have proposed, that the consequences of the man’s drinking from his own well—which perhaps would be his offspring—will be felt in the public realm. The next verse, however, would seem to argue for the Septuagint reading.
19. Love’s doe, a graceful gazelle. These delicate animal images are drawn from the same repertory as the animal images repeatedly used in the Song of Songs. The “love,” attached to “doe,” ʾahavim, suggests lovemaking rather than the emotional relationship, ʾahavah.
her breasts ever slake your thirst. Some interpreters revocalize dadim, “breasts,” as dodim, “lovemaking,” in keeping with the language of the Song of Songs. But given the emphasis in this poem on drinking, the physical image of drinking from the breasts may be more likely.
20. why dote. It is a characteristic maneuver of biblical poetry and of biblical narrative to effect the move from one segment of the text to the next by repeating a key word used in a different sense. Here, the core meaning of sh-g-h, to give oneself to excess or wild feeling, is retained, but there is a switch from a positive valence (the beloved wife) to a negative one (the stranger-woman).
lap. The Hebrew hẹiq is obviously a metonymy for the woman’s sexual part, and it puns on the term for another orifice, hẹikh (“palate” or “mouth”), used at the beginning of the poem and thus registers a small narrative progression. The allure of the seductress’s mouth leads to dangerous sexual intimacy.
23. he will dote. This concluding verb closes the circle in the representation of the foolish young man who makes the mistake of falling for the seductress: the Hebrew, like the English, is ambiguous, leaving the reader to decide whether he is doting on the stranger-woman in his foolishness or simply doting on the condition of foolishness.