For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail, anguishes as of a woman in labor of a child. The voice of the daughter of Sion, dying away, spreading her hands: Woe is me, for my soul hath fainted because of them that are slain.
Mem. To what shall I compare thee, or to what shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what shall I equal thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Sion? For great as the sea is thy destruction: Who shall heal thee?
Aleph. How hath the Lord covered with obscurity the daughter of Sion in his wrath! How hath he cast down from heaven to the earth the glorious one of Israel and hath not remembered his footstool in the day of his anger!
The tender and delicate woman, that could not go upon the ground, nor set down her foot for over-much niceness and tenderness, will envy her husband who lieth in her bosom, the flesh of her son, and of her daughter,