In this episode, Robert Alter reads from his translation of the Song of Songs. Alter is a literary critic and translator based at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2018, he published a landmark, one-man translation of the entire Hebrew Bible – the culmination of over two decades of scholarship.

The Song of Songs – sometimes referred to as the Song of Solomon – is a book of the Hebrew Bible, typically dated to the 4th century BCE.

The Song of Songs, 4:8 – 5:1, translated by Robert Alter, appears in The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary published W.W. Norton & Company.

We feature one short listener contribution at the end of every episode. To submit, call the Haiku Hotline at 612-440-0643 and read something after the beep. For the occasional prompt, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Subscribe on RadioPublic, iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher.