Seven days had sped since Solomon,--poet, sage, and king,--had brought
into his palace the lowly maiden he had met in the vineyard at dawn. For
seven days did the king take joyance in her love, nor could be sated
therewith. And a great joy irradiated his countenance, like to the
golden light of the sun.
It was the time of light, warm, moonlit nights,--sweet nights of
love.... Upon a couch of tiger fells lay the naked Sulamith; and the
king, sitting upon the floor at her feet, filled his emerald goblet with
the aureate wine of Mauretus, and drank to the health of his beloved,
rejoicing with all his heart, and narrated to her the sage, strange
legends of eld. And Sulamith’s hand rested upon his head, stroking his
wavy black hair.
“Tell me, my king,” Sulamith had once asked, “is it not wonderful that I
fell in love with thee so instantly? I now call all things to mind, and
meseems I began belonging to thee from the very first moment, when I had
not yet had time to behold thee, but had merely heard thy voice. My
heart began to flutter and did open to meet thee, as a flower opens to
the south wind on a night in summer. How hast thou taken me so, my
beloved?”
And the king, quietly bending his head toward the soft knees of
Sulamith, smiled tenderly and answered:
“Thousands of women before thee, O my comely one, have put this question
to their beloveds, and hundreds of ages after thee will they be asking
their beloveds about this. There be three things which are too wonderful
for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air;
the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of
the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. This is not my wisdom,
Sulamith,--these are the words of Agur, son of Jakeh, heard from him
by his disciples. But let us honour the wisdom of others also.”
“Yea,” said Sulamith pensively, “mayhap it is even true that man
shall never comprehend this. To-day, during the banquet, I wore a
sweet-smelling cluster of stacte upon my breast. But thou didst leave
the table, and my flowers ceased to give out their smell. Meseems, thou
must be beloved, O king, of women, and men, and beasts, and even of
flowers. I oft ponder, yet comprehend not: how can one love any other
save thee?”
“And any save thee, save thee, Sulamith! Every hour do I render thanks
to God for that He has set thee in my path.”
“I remember, I was sitting upon a stone of the wall, and thou didst put
thy hand on mine. Fire ran through my veins; my head was dizzied. I said
within me: Behold, there is my lord, my king, my beloved!”
“I remember, Sulamith, how thou didst turn around to my call. Under the
thin raiment I saw thy body, thy beautiful body, that I love as I love
God. I love it,--covered with its golden down, as though the sun had left
its kiss upon it. Thou art graceful, like to a filly in the Pharaoh’s
chariot; thou art fair like the chariot of Ammi-nadib. Thy eyes are as
two doves, sitting by the rivers of waters.”
“O, beloved, thy words stir me. Thy hand sears me sweetly. O, my king,
thy legs are as pillars of marble. Thy belly is like an heap of wheat,
set about with lilies.”
Surrounded, irradiated, by the silent light of the moon, they forgot
time and place; and thus hours would pass, and they with wonder beheld
the rosy dawn peeping through the latticed windows of the chamber.
Sulamith also said once:
“Thou hast known, my beloved, wives and virgins without number, and they
were all the fairest women on earth. I become ashamed whenever I consider
myself,--a simple, unschooled girl,--and my poor body, scorched of the
sun.”
But, touching her lips with his, the king would say, with infinite love
and gratefulness:
“Thou art a queen, Sulamith! Thou wast born a true queen. Thou art brave
and generous in love. Seven hundred wives have I, and three hundred
concubines, and virgins without number have I known; but thou, my timid
one, art my only one,--thou fairest among women. I have found thee like
as a diver in the Gulf of Persia, that filleth a great number of baskets
with barren shells and pearls of little price, ere he get from the bed
of the sea a pearl worthy a king’s crown. My child, a man may love
thousands of times, yet he loveth but once. People without number think
they love, yet only to two of them doth God send love. And when thou
didst yield thyself up to me among the cypresses, under the rafters of
cedars, upon the bed of green, I did with all my soul render thanks to
God, so gracious to me.”
Sulamith also asked once:
“I know that they all loved thee, for not to love thee is impossible.
The Queen of Sheba did come to thee from her domain. They say, that she
was the wisest and fairest of all women that had ever been on earth. As
in a dream, I recall her caravans. I know not why, but since my earliest
childhood I have been drawn to the chariots of the great. I was then
perhaps seven, perhaps eight. I remember the camels in golden harness,
covered with caparisons of purple, laden with heavy burthens; I remember
the mules with the little bells of gold between their ears; I remember
the droll monkeys in silvern cages; and the wondrous peacocks. There was
a multitude of servants in garments of white and blue, marching; they
led tame tigers and panthers upon ribbands of red. I was but eight
then.”
“O child, thou wert but eight then,” said Solomon with sadness.
“Didst thou love her more than me, Solomon? Wilt tell me something of
her?”
And the king told her all pertaining to this amazing woman. Having heard
much of the wisdom and beauty of the King of Israel, she had come to him
from her domain with rich gifts, desiring to prove his wisdom and subdue
his heart. This was a magnificent woman of forty, who was already
beginning to fade. But through secret, magic means she contrived to make
her body, that was growing flabby, seem graceful and supple, like a
girl’s, while her face bore an impress of an awesome, inhuman beauty.
But her wisdom was ordinary wisdom, and the petty wisdom of a woman to
boot.
Desiring to test the king with riddles, she at first sent to him fifty
youths of tenderest age, and fifty maidens. They were all so cunningly
dressed that the keenest eye could not have discerned their sex. “I
shall call thee wise, O King,” said Balkis, “if thou shalt tell me
which of them is woman, and which man.”
But the king burst out laughing, and ordered that every he and she
sent him be brought a separate bason of silver, and a separate ewer of
silver, for laving. And whereas the boys bravely splashed in the water
and cast it in handfuls at their faces, drying their skin vigorously,
the girls acted as women always do at their ablutions. They lathered
each hand gently and solicitously, bringing it closely to their eyes.
In so easy a manner did the king solve the first riddle of
Balkis-Mâkkedah.
Next she sent Solomon a large diamond, the size of a hazel nut. This
stone had a thin, exceedingly tortuous flaw, that perforated its entire
body with a narrow, intricate path. The task was to put a silken thread
through the jewel. And the wise king let into the opening a silk worm,
which, having passed through, left the finest of silken webs in its
wake.
Also, the beauteous Balkis sent King Solomon a precious goblet of carved
sardonyx, of magnificent workmanship. “This goblet shall be thine,” she
had commanded that the king be told, “if thou fillest it with moisture
taken neither from earth nor heaven.” And Solomon, having filled the
goblet with froth falling from the body of a fatigued steed, ordered it
to be carried to the queen.
Many such hard questions did the queen put to Solomon, but could not
belittle his wisdom; nor with all her secret charms of love’s passion
in the night might she contrive to retain his love. And when she had
finally palled upon the king, he had cruelly, hurtfully made mock of
her.
Everybody knew that the Savvian queen never showed her lower extremities
to anyone, and for that reason wore a garment reaching to the ground.
Even in the hours of love caresses did she keep her legs closely covered
with raiment. Many strange and droll legends had sprung up on this
account.
Some averred, that the queen had legs like a goat, grown over with wool;
others swore, that instead of human feet she had webbed feet, like a
goose. And they even related how the mother of Balkis had once, after
bathing, sat down upon sand where just before a certain god, temporarily
metamorphosed into a gander, had left his seed, and that through this
she had borne the beauteous Queen of Sheba.
And so Solomon one day commanded to be built, in one of his chambers, a
transparent floor of crystal, with an empty space beneath it, which was
filled with water and stocked with live fish. All this was done with
such extraordinary art that one not forewarned could never possibly
notice the glass, and would take an oath that a pool of clear, fresh
water lay before him.
And when all was in readiness, Solomon invited his regal guest to an
interview. Surrounded by all the pomp of her retinue, she paced through
the chambers of the House at Lebanon, and came up to the treacherous
pool. At the other end of it sat the king, resplendent with gold and
precious stones, and with a welcoming look in his dark eyes. The door
opened before the queen, and she took a step forward,--but cried out
and....
Sulamith claps her palms and laughs, and her laughter is joyous and
child-like.
“She stoops and lifts up her raiment?” asks Sulamith.
“Yea, my beloved, she acted as any among women would have acted. She
raised up the hem of her garment, and although this lasted for but a
moment, not only I but all my court saw that the beauteous Savvian
Queen, Balkis-Mâkkedah, had ordinary human legs, but crooked and grown
over with coarse hair. On the very next day she set off, without bidding
me farewell, and departed with her magnificent caravan. I had not meant
to offend her. I sent after her a trustworthy runner, whom I ordered to
give to the queen a bundle of a rare mountain herb,--the best means for
the extirpation of hair upon the body. But she returned to me the head
of my emissary in a bag of costly purple.”
Solomon also told his beloved many things out of his life, which none
other among men and women knew, and which Sulamith carried with her into
the grave. He told her of the long and weary years of his wanderings,
when, fleeing from the wrath of his brethren, he was forced to hide
under an assumed name in foreign lands, enduring fearful poverty and
privations. He told her how, in a far-off, unknown country, while he
was standing in the market place, in expectation of being hired to work
somewhere, the king’s cook had approached him and said:
“Stranger, help me carry this hamper of fish into the palace.”
Through his wit, adroitness, and skilled demeanor, Solomon so pleased
the officers of the court, that in a short while he had made himself at
home in the palace, and when the head cook died he had taken his place.
Further, Solomon told of how the king’s only daughter,--a beautiful,
ardent maiden,--had fallen in love with the new cook and had confessed
her love to him; how they fled from the palace one night, and had been
re-taken and brought back; how Solomon had been condemned to die; and
how, by a miracle, he succeeded in escaping from the dungeon.
Avidly did Sulamith listen to him, and, when he grew silent, amidst the
stillness of the night their lips joined, their arms entwined each
other, and breast touched breast. And when morning drew near, and
Sulamith’s body seemed a foamy pink, and the fatigue of love encircled
her splendid eyes with blue shadows, she would say with a tender smile:
“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love.”
[Illustration]