Woman, your words have cut me to the core.
Who has moved my bed? That would be a hard task,
even for the most skilled craftsman, unless a god
himself came down and with ease chose to shift it.
No mortal man alive, not in his prime,
could lightly prize it from its place. A great secret
lies in that bed's craftsmanship. It was my work,
my own, and no one else's.

Inside our court there grew a long-leaved olive tree,
flourishing and full, its trunk as thick as a pillar.
Around this I built my chamber, stone by stone,
and roofed it well, and hung close-fitting doors.
Then I lopped the foliage of that long-leaved olive,
and trimmed the trunk from the root up, and with my adze
planed it smooth and true, and to the line made it straight,
fashioning a bedpost. I bored it all with an auger.

Beginning with this post, I built my bed,
until it was finished, inlaid with gold and silver
and ivory. And I stretched on it a thong of ox-hide,
shining with purple dye.

There is our secret. And I do not know,
woman, if my bed is still fast, or if some man
has cut the olive trunk and moved it elsewhere.