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Co u rtesy o f The Me tropo l i ta n “m e u m o f Art
T H E Q U E EN O f S H E BA
T H E
QUEEN O F SHEBA
H ER LI F E AND TIMES
PH INNEAS A . C‘
RUTCH
B A M A
ILLUS TRATED
G . P . PUTNAM ’
S SONS
NEW YORK AND LoNDON
Cepyn gh t . 1922
by
G . P . P u tnam ’
s S ons
Made in th e Umted S tates of America
Copyr igh t . 1922by
G . P . P u tnam ’
s S ons
Made in th e Umted States of America
F OREWORD
Countless volumes,incunabula , brochures and
miscellany,with which every student of history is
intimately acquainted, have been issued concerningthe more salient incidents of the life and reign ofBalkis
,Queen of Sheba .
One has only to speculate, as indeed one canscarcely abstain from doing in moments of fasci
nated leisure, upon this richly controversial su b
j ect,to call to mind at once such authoritative worksas Professor Hornblower
’ s The E nigma of S heba ,
with its masterly discussions based on contemporary sources , in which he conclusively disposes ofthe distorted reports touching upon the Queen ’ saccession ; Gorton
’ s S ecret M emoirs of the Cou rt
of S heba , which , in spite of a deplorable tendencyon the author ’ s part to accept canard for chronicle,nevertheless remains a monumental contributionof its kind to the bibliography of the period ;Heimweh ’ s scholarly monograph, ! eitgenossen derKonigin Ba lhis, an admirable study of the socialand literary movements of her time ; and GastonPoteau ’ s delightful Voyages de la R eine de S aba ,
which needs no recommendation other than its owncharm and whimsicality of comment, even in les spurely Sheban circles of research .
I f, at so late a date, one presumes to offer an
additional treatise supplementing the foregoing,chosen at random from amid the mass of printedmaterial inspired by this extraordinary reign, it i sfrom a conviction , fathered by hope , that a widersurvey of the time than is set forth in any of themore specialized existing documents will be indu lgently received—and particularly by that greatreading body of the public which is ever moredeeply concerned wi th the human frailties of acareer than with its statecraft, more warmly stirredby a glimpse of unrecorded irnpu lse than by thegraven monuments of staid deliberation , moreclosely sympathetic to the personal record of
advancing years than to the cold chronology of
edicts .It is in this spirit, therefore, a spirit of lenienttoleration, of mild reserve in the face of temptationscriticism, of restrained veracity untouched by anygossipry, claver , or reportage, that one approachesthe life and age of Balkis, Queen of Sheba—she
who was born before her time and remained tooutlive her day, in whom the East and the Westwere met and the lioness couchant with the ewe
,
whose way was paved with well-intentioned errancy,
for whom no reticence was too forbidding, nocuriosity too shameless, no new departure too
prodigal of candlelight . She , who was but a child ,and yet who stood alone in the midst of beardedmen , and , with many innocent questions , broughtthem to their separate ends .L a petite Balhis, as Gaston Poteau so quaintlyputs it
P . A . C .
vii
CONTENTS
F OREWORDCH APTER
I .—EAST O F S UE !
I I .
—BABY BALKI S
I I I .—POMP S AND C IRCUM STANCE S
IV.—BALKI S IS WIL L IN G
V .—S OLOM ON, H IRAM AND S HU SH
VI .—P ILGRIM ’ S PROGRE SS
VI I .
—TH E YOUNG VIS ITOR
VI I I .—OVER THE H OT S AND S
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ix
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
TH E QUEEN O F SHEBA F rontispiece
Courtesy of The Metropol itan Museum of Art.
TH E QUEEN OF SHEBA S ETT ING OUT ON H ER J OURNEYTO J ERU SALEM
Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of A rt.
TH E QUEEN OF SHEBA ARRIVING AT THE GATE S OF
J ERUSALEMCourtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of A rt.
CLEARING THE AP P ROACHE S To J ERU SALEM ON THE DAY
OF THE QUEEN ’ S ARRIVALF rom 8. Contemporary Painting .
TH E QUEEN OF SH EBA
CHAPTER I
EA ST OF SUE !
1
The first millennium , Old style, dawned lugubriOu sly for Sheba .F or more than three centuries she had seen theglory of the coming of a hundred lords . Whenit was not Rameses II it was M enephthah . Whenit was notM enephthah it was the Children of I srael .In Assyria, no sooner was Shalmaneser laid withhis uncles and his aunts than Tiglathpileser I wasafoot . And after him A shu rnazirpal . And afterthem both, M erdu kzer and E u lmashshakinshu m ,
the Babylonians . Nearer home, the Kings of Ma’ in
were a thorn in the flesh, a pebble in the shoe, amote in the eye . More recently, too, the power ofTyre was risen to be a nightmare on the face of thewaters .Sheba was become the cockpit of Arabia .
Now suddenly the silence of an uneasy peace enveloped the land .
3
“WINEEESEN I f? SEEEA
The greater powers to the northeast , Assyria andBabylon, were come to terms , a precarious truce,fraught with the dust clouds of gathering chariots .A shu rkirbi and Nabu mu kinpal eyed one anothersourly from their neighboring capitals and exchanged costly gifts, consisting for the most partof the identical ivory, apes and peacocks which theirfathers had exchanged before them .
In Egypt the Pharaoh was poorly, and kept tohis fleshpots.
Up in I srael, Saul was dead , and David drewnear to his end, content to marvel at the wisdom of
the youth Solomon , his son, or to sit in the gate rehearsing the days of the siege, when the city of Jerusalem was taken from the Jebu sites. This was theold King ’ s favorite anecdote, now that the incidentsof h is encounter with Goliath had begun to pale .
“And ,” he would chuckle,
“they cried that theblind and the lame would be enough to keep me ou t.
And I cried, I s that SO ?—GO up the drain into themidst of the city and turn on those blind and lameones and smite them , foot and mouth !
” 1
It was on one of these occasions that Solomonmade his famous bon mot, Often erroneously attri
buted to Jeroboam .
1 Heb ron Papyrus, ch . 49, v . 6 .
4
I t ’ s a long drain that has no turning .
Tyre, M i stress of the Sea, manned her fearlesstwin-r u ddered ships for the long j ourney to Puntand Ophir, and pushed forth boldly on many anadventurous keel into the Unknown Ocean . It hadhitherto always been supposed that the earth wasshaped like a saucer, r immed with void , floatingunder a dome Of intermittently luminous revolvingbodies . But with each returning argosy it becameincreasingly patent that the earth was
‘
flat, stretching boundlessly hither and yon, interspersed withrolling waters .True, this great discovery was not adm itted by
the old school without due persecution . The greatnavigator, Hanno the E lder, was haled before theSuffetes of the Port of Tyre and forced to recant.under penalty of being fed to the sea lions . Underthe circumstances he surrendered to their prej u dice,but the gruff Old salt was none the less convinced ofthe validity of his claim .
“It may seem curved to you and me, hegrumbled under his breath as he left the councilchamber , but it
’ s j ust as flat as it used to be—andif this be sacrilege make the most of it !” 2
1 Iba’d ., ch . 49, v . 17 .
’ M emoi rs of H anna the E lder, ch . 8, p . 209.
5
‘
fr’
tfiJEEEEEN I f? EEEBA
And , little by little, the new cartography wasgenerally adopted, even though the phraseology ofcharter-parties still clung to the old exemptionclauses— “the Trident of Neptune , the Perils of theRim and the Acts of Hostile Deities”—so that thewater borne commerce of Tyre was greatly exalted over that of other nations who still cautiouslyforbore to tempt disaster at what they supposed tobe the edge of the world .
This, as may be imagined , proved a source of
great profit to the Tyrians , who set about with alltheir national cunning to encourage this state ofmind among their neighbors, the while they themselves were rapidly expanding their new-foundcommercial empire , over which it was their proudboast that the shades Of night never fell .
To the north and west, in Ma In, the aged Shushsat rooted to the throne .Descended from the macrobian PatriarchFathers , rehearsing his ancestry on both sides to theoriginal settlers of Arabia who had migrated withthe Ark, this venerable, blue-nosed monarch wasnow two hundred and forty- six years Old. A S L e
page so aptly characterises him6
was (EJLlDEEN © (F‘
SEEM
militaristic atmosphere of his early environment, allthe ruthless tradition of his ancestors, so well expressed in the arrogant motto of his house,
“WithM ight and M a
’
in,
” all the abj ect sycophancy of
M ainim historians, seem to have gone to the youngman ’ s head . The archives of Sheba, and of Babylonand Tyre, are full of references to his hot-temperedtru mmtings, his bull-headed vociferations , hisfastuous , not to say fatuous, cu dgelry.
No mess of pottage so thick but he must smearhimself with it up to the elbows, no kettle of fish soboiling but he must burn his fingers at it, no diplomatic dish so delicate but he must stamp his feet init, spatter the gravy where it might .
Young King Shush i s a merry young smelt,And a merry young smelt i s he ;H e ca lls for h is sword and he ca ll s for h is belt,And he call s for h is chariots three.
so they sang disrespectfully of him in a score ofcapitals .He was the despair of his ministers , who foundthemselves obliged to mitigate the crudities of hisill -considered pronouncements , as in the case of thefamous letter of condolence to Goliath ’ s widow ;but, it must be said, the idol of his people, who re
8
veled in the gaiety which their handsome , headstrong prince contributed to the family of nations .Indeed , his fondness for posturing in the international l imelight led him to extraordinary lengths ,in which his sense of the dramatic entirely obliter
ated whatever instincts of good taste may havebeen his portion . He seems to have been utterlydevoid of any sense of humor .At home, among other unrelated occupations , hetried his hand in turn at pottery making, muralinscription , sarcophagus painting, musical andpoetic composition, peacock farming, ventriloquism,
and the manufacture of j ewelry . The little motherOf-pearl boxes incrusted with emeralds with whichhe was wont to gladden the eye of his guests wereall the product of the royal factory . S O great wasthe pride of craftsmanship which he lavished uponthese mementos that any expression of disparagement on the part of the recipient would have beenfatally ill-advised .
“At least,
” his grandmother said one day, a boxfrom his hand is worth two on the ear !He never spoke to her again . On her deathbed,at the foot of which he was obliged to Show himselffor a moment, she smiled at him whimsically andremarked :
9
TFEfiJEi EEEEN I E SEEEA [fijl
A box for everything, and everything in itsbox !” 1
His hankering for statuary, and his passion forhaving himself pictured on camelback were bywordsin the kingdom . The walls of his su mmer palaceat Yath il were enriched with four hundred andninety-two frescoes of himself in as many hippicposes , and in h is pleasure gardens there was scarcelyroom to turn amid the marble effi gies of his changing moods .The maj ority of monarchs, his prime minister
remarked on one occasion , busy themselves withstatutes . This one i s only occupied with statues .To which a quick-witted courtier added that thedescription fitted to a T .
It is in his more public manifestations, however ,that he appeared to the least advantage . Outhousesays of his famous j ourney to E thiopia and Egyptthat he comported himself in each loc alityin a manner calculated to scandalise his hosts andstartle the pollori . In Ethiopia he was moreEthiopian than the Ethiopians , which was sayinga great deal , going about in leopard skins andfeathered head-dresses , followed by a bevy of
l ionesses . Before the Pyramid of Ghizeh he burst1 Lepage, L e R oi Shush Qu int, ch . 3, p . 102.
10
into tears , overcome , as he said , by the sight ofsuch quantities of stone . At Thebes he took theSacred Bull by the horns , and conducted avi olent flirtation with Aida , one of the Queen ’ sslaves .
Now,after more than two hundred years , he was
known as the S ick Man of Arabia .
He was no longer young. He was no longerhandsome . He was grown enormously fat, so thathe had to be carried everywhere in a specially constru cted litter, pendulous and j iggly .
comme nne montagne de blancmange, asLepage has it .Untold fortunes in j ewelry were buried in overlapping folds Of flesh upon his person, in the formof rings and bracelets which had vanished from Viewdecades before . Not a hair remained upon hisscalp
,which was yellow and sere l ike an ancient
leaf, and the loose ends of his tremendously longbeard were frayed and soiled from much trampling underfoot . He was utterly toothless , blobberlipped , blind in one eye, and deaf as the cedars ofLebanon . The ravages of care , time and diseasehad left their imprint upon his cheek, wrinkled and
11
wasEEEEN I )? EEEEA Q)
brown like the skin of a venerable date , and his
gangrelou s limbs staggered under the load Of yearswhich weighed down upon his aduncous shoulders .In Spite of which he remained , within certainlimitations, in full possession of his faculties , keenwitted, sharp -tongued, and nimble-fi ngered in thematter of mother-of—pearl boxes . His statues , hisportraits and his dramatic gestures were an everpresent source of delight to him ; and through hisone good eye he looked ou t across his borders andinto the pleasant land of Sheba , and mulled overthe prospect, biding his time .A portentous Old man, whose grandniece hadbeen the mother of the present King of Sheba .
And within the borders of Sheba a precariousstate of affairs prevailed .
The grandniece of the King of Ma In had ruledas Queen Consort in Sheba for exactly three andone half days , two and three quarters days longerthan her predecessor . Only in her case the demisewas shared by her husband, as a result of one of
those palace insurrections which do so much tobrighten the otherwise drab annals of the Court ofSheba during that era .
12
Her son, Jehaz, born while She was yet CrownPrincess of Sheba, a position which she occupied,off and on, for thirty-nine years , ascended the step sof the throne from which the traces of the lateunpleasantness had scarcely evaporated , and en
deared himself at once to his subj ects, great loversas they were of swiftly administered j ustice , byputting to death in the public square of his capitaltwo hundred and forty-Six participants in the recentinsurrection , to say nothing of six hundred andeighty-two innocent bystanders who had purchasedcoigns of vantage at the execution for an extravagant sum from the speculators .The message received from Shush on this occasion was characteristic .
“Faster and bloodier, he wrote . 1
The streets of Marib ran with gore .Jchaz, in a frenzy of filial devotion, went slightlyinsane . Gentle and well-mannered , a disciple of
culture and a patron of the arts , comely and lovable ,he suffered from uncontrollable paroxysms ofhomicidal mania which kept his court in a perpetualflutter . As Talmud says
“A summons to the royal presence was always
fraught wi th a certain piquancy . One took one ’ s‘ Shenanikin, M i rrors of Ma r ib, ch . 1, p . 2.
13
THEE.EEEEN I t? SEES/A.
shoes in one hand and one ’ s l ife in the other on suchoccasions . ”
When the fit was upon him nothing seemed tosoothe the royal derangement except the loud heating of drum s, the clashing of cymbals and the staecato whining of wind instruments . 1
Gorton states that at times when theKing ’ s eyelids began to flutter, an unfailingsymptom of approach ing dementia , a perfect cacophony Of conflicting sounds poured forth from thepalace , not only as a result of the efforts of his owndevoted troup of musicians, but on account of thefact that all those attached to his person formedthe habit of going about the corridors precededeach by his own hand, lest they should come uponthe King unawaresPerhaps the saddest instance resulting from theselapses was the case of the L ittle Princes of Hadramaut, who, playing about the palace grounds oneday all unconscious of the royal peril , were seizedby him and flung into the Tower of Babel,where they perished miserably of bedlam . TheKing ’ s grief upon learning of this event from the
1 Kernberl in, in his M usic of the Anci ents, ch . 2, p . 5, suggests inthi s the origin of the modern term “
j azz,”appl ied to certa in decadent
forms of music .
14
USEQJLIUEEN ED)? EEEEA E!
Once established at Marib , after a number of
hairbreadth escapes from his brother ’ s aberrations,he adopted the policy of avoiding him entirely,maintaining an independent establishment in adistantly remote part of the palace . On the rareoccasions when he found it necessary to communicate with him in person he took the precaution of
setting his speeches to music, causing them to beplayed to the King by a full orchestra of hisfavorite instruments . 1
In fact S henanikin ’
s whole conduct of afl airs
was inspired by an exemplary caution , sweetenedby a very facile gift of oratory . Gorton , whodevotes much space to him, says that
“In the art of flattery he was unsurpassed, his
subtle encomiums lying like the rich cheese of goatsthick on the bread of his statements . Nor did heconfine himself to subtleties , but spread his ca
joleries with a two-handed trowel upon the con
sciou sness of his hearers , in a manner which leftthem pleasantly giddy .
He was, of course, enormously popular .This is Gorton at his best, but as is so Often thecase with him he has entirely misconstrued the
‘ Steinkopf has an interesting chapter in whi ch he suggests the
o rigin of grand opera in this custom .
16
character of his subj ect . I f S henanikin was softSpoken, velvet-tongued and felt-Slippered, as infact he was, it was only the outward expression Ofthe gentle soul, the timid, modest nature, the kind,charitable heart of the man .
Transom , in his Eminent S hebans, 1 i s moregenerous and, indeed , infinitely more accurate .
“Something pathetic,” he says ,
“somethingtremendously appealing in the Short, roly-polyfigure in the everlasting loosely flapping slippers,pattering about the palace corridors on a multi
plicity of infinitesimal errands . Bucolic by instinct, fate called him to the choleric council roomsof Kings . A lover of nature , and of the tinymelodies of bees and birds, they surrounded himwith blaring bands .Industrious and painstaking, a tireless picker upand putter away of minute nothings , the intellect ofa philosopher bent over the petty tasks of a scribe .An old man with a duster . Such was Shenanikin,
Regent of Sheba .”
7
Jchaz had been married six times .His first wife, Stitch, a Princess of so dis
‘ Ch . 1, p . 2.
3 17
ElliELSEQMEEN I E SEEEA [E!
p leased him by her cantankerous disposition that hehad her quietly murdered, to the great relief notonly of himself but of his entire court who could notabide the lady . It is of her that the M ainim Envoymade his famous remark, reported in BjOrn
“A Stitch in time saves nine . ” 1
Hornblower does not mince any words concerning her .She combined, he says , in her own mordacious
person all of the less attractive qualities of a bowlof sour milk .
H is second , th ird and fourth wives Jehaz ac
cidentally slaughtered while under the Influence ofhis malady ; and to his intense subsequent annoyance and mortifi cation, more especially as each incident Of this nature made it increasingly difficult toprovide a suitable partner for his somewhat hazardou s throne . By his fifth wife, however, ! enobia,daughter of the Emperor of Kush , he had ninesons . Six of these he did away with at varioustimes and for diverse, and often extremely su ndrr
reasons,two of them killed each other in boyish fun ,
and the last committed suicide ou t of pique,angered by the attention which his brothers wereattracting . Nothing daunted, Jehaz reluctantly
‘ Th e Origin of Ca tchwords, p . 5 .
18
strangled ! enobia , who had begun to weary himwith her ceaseles s lamentations .Shortly afterwards , he married the Princess
Anabasis of Troy, and this union was blessed withfour sons , Eni , Meni, Maini and Mo , who wereimmediately removed from the proximity of theKing, as the question of the succession was nowexercising the minds Of his ministers . Jchaz, ful lyaware of his own fatal proclivities, readily agreedto this arrangement, and decreed , moreover, thatAnabasis should accompany the royal infants .And then he took up Shimhi .
8
This Shimhi , destined to become seventh QueenConsort of Sheba , was a mere funambulist, a highvau l ter, a lofty-tumbler, an aerosaltant— in otherwords a rope-dancer .A Scythian by birth and of very low origin , infact of no origin whatsover , she captivated thesusceptibilities of Jchaz during one of her performances at the palace theatre by the extraordinarybeauty of her features , the grace of her person andthe breathless daring of her poses , in the course ofwhich she achieved contortions on the Slack rope asclassical as they were surprising .
19
‘
FWEEmai l I t? EEEEA [E!
The King would not be gainsaid . The littledancer , for her part, all oblivious of the future , wasnothing loth . No sooner said than done . Shimhiawoke to find herself Queen of Sheba .
I t was her last happy moment .From the very first day her position at court wasextremely insecure and call ed for the continuousexertion of all her powers of equilibrium . As itwas she never obtained more than a toe-hold , which ,while it may have been sufficient for a contortionist ,was not adequate support for a Consort . Anabasis, of course, made herself peculiarly disagreeable in more ways than one, the outpourings of herj ealous spite culminating in a shocking sceneduring the course of which she cast aspersions onthe new Queen ’ s character, not to mention variousarticles of furniture at her person , and wound upthe recital of her scorn with that blistering insultwhich has often been called the Curse of Sheba .
“May your children all be acrobats !” she
screamed , 1 and fell, most unfortunately for her ,who could not pretend to be one, backwards downthe palace stairs , at the foot of which she was foundsome few hours later breathing her last .
“And that ’ s that !” was the King ’ s only comment .
Transom, Em inent Shabans, ch . 3, p . 17.
20
As for Shimh i , she merely Shrugged hershoulders , with that increasingly rapid quiveringmotion , beginning at the waist and ending at thefinger tips, for which she became so famous, andexecuted a faultless pirouette .
“I shkebibble, She laughed , in her untutored
vernacular . “Ain ’ t we got fun ? L ike anactress a child of mine it should not be yet !What did it done you should hate it so—Got
tu niu !” 1
But even now, with Anabasis disposed of,S himhi
’
s Situation was not greatly improved . TheSheban nobility, while they had been willing enoughto crane their necks at her agility, were less inclinedto bow them before her Maj esty . Her path wasstrewn with innuendoes . Her slightest slip wasmade a landslide , her every breach an earthquake,and it was inevitable that she should comm it many .
Lampoons and sneering j ests at her expenseadorned the palace walls, the air which she mustbreathe each day was poisoned by caustic referencesto her former calling.
S himhi be nimble, Shimh i be qu ick,S h imh i j u mp over the candlestick !
”
1 Ibid .
21
rate; EEEEN a)? EEEEA [fl
A little contortion is a dangerous thing .
These are examples, chosen at random, of theheavy-witted puns and scurrilous doggerel to whichthe Queen was constantly subj ected . Jehaz, a trifleashamed perhaps of his own impetuous infatuationfor this nonentity, does not seem to have exertedhimself in her defence beyond a few half-heartedwholesale executions and one general massacre ofminor poets , known in Sheban history as Groundhog Day .
2 Shenanikin could undoubtedly havehelped her, but there is no evidence in any of hiscorrespondence that he was ever aware of herexistence, or she of his .Things went from bad to worse . Another palaceinsurrection was impending . Came that terriblenight when the flower of the court gathered beforethe Queen ’ s apartments for the purpose of sharpening their scimitars upon her doorstep .
Death to the Scythian !” the corridors rangwith their bloodthirsty cries . “
Shimhi’
s crown istumbling down , my fair lady !
” 3
It was on this occasion that one of the Queen ’ sS himhis, as her ladies- in-waiting were called , put
1 Talmud, Dia ries of a Court Physician, tab let 28.
2 I bid.
‘ Ibid.
22
weween I ? swam. [E
Poor little misunderstood acrobat Queen ! Whatwas she ? A street sparrow, a dancing doormouse ,an innocent tumblebug in a gilded cage . A vacantchair . A song at twilight . Nothing more .So let her stand before the judgment of
posterity .
9
The baby, a girl , was taken to Salhin, to grow upbeside her four little half-brothers .Such were the lineage , parentage and birth of
the child who was to be known in years to come asBalkis, Queen of Sheba .
24
CHAPTER II
BABY BALKIS
1
At a very early age the little Queen-to-be gaveevidence of two pronounced peculiarities . She wasambidextrous, and double j ointed throughout . Inaddition it became apparent, as the light burden ofher young years began to accumulate , that she
was destined to be deliriously beautiful , in the fatalS cythian style every characteristic of whichalabaster skin, j ade colored eyes , fiery red or
“ salamander” hair , tiny hands and feet—she
possessed to a bewildering degree . Aside from thatshe was a romp , a hoyden , a madcap , a hotspur anda tomrig of the first water . So much so that when itcame time to furnish a name for her, to supplementher royal cryptonym which might of course neverbe uttered above a whisper , the caconym of Balkiswas chosen , meaning Tomboy .
I f any evidence of her vagarious nature otherthan the testimony of eye-witnesses were neededBalkis herself furnishes it - in striking fashion .
Perhaps more than any ruler in history, certainlywith infinitely greater prolixity than other con
temporary sovereigns , she rushed into script on alloccasions and on all topics in a passion for self
25
revelation which proves a veritable cranberry bogfor her biographers , embarrassing though it mayhave been for her relatives , friends and associateswhom she does not spare in her autobiography .
1
Of her extraordinary diaries there are fourhundred and sixty-two volumes extant , half of
which must be read with the aid of a mirror since,on account of her ambidextrousness , it was herpractice to write two volum es at a time , one forwardand the other backwards . And on the subj ect ofher youthful escapades she is very explicit, anddisarmingly shameless .
“Salhin Palace ,” she says once, was designed in
what is called the Sheban manorial style , with roofsand turrets , and tin camels on top of them . Sucha beau tif u l structure .
I was a child of the sand d u nes and qu ite
untamable .I rode my camel-foal up the front stairs andtried to teach the Governor ’ s high stepping Bactrians to jump , which they, poor knock-kneedcreatures, were not in the
'
least prepared to donow that I look back on it . I climbed ou r perilously
1 Ba lkis of Sheba , An A u tobiography, translated from the originalMS . by the P an-A rab ian Society .
’ Chi ldhood, vol . 12.
inclined roof and slid down off it into the dunessitting on a salver, by moonlight in my nightdress .Already in my earliest youth I had scrambled upevery monkey tree , walked on my hands on top of
every wall, and sat astride of every tin camel in mychildhood home . I was , I suppose , u tterly fearless .I thought absolutely nothing of running along thenarrow ridges of the roof at breakneck speed , shodonly in my gu m sandals . This alarmed people somuch , however , that I was reluctantly obliged toabandon this pastime .In another chapter 1 she states thatI very soon showed a remarkable proficiency in
dancing and contortionism, and could lift both myfeet to the level of my fi nely penciled eyebrows andthen clasp them behind my neck with disconcertingease . This harmless amusement, or so I found it,seemed to shock a great number of people whowent around saying,
‘Look at Balkis with herS cythifi ed airs .
’
A remark the full import of whichI only appreciated later , but then I was never oneto care what people said about me .Again elsewhere 2 she observes“I was the life , and very often nearly the death,
Childhood, vol . 13 .
I bid ., vol . 14 .
revelation which proves a veritable cranberry bogfor her biographers , embarrassing though it mayhave been for her relatives , friends and associateswhom she does not spare in her autobiography .
1
Of her extraordinary diaries there are fourhundred and sixty-two volumes extant, half of
which must be read with the aid of a mirror since,on account of her ambidextrousness , it was herpractice to write two volu mes at a time , one forwardand the other backwards . And on the subj ect ofher youthful escapades she is very explicit, anddisarmingly shameless .
“Salhin Palace ,”she says once , was designed in
what is called the Sheban manorial style , with roofsand turrets, and tin camels on top of them . Sucha bea u tif u l structure .
I was a child of the sand dunes and qu ite
untamable .I rode my camel-foal up the front stairs andtried to teach the Governor ’ s high stepping Bactrians to j ump , which they, poor knock-kneedcreatures, were not in the
‘
least prepared to donow that I look back on it . I climbed our perilously
1 Ba lkis of Sheba , An A utobiography, translated from the originalMS . by the P an-A rab ian Soc iety .
’ Chi ldhood, vol . 12.
inclined roof and slid down off it into the dunessitting on a salver, by moonlight in my nightdress .Already in my earliest youth I had scrambled upevery monkey tree , walked on my hands on top of
every wall , and sat astride of every tin camel in mychildhood home . I was , I suppose, u tterly fearless .I thought absolutely nothing of running along thenarrow ridges of the roof at breakneck speed , shodonly in my g u m sandals . This alarmed people somuch , however, that I was reluctantly obliged toabandon this pastime .In another chapter 1 she states thatI very soon showed a remarkable proficiency in
dancing and contortionism, and could lift both myfeet to the level of my fi nely penciled eyebrows andthen clasp them behind my neck with disconcertingease . This harmless amusement, or so I found it,seemed to shock a great number of people whowent around saying,
‘
Look at Balkis with herS cythifi ed airs .
’
A remark the full import of whichI only appreciated later , but then I was never oneto care what people said about me .Again elsewhere 2 she observes“I was the life , and very often nearly the death,
1 Childhood, vol . 13.
’ I bid ., vol . 14 .
27
Cof the palace , and what my nurse described as aperfect hell of a child .
’ Our camel driver ’ s wifecalled me a little microbe . Bumptious , excessivelypassionate , disagreeably plainspoken , impertinentas well as foolhardy, and always scornful of
etiquette I was, no doubt, almost impossible totolerate .So Balkis fearlessly describes herself . It seemsonly fitting to add Talmud ’ s famous characterisation .
“Balkis , he admits in his own diaries, was not aplaster saint , nor even a plaster cast . She was acalamitous , clackety, combustive little imp of creation , full of furore , improvisation , high temperatures, and the common or garden bean .
In the meantime her education , as befitting alittle Sheban Princess , was not being entirelyneglected , in Spite of the great handicap underwhich her governesses and tutors labored as a resultof her well known habit of disappearing into thedunes for days and nights at a time, accompaniedonly by her faithful Tyrian tru ndletails.
1
It was upon her return from one of these1 Canis bellicosu s.
28
putting their eyes ou t with her thumbs and otherwi se annoying them—with her nurse she neverresorted to any bodily violence .
Notwithstanding the many interruptions in herschooling, Balkis was rigorously drilled in thefundamentals of learning essential to a Shebanyoung lady of her station .
Besides her own native Sheban , she spokePhoenician, M ainim , Aramaic and Hebrew, andwas able to make herself quite clearly understood inAspirine, L isterine , Phenacetine and the variousArsenic, Sulphuric and Antiseptic dialects . Therewas hardly a living language in fact of which she
did not possess at least a smattering .
1
She was unusually proficient in cuneiform andhieroglyphics as also in the diffi cult Sheban consonantal script, written bou strophedon, alternatelyfrom right to left and left to right or as the ox
plows . In the u se of the abacu s she was thoroughly
1 Talmud has an amusing anecdote in this connection . When sti l lquite a ch il d she was taken to visi t a R efuge for the D eaf and
D umb , and her attendants We re at great pa ins to expla in to her thecondition of these unfortunates.
“I wi ll make them hea r fast enough, the li ttle Princess exclaimed .
L et me at them !”
30
versed,although , as she often confessed afterwards ,
she had absolutely no head for figures and preferred counting on her fingers to any other methodof computation . To her dying day she could nevermaster the number of fi nger -breadths in a palm ,
nor the table of spans , cubits and reeds . GastonPoteau attributes much of her later enthusiasm fortravel to her utter misconception of distances .In the higher branches of culture she received instruction in sarcophagus painting, mummy gilding,stone carving and papyrus chewing, as well as in thearts of perfumery, cosmetics , double-dying anddepilation, palmistry, chiropody and poisoning.
She was a fini shed performer on the lute, the threestringed tau bu r and the aamr, not to mention theharp and the dulcimer, a matchless exponent of thedance , both sacred and profane , and of course anaccomplished camelwoman .
Her reading, as might have been expected fromher nature , was never confined to manuscripts es
pecially dedicated to her sex but always inclined tomore masculine subj ects . She soon tired of S ap
phira and her F riends, Three littleS hu lamites, L ittle
M aiu im M aidens and similar works , and turnedeagerly to the boy stories of battle and adventurewith wh ich her half-brothers littered the nursery .
31
At fifteen she talked like a boy, she behaved l ikea boy, she often dressed like a boy, she could passanywhere for one.
Balkis was j ust fifteen years of age when shediscovered her exact relation to the crown of Shebaand the precise significance of the presence of herfour older half-brothers . Hornblower vividlydescribes the scene .“Until her fifteenth year, he says, Balkis hadbeen kept in ignorance of her close connection tothe throne, very largely on account of her own
supreme indifference to the history of her country .
Her mother she could not remember ; her father shesaw very seldom , and then only as Caliph of Marib ,the title which he adopted when visiting his estates ;her half-brothers avoided her like the plague andnever discussed family matters with their halfsister ; there was nothing to arouse in her anysuspicion of the true state of affairs .On her fifteenth birthday, however, she accidentally came across a cuneiform table , inscribed on abrick which had strayed from her oldest halfbrother ’ s historical stack, showing a list of theKings and Queen Consorts of Sheba and their
32
progeny . At the bottom of the list she found hername .
‘Hot she exclaimed .
‘Everybody worksbut Father . ’
Her whole attitude towards national historychanged at once . She summoned her tutors andsoundly berated them for concealing these vitalstatistics from her, and asked a hundred and one
questions concerning the ultimate possibilities of
her discovery . At the end of the interview, in spiteof serious damage to several members of her suite,she was forced to a realization of the fact that therehad never been a Queen of Sheba in her own right .Her comment on this point was characteristic .
‘We shall change all that ! ’ she announced .
When, at great personal risk, one of her teachersventured to point ou t to her that in any case she wasthe youngest of five children of the reigningsovereign , and consequently outranked by four halfbrothers each one of whom in turn would takeprecedence over any claims she might advance,Balkis burst into tears and smashed the disappointing brick into a thousand fragments over the u nfortunate man ’ s head . She retired, finally, to broodover her cheerless future and as she left the apartment she was heard to observe
3 33
Eni,Men i, Ma ini
,Mo
,
Ca tch a b rother by the toe,I f he c r ies don ’ t let h im go,
Eni, Meni
, Ma ini , Mo !’
But as so often happens not enough importancewas attached to this at the time . ”
Balkis retired to brood over her situation, but notfor long . And if, as she says , she had none of herfather ’ s cold-blooded facility for getting rid of
people, she nevertheless gave evidence of considerable dexterity in the face of emergency . In thiscase she brooded for three days , and then wentforth unobtrusively and murdered her four halfbrothers one by one in the order of seniority, adelicate touch which does her creditWhile Balkis herself is quite frank concerningthe methods which she emp loyed to achieve her halfbrothers ’ and her own ends , respectively, it is toGorton that one must turn for a full account of thisquadruple homicide .
“One was company, she decided , five a crowd , hewrites . “The four intervening, not to say interfering , Princes must perish . No sooner said thandone .
34:
Eni,the first to go , she disposed of by insinuating
herself into his chamber in the middle of the night,armed with a mallet and a supply of cedar tent pegswith which she proceeded to split his head in two .The unfortunate youth , accustomed though he wasto her rough and tumble ways , could make nothingof it at first .
‘Be careful,’ he warned her . ‘I f you hit me like
that again you ’ ll break your arm .
’
Seeing that she persisted in her attempts he rallied her ou the number of times, j udging by thesensations which he was experiencing, that she wasmissing her aim and hitting the peg not on its headbut on his own , and twitted her on the proverbialinability of girls to drive a nail home with any degree of accuracy . To which she replied gaily thata miss was as good as a mile, and that if he wouldonly keep his head still and stop wriggling she
would have a better chance . The three youngerbrothers , who were sleeping in the same room , wereconvulsed with laughter at this sally and came andsat at the foot of Eni ’ s bed to watch the fun .
‘Hit him again, Balkis ,’ they kept urging her .
‘He ’ s j ust shamrning .
’
It was only when the increasing discomfortcaused by the foreign substances embedded in his
35
sku ll began to irk him that Eni showed any signsof alarm .
‘Have a heart ! ’ he remonstrated with Balkis .‘What do you think I am , a human pincushion ?
’
But it was already too late . L ife was fast ebbing away from him and , after a few hopelessattempts to pull ou t the offending pegs , he expired,presumably in great pain , to the huge delight of theothers who set up a great tantarara over the eventuntil Balkis roundly boxed their ears and drovethem back to bed .
‘
Don ’ t cheer, boys ,’
she commanded .
‘The poordevil i s dying .
’
A s for Eni, she p iously closed his eyes, gave aparting thwack at a protruding peghead here andthere and retired to her own apartment .”
With the oldest brother now safely ou t of theway Balkis was free to turn her attentions toMeni .
“In the case of the second Prince ,” Gorton states,
she resorted to more subtle means of destruction .
The uproarious behavior of the other boys on theoccasion of Eni ’ s demise had taught her that infuture a lesser publicity would be better suited toher task , since, on the night in question , the pandemoniu m in the princely bedchamber had almostaroused the attendants sleeping nearby .
36
their doors and windows during the night whoseduty it was instantly to decapitate anyone presu ming to effect an entrance .This resulted in the accidental slaughter of
Prince Maini ’ s valet and in the prolongation of theboys ’ existence for a space, at the expense of thepeace of mind of everyone in the palace since Balkisbecame absolutely unbearable in her petulant impatience . But she persevered in her efforts andnever despaired, and in the end her tenacity wasrewarded .
“It had originally been her intention , Gortoncontinues ,
“to entice Maini into a game of Mummy,whereupon she proposed to gild him from head tofoot with such fatal consequences as may be imag
ined, but the cautious lad persistently eluded herblandishments so that she had to abandon thisplan .
H is very caution , however, betrayed him at thelast . F or having retreated one afternoon into oneof the more remote recesses of the palace groundsa sort of sunken garden for exotic p lants access towhich was afforded by a single entrance cut in thehigh encircling wall— to his horror he looked up andsaw his half- sister standing in the opening and smiling significantly from ear to ear .
38
‘
Alone at last ! ’ she cried , and sprang in pursuitof him .
Over borders and flower beds , through shrubberyand in and ou t of fountains the merry chase continu ed, with Balkis forever intervening betweenhimself and the only exit . It was only a questionof hours . Finally in the farthest angle of the wallshe cornered him , lame , exhausted and ou t of
breath , and seized him by the leg .
‘Peace at any price ! ’ the miserable youth gasped .
‘
Eventually, why not now ?’ she retorted , and
flung him headlong into a thicket of the deadlyGiant Sensitive Plant 1 among whose enormous prehensile leaves he was forthwith crushed to a pulp .
‘
Ain ’ t nature wonderfu l ! ’ Balkis exclaimed, re
lapsing for the moment into the vernacular .”
Of them all only little Mo survived , flitting aboutlike the merry tomtit that he was . After all thetrouble that she had experienced with Maini, Balkismade short work of her youngest half-brother .
“She conceived the brilliant idea , Gorton re
lates , of secreting little dried up particles of
sponge in his favorite cake which she then proceeded to feed to him on all occasions , interspersingthese tidbits with liberal potations of camel ’ s milk
1 A rbu tus P i thecanthrop u s Erectu s.
39
to which the little fellow was also very partial .Every day she came to his door and enquired afterh is health .
‘
I s it well with the child ? ’ she would ask .
The inevitable finally took p lace .The sponges swelled to tremendous size , greatlydistending the unhappy boy ’ s gastronomic apparatu s, until on a bright morning in June he explodedwith a resounding detonation to the wonder andconcern of all beholders .
‘The young soak ! ’ was her only comment .Balkis herself says of all this that :“Perhaps I ought not to have done these things ,but those who really love me will forgive me .
” 2
She was now apparently heiress of Sheba .
She was not a day too early .
For fourteen and a half years , ever since the su dden disappearance of Shimh i , J ehaz had beensteadily a iling . He held court as usual, for a whilehe visited his estates from time to time to inspecthis children and refresh his memory as to their ou t
1 S teinkopf is of the op inion that the name sponge cake is traceab leto this incident .
1'Gi rlhood, vol . 59, left handed .
40
ward appearance, he even committed a murder ortwo in moments of distemper, but more ou t of forceof habit than any keen enj oyment that he derivedfrom them . The old zest was gone . For nine yearsnow J chaz had not stirred from Marib . His hairwhich had turned first gray, then white, had ceasedturning at all . He was a broken, doddering, decipient old man, weary and ill at ease .
“The King has shot his bolt,” they said of him .
The real fact of the matter was that the ill-fatedJ ehaz had gone peacefully and totally insane .Only, as in his present state he was infinitely moredocile and tractable than he had ever been whenmerely partially ou t of his head , no one aroundhim realized the shocking change that had comeover him in recent years . However, on the eveningof the day that little Mo detonated so tragically,a dreadful occurrence took place at the capital whichopened men ’ s eyes to a sense of the situation .
J ehaz set fire to Marib .
Hornblower, who has devoted twenty-four yearsof his life to a study of the next twenty-four hoursin Sheban history, gives the best account of thecatastrophe .
“Along with much other tittle-tattle, he writes,concerning the lurid hours preceding the Queen ’ s
41
accession,it has often been asserted that the great
Marib fire was started by a camel who is supposedinadvertently to have kicked over a lighted candlein a pile of hay . Nothing could be further from thetruth .
The Marib fire was started by the King, if not inperson then at his instigation and with his fullknowledge and consent, and in this attempt to fixthe blame on an innocent beast of burden , if indeedthe story is not of much later, and probably borrowed
,origin , one can only see an effort on the part
of some well meaning chronicler to exonerate hismaster .The facts are theseHornblower then proceeds to give in detail thecontemporary sources from which he draws hisinformation , extracts from the notebooks of theroyal scribes who drew up the necessary orders ,without any suspicion apparently of their true import
,with itemized lists of the inflammable
materials gathered together in various parts of thecity for days in advance, and sundry commentsmade by prominent citizens as to the probable cause
of the irnpending celebration, for so this proposedcivic bonfire seems to have impressed them .
Hornblower continues :42
The conflagration spread with appalling rapidity, aided no doubt by the fact that the populace ,wishing to show their appreciation of the spectacle off ered them and enter into the spirit ofthe occasion , set fire themselves to a number ofdwellings which might otherwise have escaped destruction .
So far so good . When the populace of the ou tlying slum s , however, drunk with smoke and in ap layful mood , began to show unmistakable intentions of advancing upon the residential section , andeven upon the palace, considerable criticism was expressed of this form of popular entertainment .Who had ordered the fi r e—the King ? Then leth im stop it . Where was the King incidentally ?
But that was the question . Where was the King ?
A hasty search revealed nothing as to his whereabouts . The King was not in his counting house ,the King was not to be found anywhere in thepalace . The King had departed, leaving his Captains behind h im . S henanikin, when appealed to ,had no solution to offer .
‘What ’ s all the shouting for ? ’ he enquired .
‘
M arib’
s burning ! ’ he was told .
‘Throw on water,’ he commanded,
‘and save thewomen and children .
’
43
‘But the King ? ’ they insisted .
‘
God save the King,’ he replied , and went back
to bed .
They found him fi nally—on the roof of the
palace , seated where he could command thebest view of the burning city, playing the re
bab.
‘Ain ’ t it a grand and glorious sight ? Tatyata-ta ! ’ he chuckled as they gathered anxiouslyaround him .
To their protestations and entreaties he turned adeaf ear .
‘Let her fry ! ’ he ordered .
‘Burn on, Marib, andcursed be he, and for that matter she, who first cries‘Hold , enough !
’
The King was obviously quite mad . There wasnothing for it . While he lived no one but he couldcountermand the incendiary royal order, and it wasclear that he had not the slightest intention of doingany such thing . And meanwhile time, to say nothing of a large number of floating cinders , was passing . With heavy hearts they picked him up , chair,rebab and all, and dropped him gently over theedge of the parapet . So perished J ehaz, knownsubsequently in song and fable as the MartyrKing.
44
in one of the best known epics in all Sheban poetry.
Says the ballad in part
“L i sten my chi ldren and you shall hearOf the midnight r ide of the cameleer,Ready to r ide and spread the a la rmThro u gh every S heban vi llage and farmTha t the King had most grievously come to harm .
One sprang to the saddle,and two, then three,
One ga lloped, two ga lloped, they ga lloped all three ;‘
On your toes,’ cried the wa tch, a s the gate bolts undrew,
‘
Toes,’
echoed the wa l l to them ga l loping through ;Beh ind shut the postern, the l ights sank to rest,And into th e m idnight they ga l loped abreast .
They arrived at Salhin in the early morning anddemanded to see Prince Eni . 1 As may be imaginedthis request threw the palace into a certain conf u
sion . When the envoys persisted on being confronted not only with Prince Eni but also with thePrinces Meni , Maini , and MO, the confusion grew .
No one dared confess that the four brothers hadj ust recently come to violent deaths .
“Snap out of it ! the messengers kept insisting .
Trot out your Princes .It was Balkis herself, finally, who relieved thedelicate tension of the interview .
1 Anna ls of Sheba , cylinder 6010 .
46
Al l, all are gone , the old familiar Princes , sheinformed them .
“There aren ’ t any more . ”
Now it was the turn of the Heralds to expresssurprise and indignation . Their leader , CamelKing at Arms , was loud in his vituperations againstthe carelessness of the palace authorities .
“What, no Princes !” he stormed .
“How come ?
Once again Balkis intervened .
“The world is so full of a number of Kings !” sheremarked . What ’ s a Prince or two betweenfriends ? My hat ’ s in the ring .
”
“But the State ?” they obj ected .
I am the State !” she retorted .
It is at this point that so many commentators goentirely off the track in their accounts of whattranspired . Losing themselves entirely in the mazeof legends surrounding the event they would haveone believe that a boy was substituted for themissing Princes and that Balkis, Queen of Sheba,was in reality a man , and in fact never existed atall in her own person . This is sheer nonsense .A boy was apparently substituted , it is true , butthat boy was none other than Balkis herself
,dis
guised to resemble Eni . This was all the more easilyaccomplished since no one at Marib , or in the entirekingdom outside of Salhin palace, had ever seen the
47
King ’ s sons since their earliest infancy, and of
course the Heralds were only too ready to wink atthis small deception in order to bring their mission toa prompt and satisfactory conclusion . Hornblowerentertainingly describes the final scene at Salhin .
“Balkis ,” he says ,
“dressed in a suit of Meni ’ sclothes in which she looked every inch a Prince andwearing the greater part of his j ewelry, couldscarcely contain herself for j oy . This was, in moreways than one, the crowning moment of her younglife, and she was all in a fever of impatience to begone upon her royal way .
‘
A camel ,’
she kept demanding .
‘My kingdomfor a camel—or do I have to walk a mile for one ? ’
They brought her at last her own white Bactrian,and without waiting for him to kneel she vaultedlightly into the j eweled saddle and put spurs to thebeast .
‘
F or Balkis—I mean Eni— and Merry Sheba ! ’
she cried .
‘Let ’ s go ! ’
A grunting of camels, a parting cheer, and theywere off , hell bent for coronation , as Gorton somewhat crudely puts it .”
S o the caravan sped, like a bird on the wing, overthe dunes to Marib, bearing the lass who was bornto be Queen .
48
CHAPTER III
POM PS AND CIRCUM STANCES
The Heralds , the little Prince—for so one mustcall the new sovereign of Sheba temporarily— andthe long- legged white Bactrian all arrived togetherin a heap at the top of the grand staircase in thepalace at Marib on the following noon .
“So this is Marib !” 1 the Prince was heard to remark as he staggered u p the stairs .This somewhat unconventional and entirely u n
expected entrance was largely due to the earlytraining of the Bactrian who , having been ac
customed from his tenderest infancy to ascend staircases at Salhin, saw nothing incongruous aboutrepeating the feat at Marib , all staircases beingalike to him . Unfortunately, however, this staircase was not like any other which he had hithertoexperienced , being extremely slippery and culminating in a great hall of mirrors in which he sawwhat appeared to him to be six hundred and fi ftytwo other white Bactrians converging upon hisperson . Whereupon he let fly with all four legs
1 Anna ls of Sheba, cylinder 7004 .
4 49
at once,greatly inconveniencing the Heralds , and
slid unceremoniously up to the very feet of Shenanikin who was awaiting the royal arrival, surrounded by the court .
“Safe at home !” said the latter . I am youruncle S henanikin .
“Uncle me no uncles, the Prince retorted .
Home was never like this ! You ’ ll have to washyour steps . Hello , everybody !
” 1
The ice , let alone a large number of mirrors , wasbroken . The court smiled at this impudent princeling, sitting astride of the spread—eagled camel sodisdainfully chewing his cud ; the court grinnedbroadly from ear to ear ; the court burst intohilarious laughter .
“Yo !
” they shouted , slapping each other on thethigh . A camel come to lodgment !The popularity of the Prince was assured fromthat moment , and, before many hours had passed,al l Marib , waiting anxiously to learn the trend ofthe new monarch ’ s possible idiosyncracies
,was
made aware of his frank , outspoken , unaff ectedtemperament . Vast concourses of people gatheredbefore the approaches of the palace , singing theSheban national airs and clamoring for a glimpse
‘ Ibid.
50
of him ,until finally he made his appearance at a
balcony and responded to the frantic ovationswhich arose to greet h
'
The initial public utterance of the supposedPrince has by a happy chance been preserved anddeserves to be quoted in ewteu so.
1 Gorton is of theopinion that it was prepared by the Heralds , whowere no doubt by this tim e in a state of considerabletrepidation , and waxes facetious over what he ispleased to call the Prince ’ s “maiden speech” in hiscustomarily flippant mann er ; but one prefers tosee in it the first outpourings of the girlish heartwhich must have been fluttering so j oyfully underits borrowed trappings .
“Dear friends !” the Prince cried , amid tumultu ou s if somewhat startled applause . “
S hebans all ,countrymen, my Lords and ladies— lend me yourcheers !Last evening at the base of M arib
’
s cupola ,which all the while ran floods of water , great J ehazfell . We have come to bury J ehaz, not to raisehim . So much for J ehaz .
I f you have fears , prepare to shed them now, for
Eni is an honorable man , yes he is . I have neitherfits nor starts , nor hasty actions, nor suff erance nor
1 Anna ls of Sheba , cylinder 7118.
51
the powerful itch to spill men ’ s blood . I only goright on trying to do my bit in a cheerful, earnestway and every night I ask myself the question,Have I tightened anybody ’ s corner today or haveI not ?
I thank you one and all . My father thanks you ,my mother thanks you , I
’m sure . My brotherswould thank you if they were present, but circumstances over which they lost all control will detainthem indefinitely, I fear . However, I daresay theyare with us in spirit on this great occasion . Mysister will thank you in a few days , take it fromme .God save Sheba !God save u s all !One can hardly imagine the Heralds having composed such a document, Gorton to the contrary .
These Heralds seem to have been an efficient,cool-headed , cold—blooded lot . Their position wasan enormously difficult one as at any moment somebody was liable to discover the fraud which wasbeing perpetrated on the kingdom with their connivance.
52
At noon on the following day the Heralds presented themselves at the Prince ’ s apartments tosummon him to the Pantheon .
“Look who ’ s here !” the “camel-eater stationedat the door exclaimed , in accordance with thecustomary ritual for such occasions .
“The Heralds, he was told .
What do you mean, Heralds ?
King Eni ’ s Heralds , they answered with greatsolemnity .
“Three men in the same boat !” Marib P ou rsu ivant added , which , as may be imagined , was notincluded in the ritual .
“Tell that to the sergeant, the sentry warnedthem . What ’ s the good word ?
“Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie ,the Heralds informed him, and the doors werethrown open .
Marib Poursuivant, as was his privilege , and infact his duty, stepped into the antechamber andyawned copiously at the Prince, which while it mayhave been the former was certainly no part of thelatter .
54
Tell me naught in mournful slumbers , thePrince advised him .
“There comes a time in the affairs of men whichtaken by the forelock leads almost anywhere
,
” hebegan to declaim the ancient formula , althoughslightly inaccurately .
“I ’ ll say so !” the Prince replied , and the signal
was given .
Down the grand staircase they passed , betweenbowing ranks of now properly subdued courtiers
,to
the sound of crashing drums and deafening cymbals .A company of Sheban guards in ivory tunics , fiftyabreast, every man of whom stood nine feet high inhis bare skin , opened the procession . They wereknown as the Immortals, from the fact that whilethey surrendered occasionally they never died .
The Ministers followed hard on their heels, ac
companied by their scribes and scapegoats , carrying each the symbol of his offi ce— the Great Seal ofSheba , a somewhat cumbersome block of granitesix feet square, the Pen of Statements , which wasmightier than the Sword and twice as long, theGolden Horn, which none but the King might blow,
the Coat of Many Collars , the Apothecaries’
Ounce , the Widows’ Mite, the Baker
’ s Dozen andthe King ’ s Ransom .
55
After the tumult and the shouting had died , dueto the fact that three of the M inisters had becomeentangled in each other ’ s beards and fallen helterskelter down the whole length of the stairs , therebytemporarily disrupting the line of march , thereappeared in turn the King ’ s Gossamer , the RoyalConifer, the King
’ s Porringer and Tanager, theArchitrave of Marib , the Royal Calamity Howlerand the Keeper of the King ’ s Quorum, all of themin their robes of state trimmed with pelf, and preceded by their myrmidons, psychopomps andmamelukes .The next in line was Shenanikin, the Regent,surrounded by his j anissaries of whom he seemedto be in considerable awe , never, as a matter of
fact, having seen them all together in one placebefore,
“I don ’ t know why it is, but they follow mearound , all around , all around !
” he kept mutteringto himself, nodding his head from right to left andfrom left to right, a habit which he had contractedfrom much poring over his documents , until hisattention become concentrated on the fact that atthe last moment, in the hurry of preparation, hehad forgotten to change his felt slippers for somemore suitable form of footgear ; whereupon his
56
terror of the j anissaries increased to such proportions that he spent the rest of the afternoon tryingvainly to run away from them, to the great discomfort of the latter who were not accustomed to
such strenuous exercise .“And so my day was utterly ruined !” the goodman writes in his Journal . 1
Behind him walked the Heralds , and everyfew hundred feet Camel King at Arms raised hisright hand and addressed the multitude .
“Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes !” he cried , following the
long established custom of such functions .“Believe me , it
’ s the King.
To which Hickory Stick was forced to
reply“Check ! Take off your hat .So with various delays , interruptions and ac
cidents, inseparable from so great an undertakingentered into in such haste , the solemn processionwent forth amid gales of delighted laughter fromthe spectators , and finally in the midst of a brilliantthrong of two thousand turbaned nobles , sevenhundred and fifty dancing girls and four hundredand seventy-fi ve astronomers, magicians and ventriloqu ists whose duty it was to supplement by their
1 M i rrors of Ma rib,ch . 18, p . 9.
57
art any deficiency in the volume of cheers whichgreeted the royal person , the Prince appeared .
in a crystal litter , Hornblower says ,borne aloft by three hu ndred stalwart slaves gildedfrom tip to toe, who were thus condemned to almostcertain death but fought among themselves for theprivilege , nonetheless , so remunerative was thehonor considered by their famil ies . The poles ofthe litter were of solid ivory, and its floor androof made of sheets of j asper inlaid with beryl .The Prince reclined on a mountain of cushionsstuff ed with ostrich feathers and strung with pearlbraids and tassels , clad from head to foot in a loosefitting garment of sapphires , a cloak consistingentirely of peacock ’ s tails trimmed with emeraldsthrown carelessly about his recumbent form . Onhis head he wore a diamond turban containing theSeven Great Stone Facets of Sheba ; he was shod inslippers of silver and gloved in gauntlets of gold .
In this comparatively simple costume , for he hadnot yet assumed the full regalia of kingship whichhe wore on the return j ourney from the Pantheon ,the supposed Eni passed to his coronation, leaningdown occasionally to smile —and , as Gorton insists ,to wink at the faithful S ophonisba walking alongside in splendid solitaires .
58
And so let her pass , Balkis the Tomboy , in hercrystal litter, to her triumph where the Crown andScepter of Sheba awaited her , and the Orb of
State which she playfully sent rolling down theaisle at the close of the ceremony with the historiccryRemove that marble !” 1
4
The real identity of the King might have re
mained undiscovered indefinitely, no doubt , had itnot been for an unexpected mischance which befellat his very fir st meeting with his Ministers on thefollowing morning . On what infinitesimal manavilins, indeed , do the greatest episodes in historydepend ; how many lives have hung on a thread ,necks on a rope and reputations on a breath !In this case the King ’ s incognito hung on abutton .
The occasion is graphically described by Gorton,as set forth below with certain expurgations .
“It was only natural perhaps ,” he says ,
“the firsttime that she appeared alone in public, that i s tosay without the close supervision of her nurse or ofthe Heralds , that the disguised Queen should make
1 Anna ls of Sheba, cyli nder 7232.
59
a perfectly natural and essentially feminine mistake, carefully rehearsed though she undoubtedlyhad been in the various requirements of deportmentand dress which she must observe .The ceremonial of this first meeting with theMinisters demanded that the King should appearrobed in the Coat of Many Collars , a very gorgeousdouble-breasted garment adorned with tier on tierof j eweled ruff s, gorgets and tuckers and fasteneddown one side by means of large emerald buttons .Matters were proceeding smoothly, and the conclave following its customary routine, when,oppressed by the heavy mantle , the King u n
fastened itand allowed it to hang loosely over the arms of thethrone . This was the original false step which ledto ultimate discovery .
F or at the conclusion of the ceremony, when itcame time for the King to retire , he went to fastenthe mantle up again and was unable to find thebuttons, sirfi e he had instinctively folded it overthe wrong way and was feeling for them on theleft side, womanlike , whereas they were of coursesewed on the right, as all men
’ s buttons have beenfrom time immemorial . But even this incidentmight have passed unnoticed by the male audience,
60
The discovery of the true state of affairs naturally made an enormous sensation throughout thepalace and spread like wild-fi re around the town ,
in whose public squares the news was proclaimedto incredulous crowds by the Royal CalamityHowler .
“Queen crowned King !” he announced . Balkisbetrayed , balks at buttons !Within an hour all the citizens of Marib were inthe streets , shouting with laughter at the hoax andpurchasing buttons with which to pelt one another . 1
Inside the palace a similar hilarity prevailed . Inall directions the air was brazen with j ests , mostlyof an extremely scurrilous and utterly unquotablenature , at the expense of the Ministers who had beenso completely deceived . The fact that the entirecourt had participated in the error was not allowedto detract from the gaiety of the occasion, so
1 S teinkopf is of the op inion that in this inc ident may be seen the
origin of the custom of throwing confetti in pub li c thoroughfa resat carnival t ime ; and a lso suggests a kinship, supported by Bjorn,w ith the hab it o f hurl ing rice at weddings—the missi les used origina lly having been buttons and the act, it seems, symb ol izing the
w ish that the groom might a lways know which side h is b ride wasbuttoned on.
62
much so that severa l of these unfortunate officialswere on the point of sending for their scapegoats .
“You ’ ll get my goat in a moment, one of themexclaimed . Make a butt ou t of him !”
Does he butt to the right of him , or does he buttto the left of him ?” some wag in the crowd calledou t, and the uproar redoubled .
1
As for the Heralds , safe from all attack nowthat the coronation was over and the new monarchinstalled , they merely sat back in their corners andtwiddled their thumbs .
“Under such circumstances , they blandly informed everybody who cared to listen , travesty isthe best policy !” 2
The only person about the court who seemed atall inclined to take the matter seriously was
S henanikin . It had finally occurred to someonelate that evening that the Regent should benotified , since otherwise he was as liable as not tocontinue in ignorance of the statu s qu o for an indefinite period , so engrossed was he in the affairsof state that he seldom found time to occupy himself with the state of affairs ; and a deputation was
1 Ta lmud, D ia ri es of a Court Physician, tab let 82.
’ I bid.
63
accordingly despatched to wait upon him in h isapartments and apprise him of the situation .
The best account of the interview is furnished byShenanikin himself in his Journal . 1
“Arose betimes ,
” he writes on that date , andtoiled all day at my scrivening, with but fair successso vast was the accu mulation of comp laints fromthose who claimed that they should have beeninvited to the coronation , and many of them justlytoo—I , poor wretch , having mislaid their namesbut I did lay it up to the stupidity of my scribes,God forgive me !And so early to bed , having no heart for mystint, when there came a great concourse of people ,both men and women, at my door , clamoring of thisand of that, and saying that the King was becomea Queen, which at first I would not believe , answering them that they should depart and leave me tomy slumbers and not disturb me with such taradiddles , since I deemed it improbable that so surprisinga miracle should take place . But they insisted,beating with their fists upon the door and laughingamong themselves , and shouting
‘Verily, a change has come over the surface ofthe King .
’
1 M i rrors of Ma rib, ch . 12, p. 24.
64
Whereat I grew exceedingly embarrassed andpulled the bed clothes up over my head and wouldlisten no longer to their j esting, and after a while,I do not know how long, they retired to continuetheir merry-making elsewhere . Lay late , thereafter, pondering with a heavy heart over thefuture of Sheba , and talking to myself of manythings—of carnages and Kings, and why the waterthey bring me is always boiling hot, and whetherQueens have whims - and dreading tomorrow whenall the King ’ s horses and all the King ’ s men willhave to be marked all over again .
”
The whole timorous , bashful , prim soul of theman cries ou t in those touching lines
6
Balkis 1 herself has thi s to say of those stirringhours :
“I am very young, and perhaps in a few thoughnot in many things , inexperienced, but I am surethat very few Queens have had more real good willand more real desire to be always merry and brightthan I have . ”
Her first oflicial act as Queen of Sheba ,prompted , as Gorton insinuates, by S ophonisba but
1 Coronation, vol . 52.
5 65
nonetheless creditable and far-seeing, was to sendfor Shenanikin . He came quite out of breath, allat sixes and sevens of the morning, as Hornblowerputs it, surrounded once more by his j anissaries incase his sovereign niece should be ill disposed, andkissed her left foot . She received him graciously,fed him some of his own skinless prunes in a lordlydish , and made him a pretty speech .
“It is my intention , she said ,“to get rid of the
other Ministers as soon as possible , for I want menaround me who are not flat-heads , which most ofthem seem to be . But what would Sheba be, and noS henanikin
Whereupon he kissed her right foot, helped himself to another prune and departed , murmuringdelightedly as he did so
“Verily, the favor lasts !” 1
This proved to be one of the wisest acts of theQueen ’ s career . With Shenanikin on her side, andindeed a great deal of the time at her side, as hewas from that day forth , Balkis found her pathpaved with excellent intuitions and her throne a bedof roses from which every thorn had been removed .
Not that she remained aloof from the aff airs ofgovernment . On the contrary, the new sovereign
1 Transom, Eminent S hebans, ch . 16, p . 9.
66
showed an unending zeal and a tireless interest inevery last detail of her kingdom , and set about atonce to investigate all its departments , asking aninfinity of questions which the Ministers were quiteoften at a loss to answer, never having had reasonbefore to study the subj ect so closely . Her habitof causing ignorant Ministers to be decapitated on
the spot complicated matters still more, until one ofthem made the happy discovery that as long as herquestions were answered the Queen was perfectlysatisfied, quite irrespective of the accuracy of thestatements made to her, her own ignorance on thatscore being as great as theirs .The Queen, for her part, was overj oyed with the
results of her research, and kept ponderous tabletsalways at hand upon which she recorded in sublimegood faith some of the most extraordinary factsconcerning her realm . On one occasion she reportsthis dialogue with her Minister of Shipping during the course of an interrogatory on nauticalmatters
“BALKIS : What do you mean by deadreckoning ?
MY MIN ISTER : Counting the dead sailors aftera battle . ” 1
1 A fi‘
airs of S tate, vol . 16.
67
To all of which she invariab ly seems to haverepl ied
“I sn ’ t that interesting ! I t’
s so wonderful to be aman and know all about things , but I
’m going tolearn all about them too , if I
’m spared .
In the meantime she spared neither herself norher associates, and, in addition to the inroads ontheir leisure caused by her insatiable curiosity concerning every variety of unrelated activity she alsoquite heavily taxed their ingenuity by insistingthat all documents be referred to her for examination prior to ratification ; a course which inconvenienced some of the Ministers not a little , sinceordinarily they had no documents to be examined,let alone ratified , being content to draw theirsalaries without further encumbering the Royalarchives . But rather than incur her displeasure ,they sent her documents by the wagon- load , on
brick , marble and granite , and on every subj ectfrom apiaries to zephyrs . Balkis herself says inher diary 1
“I can only repeat again what I have so oftensaid before , that I have so many weighty com
mu nications from my Ministers,and from me to
them—perhaps more of the latter even than the1 Afl
’a irs of State, vol . 9, left handed .
68
The entire personnel of the court underwent achange . The ladies in waiting were chosen for theirbeauty and charm , since , as Talmud relates in h isdiaries, 1 no matter how beautiful they might bethey could not hope to outshine their mistress ,except at great and certainly short-lived personalrisk ; the officials were selected for the1r comelinessand grace ; among the M inisters not one survivedwho could not successfully conceal his age andcreate an impression of youthful fire and gallantry .
White hairs were abolished .
“I will have no silver threads among the gold ,Balkis decreed .
2 “Dye , if you must, your old gray
heads !” she added , cleverly paraphrasing thenational ballad .
3
Ambassadors who doddered , or spilled their food ,or suffered from gout, were sent home in richlygilded sarcophagi as a warning to subsequentencu mbents. The palace was redecorated fromcellar to roof in varying shades of green to matchthe Queen ’ s eyes and serve as a background for hersalamander hair ; and at gala functions , of whichthere were at least two a day, green was the pre
1 D ia ri es of a Court Physician, tab let 93.
1 A nna ls of Sh eba ,cyl inder 7350 .
1 Ba rba ro u s R iches .
70
dominant note , emerald the prevailing j ewel andred hair the favorite head-dress .The court,
” to quote Talmud again , whenattired to greet the Queen , resembled nothing so
much as a field of poppies bowing in thewind 1
The sole exception to these personal and sartorialreforms was S henanikin . His one attempt at re
j u venation having ended in an unfortunate accidentto his beard, as a result of which the latter displayed a dirty elephant ’ s breath color for manyweeks , the Queen graciously ordained that he bepermitted to retain his own hair, and his was theonly bald spot to be seen thereafter about the court .In other respects , however , even the Regent showedthe effects of the changing fashions and manners .Transom tells us that 2
perhaps more than any other circumstance ,the metamorphosis of Shenanikin furni shes anindex of the sumptuary spir it of the time . Hisbeard, his shining pate and his rotund figure hecould not alter, indeed , but he did change his baggygarments , his dilapidated head-gear and his feltslippers .
1 D ia ries of a Court Physician, tab let 98.
1 Em inent S hebans, ch . 17, p . l .
7 1
The latter he discarded for bright red high-heeledshoes ornamented with large green bows . Hishead-gear he replaced with fancy turbans adornedwith j eweled aigrettes . His pantaloons and j acketshe had pieced together from the remnants of thematerial used for decorating the palace , which gavehim a certain mottled but not unpleasing appearance . He looked like an ancient and very fatchameleon .
But the climax was reached when the enterprising old cocoon transformed himself into a socialbutterfly, gave entertainments which were the talkof the town , and took to keeping a racing camelstable !
In addition to the Queen ’ s rigorous enforcementof court etiquette , two of her innovations deservespecial mention, namely her inordinate fondness forcats and her habit of holding midnight receptions inher sleeping chamber .Concerning the cats , Talmud1 states that herprogress through the palace was heralded by achorus of mewing which drowned ou t the sound ofher own singers , and the noise of their purring when
1 D ia ries of a Court Physician,tablet 105.
72
they arose to greet her was like unto the beating ofa multitude of drums . There were some fivehundred of them of all sorts and descriptions , twoof whom , enormous black grimalkins with flaminggreen eyes , sat, stood and walked constantly at herside .As for the midnight receptions , no functions sosumptuous are to be found in the annals of anyother court . Steinkopf, who , in the preparation of
his chapters on the origin of the wake as a socialinstitution , devoted years of study to these elaborate entertainments, has left vivid descriptions ofthem from which one obtains a picture of surpassing grandeur and beauty .
1
One hears again the gentle sighing of a hundredinstruments , rising and falling like the slenderspray of fountains , the restrained cadences of softlyhumm ing choirs, chanting the passing hours to theirrest, the golden voices of the minstrels at theirballadry, the honied flow of stor1ed epics ; one
smells anew the heavy laden fragrance of thegleaming incense braziers , the scented repose of
the moonlit night, distilled through countless casements from the silvery quiet of enchanted gardens ;one sees once more , under the emerald glow of a
1 Gestern u nd Vorgestern, chs. 5, 6, 7.
73
myriad lamps shaded in j ade , subdued by thedrifting mists of perfumed vapors , the courtiersin their glittering vestments relaxed upon thecushioned divans
,the Queen ’ s ladies disposed in
group s of reclining loveliness , shimmering in theirgem studded head-dresses—Gorton says shivering,but this is doubtless a typographical error—thedancing girls and jugglers intent upon theirmummery, the gilded slaves purveying the manifold tokens of their ceaseless ministryAnd high above the brilliant assemblage— uponher massive bed of black ivory inlaid with rubiesreached by a flight of one hundred and fifty steps ,supported by a thousand brocaded pillows andattended by her fan bearers and hand lifters—theQueen, clad in her j eweled cloak of peacockfeathers , discoursing of sundry matters with chosencompanions summoned for the purpose to hernearer presence, or brooding silently over the propounding of some recondite question , surroundedby her great blinking catsSuch is the picture one conj ures up in the vasthigh-ceilinged chamber, around the monumentalblack and crimson bed—a picture of transcendentSplendor bathed in smaragdine radiance , mysteriousand cool—during those nights of the early years of
74
the reign ; nights of a thousand varying delightsthat came to a close under a dimly auroral sky,
when the first incipient yawn of weariness partingthe Queen ’ s lip s sent the guests stealing forthregretfully to their own abodes , with the warningof the Royal D isperser ringing in their earsThe Queen has yawned—the Queen is not
amused !
75
CHAPTER IV
BALKIS IS WILLING
Seven hu ndred and thirty nights passed .
Balkis was seventeen , and at the crest of herrampageous youth, as she herself says .Of her beauty so much has been written , so muchhas been sung, that it were presumptuous toattempt anew a description of her whose face it wasthat burst a thousand ear drum s . Rather does oneturn again to the famous picture of her left byTahn u d.
1
“The Queen , he says , was a delicate tint madeanimate, she was an exquisite aroma come to life,she was a strain of celestial music in human form .
Her slim body was an alabaster song, her gracefullimbs an ambient fragrance , her countenance anenduring dawn . Not to have seen her was to havebeen born blind . To see her was to forget the su n,
to lose all knowledge of the moon, to deny the existence of any stars . To have seen her and bedenied the renewal of that Sight was to strangle indarkness , to drown in Shadows .
1 D ia ri es of a Cou rt Physician, tab lets 126-127.
76
She herself states that 1
“Perhap s many people will say that I am in
qu isitive, but that is simply because they do not
u nderstand me . Q u isitiveness and inquisitiveness—that ’ s almost a pun isn ’ t it— are two very different things , and I am always desperately anxiousto learn , and very serious minded .
I think I can truthfully say that in all matters Iam as passionate as a ripe pomegranate, in a perfectly nice way of course .”
Such , in appearance and temperament, wasBalkis at the threshold of her career, or as Gortonputs it
“She was a beautifully vacant lot.
It became increasingly patent to the Ministersthat She must marry . Aside from considerations ofstate which made this course eminently desirable, italso strongly recommended itself for economicreasons . Ever since the accession of the Queen atremendous immigration had set in from the outlying districts to Marib so that at the end of a year thevillages and dairies were well-nigh deserted , andagriculture at a standstill . It was practically im
1 Personal , volume 12.
78
possible to keep the young men down on the farmsafter they had seen Balkis . During the secondyear of her reign , indeed , not a single wedding tookplace throughout the entire kingdom owing to thefact that every eligible swain was preening himself before the royal presence in the hope of attracting his sovereign ’ s favor .And if any further incentive had been necessary,the Queen ’ s own practice of flitting from balcony tobalcony in almost any attire kissing her hand atwhosoever might be passing below, therebyseriously interfering with the normal progress oftrafli c in the vicinity of the royal domicile , wouldhave been suffi cient to convince those in authoritythat some definite measures must be taken withregard to her future .Balkis , when the idea was tactfully broached toher, was all for it.
1
“Oh , what fun !”she exclaimed , clapping her little
hands together, and promptly tied herself in a truelover ’ s knot from which She was extricated onlv
with considerable difl‘icu lty .
“Your Maj esty must choose a Consort, theyinformed her .
“Oh , do I have to choose ?” she obj ected . I hate
1 Gorton, S ecret M emoi rs of the Cou rt of Sheba , ch . 22, p . 9.
79
choosing . It ’ s like ordering things to eat, it’
s so
much easier just to take what ’ s put before you ,don ’ t you think ?
”
Whatever their thoughts might have been on
that point, they explained to her that in this case ,nevertheless, she must express a preference since itwas a serious step which she was contemplating,involving not only her own happiness but also thewelfare of Sheba .
“Oh, I know !”she agreed with them . I often
think that marriage is perhaps in many ways themost important thing in life . Of course i t’ s different for a man— they have their own l ives to live ,and so many outside interests and all that sort ofthing -but for a girl it ’ s the one big vital fact ofher existence and she can ’ t be too careful , if youknow what I mean—don ’ t you think so ?
”
Yes, they seemed to think so, and it was ac
cordingly decided that the necessary pou rparlersshould be inaugurated for the purpose of invitingsu itable offers of marriage for her consideration .
“They have been talking to me about my marriage, she writes in her diary at this period ,1
“andI am so thri lled. To think that I shall soon be amother, and it seems only yesterday that I was
1 Personal , vol . 17, left handed .
80
he ? A S I have said before I often feel that thereason why so many marriages are not happy isbecause people don ’ t think about it enough beforehand . I read somewhere that all marriage was agamble , and I think that is a tremendou s saying .
Quite obviously, Balkis was willing .
The news of her matrimonial inclinations spreadacross Arabia and into neighboring countries witha stonishing rapidity, and in a very short time everyruler, potentate , monarch and princeling who couldafford the j ourney was on his way to Sheba to lookat the Queen .
The King of Punt, the Emperor of Kush , thePrinces of Ophir , the Lord of Tarshish , the Raj ahof Pooh , the Sultan of Swat, the Caliph of Klou t,the Dey of Deys , the Wizard of Oz, the Emir ofPish and the Satrap of Tush—hakims, maliks,khans , hylegs , Sheiks and nu idirs—one by one,
and then two by four, and finally cheek by j owl ,they came pouring into Marib until the ranks ofcitizenry could scarce maintain their cheering .
It was estimated that at the height of the rushupwards of seven hundred aspirants waited in lineevery morning outside the palace gates . And this
82
did not include the great quantity of embassiesdespatched by sovereigns who were unable topresent themselves in person and so compromised ,as Gorton says , by sending in persons withpresents . 1
Of the many who called , so Talmud relates inhis diaries ,
2 comparatively few were chosen . A
rigid inspection was in force at the outer portalsand only those who were sufficiently gifted mighthope to gain further admittance , a special apartment being set aside for the purpose over the doorof which was written
“Give up all gifts here , all ye who enter .F or the consolation of such as were turned awayBalkis graciously consented to exhibit herself oncea day at the great balcony, a practice which she
was obliged to continue by popular request, in Spiteof the large number of suicides which followeddaily after this manifestation of her forbiddencharms .
“The face that kills , as someone termed it .As for the other more fortunate ones , the same
1 Even the aged Shush saw fi t to count himsel f among the latter,and the Queen ’
s reply to h is presu mptu ou sncss has become h istoric .“Keep your l ittle grey dome in the West,” she sent h im backword .
1 D ia ries of a Court Physician, tab let 206 .
83
routine was observed for all . Each was usheredinto the audience chamber and given five minutes inwhich to state his claims to consideration whi leBalkis observed him closely through a j eweledscreen . At the end of that time the latter wasraised and the suppliant was permitted to view theQueen for a brief instant . Many of them are reported to have dropped dead on the spot at theSight of so much loveliness .The ones who survived were apprised of theirfate in the following manner . In the case of thoseshe disliked Balkis sirnply pressed a button , whereupon they disappeared forthwith through a trapdoor in the floor . Those on the other hand whomshe wished to honor further with her companyreceived a marble slab , presentation of which at theentrance entitled them to participation in her midnight receptions , on which were inscribed the words ,“Balkis , long may she reign !
” from which theybecame known as Reign Checks .
No complete catalogue of her innumerable suitorsis necessary , or even available , but among themtwo individuals stand ou t and deserve a Specialmention .
84
Her diaries are full of glowing references tohim .
1
“Pilaster is a very dear and fetching youngman
,
”she writes at one time ,
“and he has su ch asweet way of expressing himself . His mouth isalways wide Open , and he has something qu itebeau tifu l to say whenever he gets a chance to speak ,and he is so good to me , you really have no idea !He is very handsome, and su ch a good spender , and ,I expect, frightfu lly expensive to his parents .
”
Once more elsewhere She says he is so very,
very fresh , and gets so gay with me and everything,and always has some bold , delightfully wickedthing to say, even at breakfast . He really is sopleasant to have about the house , as I always thinkthat a man who is obliging at breakfast is a rarebird. I know that I ’m not good for anythingmyself until I ’ve had my morning chocolate , but Ithink that Pilaster talks more then than at anyother time . Of course I ’m thinking of things tosay as soon as I
’ve finished my cup so that it’s notas though I were not doing my share.
From another entry it appears that I do
so love him , and from the few things that he hassaid I feel su re that he means business, although he
1 Suitors, vol . 165.
86
doesn’
t wear his heart on his sleeve , he’ s not that
kind. But a woman can always tell somehow whena man is really interested , and I know that he hasbeen trying to say something for some time . I
almost dread it because I feel that it will put anend to ou r perfect friendship , but of course whatmust be must be . ”
And then he went away .
Pilaster disappeared one morning and nevercame back . Talmud relates that he sold all hiscamels and went to Aphasia . A year later Balkisherself says 1
“That low-down pup Pilaster, who used to hangarou nd here so much , has come home . They tellme his hair has turned completely blue . I haveheard of that happening before , of course , but neverso rapidly. It serves h im right, the big stiff !
” 2
6
The second suitor, Colossus of Rhodes, was anentirely different sort of person . He was nine feethigh and extremely hairy, with enormous limbs and
1 Sui tors, vol . 316, left handed .
”Gorton has a cock and bul l story to the e ffect that it was not
Pi laster ’s hai r that turned b lue b u t h is face, and that it happenedbefore he went away as a result o f the Queen’
s incurab le talkativeness, b u t thi s is p robab ly just a myth .
87
a voice like a bull, and seems unquestionably to havebeen the ugliest creature that ever lived .
1
H e created a sensation on the occasion of his firstappearance before Balkis by dragging ten of herunfortunate guests after h im into the audiencechamber with whom he proceeded to performvarious feats of j uggling, whereupon he tore thej eweled screen from its hinges and bunched hismuscles at the Queen ?
“That ’ s the kind of fellow I am , he told her .“I ’m a tough guy, see ? Move over .
”
Balkis presumably did so, at all events no moreapplicants were admitted that day .
“You ’re frightening poor little me , you big,rough man !” she complained .
“Lay off that stuff , kid, lay off it, he retorted .
Rub me the wrong way and I ’m mean , see, buttreat me right and I ’m as meek as a lamb . I ’m a
rough diamond , I am !”
“And you ’ve come all that great long way just
to see me ?” She asked him .
“I ’m afraid you ’ ll beterribly disappointed !”
“Don ’ t make me laugh ! You ’re the berries , kid ,and I ’m for you , see
?” he informed her, and fetched
1 Talmud says that he was the least dressed man in the world .1'Anna ls of Sheba , cylinder 7426.
88
think he has ever seen a dou blejointed person before
,and it seems to amu se him so ! Sometimes I
feel that I am nothing more than a toy, or a doll,to him
,but when I ask him about it he j ust laughs
and says Some doll, kid , some doll .Sometim es he puts his great hand on my mouthand won ’ t let me say a word , but j ust sits andSTARES at me , until I can
’t stand it any longer,but sirnply have to say something . But I love thosewonderful silences , as I always think that betweenpeople who rea lly understand each other words arenot necessary ; and Colossus thinks so too, becauseI asked him and he said , Now you
’re talkingagain !”
From all accounts Balkis suff ered many inconveniences at the hands of Colossus besides the hairpulling and general acrobatics of his more playfulmoods .On one occasion he had hardly gone from her
reception when he came climbing through the window again, treading on her cats and generallycomporting himself like a gale of wind in a thimble ,for the purpose of taking her driving with him ?
“Hey there , Balkis !” he called to her . “
H ow
about a little j oy-ride ?
‘ Anna ls of Sheba , cyl inder 7639.
90
But Colossus— it ’ s so late , she obj ected .
Why,the idea ! Go home this instant , you naughty
boy !”
Cut that stuff ! Shank of the evening, he assured her . Come out before I pull you ou t !
“But what will people say ?’
Leave that to me, see—you know me, Bal oldkid !”
And so, rather than make a scene, S ophonisbabundled her up in emeralds , and Colossus bundledher down in a j iffy and took her driving through thenight behind his spanking team of black dromedar ies, but , as may be imagined , the escapademade a grea t stir in the more prudish circles of thecourt, and while the only thing that Balkis complained of when she returned was cold feet, therewere many who seemed to have cold shoulders overthe affair .But in spite of these minor incidents matters wereprogressing very favorably and the election of
Colossus was practically conceded .
And then he went away .
Colossus disappeared one morning and nevercame back . Talmud relates that he bought all thecamels that Pilaster had sold and went to AtlantisCity. Gorton adds that he left a brick on Balkis
91
before departing inscribed The only possiblerest is silence—goodbye , girl, I
’m through .
Balkis was heartbroken .
Pilaster was gone, Colossus was gone . The palace was full of vacant chairs .
“I can ’ t imagine what’ s biting him , She writes
?
Only the day before he left he said , You’ve got
me going, kid— and now everything i s SPOILEDand my life is a GLOOM !”
Her Ministers , while they were not heartbroken ,were nonetheless extremely perturbed , for in ad
dition to the above named suitors most of the othersalso were going as fast as they could . They arrived,they looked at the Queen , they visited with her for awhile— and then they never came back !Quite obviously, Balkis was willing but thesuitors were not .What could be the reason ?
1 Suitors, vol . 806.
92
the unforgettable Purple Age simply to recite theirnames . Shush V of Ma ’ in—who has already fi gu red in these pages, and who was perhaps the leastimportant of the three , for all his sinister far-reaching infl u ence—Solomon I of I srael and HiramVIII of Tyre . Three great Kings whose deedsare treasured in the archives of posterity, but aboveall three intensely human perpetrators of gloriousfollies, three great men whose weaknesses were butthe recreation of gigantic natures , three merrymonarchs who rolled their own , as someone hassaid?
2
Solomon at the age of thirty-two was famous forhis wit, his wardrobe and his wives .Heimweh, who , in spite of his j aundiced outlookand often odious comparisons , i s nevertheless theone outstanding authority on the great charactersof the period , says thatSolomon was the Beau Bru mmell of his day .
He was an entirely tailor-made man , but while itonly took nine tailors to make an ordinary mortal
,
it took nine hundred of them to make Solomon .
He possessed three thousand suitings , of allstyles and materials , and his assembled wardrobe
1 Commonly attributed to D r . T raprock .94
filled twenty- fi ve rooms in what was known as theRainbow D ivision of the palace , and required theconstant attention of two hundred and fifty valets .Aside from these personal attendants he had at
tached to his household a corps of highly trainedscent detectors , whose duty it was to trace andutterly destroy all lilies of the field , a flower whichthe King for some reason could not abide , claimingthat they r u med his clothes . ”
Concerning his other foibles and extravagances,whole chronicles have been written ?
He had an absolute mania for horses . Heimweh,in one of his rare accesses of humor, says that :
“As a bridegroom he was a great success , but asa bridlegroom he had no equal .
” 2
He was utterly reckless in the matter of cuttingdown trees and at one time he had as many aseighty thousand wood cutters at work in Lebanonalone . 3
1 S ee Heb ron Papyrus.
1 In the pal ace stab les he maintained forty thousand stall s of caples,prancers, chargers, b idets, steeds, curtals, rouncies and coursers forh is fourteen hundred chariots, and when he rode forth in state hewas accompanied by a body-guard of twelve thousand caval rymen .
This passion of h is for mounts and equ ipages was much criticisedthroughout the land, the humb le ass and the modest hinny havinghi therto been considered adequate enough means of transportation,even for Kings.
1 Sackcloth and other scientists do not hesitate to b lame his
95
He developed a perfect craze for building .
Heimweh states that“When he was not erecting palaces for his wiveswith the timber which he cut, he was building citiesof refuge from their families . All I srael duringhis reign was a vast construction yard , and from adistance, owing to the innumerable scaffoldingswhich arose above it, the city of Jerusalem re
sembled a bunch of toothpicks .Even Heimweh, however, does not seem to havegrasped the Significance of these propensities . Thefact is that Solomon yearned to be considered apatron of the arts . Whether from a desire to es
cape from the importunities of his wives, or from agenuine love of the beautiful, he determined to su r
round himself with all of the most cunning artisans ,workers in gold and in Silver, in brass , in iron, instone and in timber .Whatever his motives, he filled his court withbrilliant artists and his courtyards with gorgeousstuff s, which his fleets went far and wide to seek .
With all due respect to Sackcloth and Heimweh ,he made possible such a gathering of peerless craftsw idespread deforestation for the changes in climate which graduallycame over Palestine .
“Solomon,” one of them remarks, “might wel l have said, A fter methe drought !
96
Opposite is a reprodu ction of very rareof a palimpsest painting . The origin! h !light in the M iddle Ages, aftermonk who discovered it, shocked by th elxtrerne' in u
’
dity? gwhich characterized the fi rst artist ’s W p rodee
'
ded; a
with rare patience and skill , to su perimpse clathin’
glbxkzg
the variou s fi gu res . This accou nts f0 ‘
the,style, ofe
costu me displayed , the monk having natu au y followedthe sartorial standards of h is day .
The fi rst panel shows the Qu een of Shha setting -e
ou t fromMarib on her jou rney to J er u salem , afi ou ndefiby her nobles and m u sicians. The backgropid
’
a typical view of a Sheban cou ntryside .preceded by some of her camels, which , itwillbelong to the famou s “
Shetland !
and packed them home , but a new batch arrived almost immediately by the next caravan , having, likecertain armies , soHeimweh remarks :
traveled a long way on an empty stomach .
Concerning the ladies themselves , beyond the factthat they were ravenously beautiful as one chroni
cler puts it, hardly anything is known . Very few oftheir names even have survived, Solomon himselfhaving experienced considerable difficulty in re
membering them 1n his own day . Psha of Persia ,Panorama of Punt , Ichneumon of Egypt, Tchalkof Magnesia , Pilaff of Tripoli , P S
’
alt of Ammonia ,here and there a title remains , as for the rest theirnames are legendary . The less serious members ofthe court referred to them always as the ForeignLegion .
That they greatly annoyed Solomon by theirendless bickering is common knowledge, however ;and the circumstance , moreover, that no three ofthem spoke the same language gave rise to hisfamous epigram to the effect that while marriagewas a lottery, polygamy was a polyglottery . It isno secret, also , that they finally succeeded in com
down-at-heel remnants of the decadent twenty- fi rst dynasty“u n petit bourgeoi s” as Gaston Poteau cal ls him—who sprinkledsnuff on his food and hab itual ly fi l led his pockets w ith spoons.
98
pletely ruining his digestion by forcing upon himall manner of outlandish dishes which he wasobliged to consume for fear of wounding theirnational pride, until in the end he revised his epigram to bemoan the fact that polygamy was notonly a polyglottery but also a polyglu ttony .
“Too many cooks spoil the betrothed,
” he oncesadly confessed ?
Aside from that Solomon was undoubtedly thegreatest fop , j ack-a -dandy and prick-me dainty ofhis time .Born at the hour of midnight , at the junction ofa Monday and a Tuesday, the child was both fair offace and full of grace , and already in his early manhood he had formed the habit of spending hours ofthe day in the cheerful contemplation of his ownfeatures , and in the painstaking adornment of hisperson . Heimweh states that
“When Solomon was arrayed in all his glory helooked like a Chinese wedding and smelled like anexplosion in a perfu mery Sh0p . When he sat on histhrone he scintillated like a prism, and when he
1 H ebron Papyrus, ch . 26, v . 3 .
99
moved he tinkled all over like a crystal chandelierin a draught .Every hair of his head , and also of his beard , besides being numbered , was separately curled , and adetachment of fi fty-seven barbers were employedfor this purpose . His finger nails were gilded , andpolished with meticulous attention every morning ; each of his eyebrows was parted in the middle ,and his lashes were plaited in minute braids . Hisbody was painted from head to foot prior to anyfunction to match the raiment selected for the occasion , and he wore large rings set with mirrorsin which to view himself from time to time and detect any imperfections in h is appearance . ”
Of his luxurious mode of life fabulous accountshave been handed down . Contemporary sourcesindicate that in the Jerusalem of his time silver wasused for paving the streets , and that the motes inthe sunbeams consisted entirely of gold dust . All
of his household and table utensils were of gold ,p ins being the only article in use made of silver ?
Twelve offi cials were responsible for the furnishing of the royal provender, each of them serving1 A fact whi ch suggests to S teinkop f the origin o f the phrase
pin money, together wi th an interesting discussion of the world widesuperstition regarding the p icking up of the above menti onedobjects .
100
selves in public after the manner of buffoons .Shush
, on the surface , was merely a flatu lentmountebank
,Solomon a painted skipj ack , Hiram
a blustering gadabout .Actually each of them possessed qualities whichplace them on the high pedestals of history, each ofthem contributed conspicuously, with a shrewdnessof vision and a dignity of gesture seldom equaled ,to the welfare of their realms . Shush was an ex
perimenter , a dreamer of splendid dreams . Hiram ,
as will be shown , was an organizer, a promoter ofprogress .And Solomon, for his part, was steeped inwisdom .
The first indication of his extraordinary mentaldevelopment was furnished when he was yet a mereyouth . He was seated one day in a gilded buff etmunching an app le , when two of his companionscame clamoring around him , each demanding thathe be given the remnant of the fruit which thePrince was about to cast aside . The situation wasa delicate one . The applicants were both of themolder and stronger than Solomon , and anyfavoritism on his side could only result in personalinjury to himself at the hands of the disappointedclaimant . The question might well have perplexed
102
supposedly wiser heads , but not so with Solomon .
With great presence of mind he swallowed the dis
pu ted remnant, remarking in the vernacular as hedid soThe apple a core it should not got yetThe fame of this epoch making judgment spreadbroadcast over the land and also into neighboringcountries , and people came from near and far tosubmit all manner of intricate questions to him ,
every one of which he solved without a moment ’ shesitation .
S olomon,althou gh greatly embarrassed at first bythis unforseen result of his nimble-wittedness , wasquick to appreciate, nevertheless , the material advantages to his people of these constant pilgrimagesto his court, and applied himself assiduously to theaccu mulation of useful information . One wondersless and less at the abnormalities of his behaviorwhen one considers the appalling responsibility u nder which he labored until his death . Many a mancondemned to bear the burden of omniscience whi chrested on his shoulders would have become insu fferable . Solomon merely became infallible .At the height of his career his wisdom excelledthat of all nations , including the Senegambian .
1 Heb ron Papyrus, ch . 40, v . 6 .
103
l” 1
Over three thousand proverbs, maxims , epigramsand bon mots were credited to him . He was theauthor of more than one thousand songs , poemsand nursery rhymes , to say nothing of countlessanecdotes , fables and romances .
“In modern times,” Heimweh remarks , his roy
alties would have profi ted him infinitely more thanhis royalty .
He was an accomplished geologist , botanist, zoologist and entomologist, a proficient geographer,astronomer and necromancer, a finished mathema
tician, physician and musician .
6
Hiram VI II , King of Tyre , was Short , fat, bowlegged and cross-eyed . His face was shaped like afull moon . With his large eyes , hooked nose , pursedup lip s and fringe of whiskers he looked exactly likean owl . Having been born to the purple he hadgone a step further and dyed himself the same color
,
a fact which presumably gave its name originallyto his age . Once a week he immersed himself insteaming vats of the mixture , with the result thathe had the appearance of being in a constant stateof thundering apoplexy .
In other respects he had none of Solomon ’ s per104
complain of sundry alliances in which he was eu
tangled, one he strangled with his own hands for
having kept him waiting five minutes one morning,and the last he shipped home to her parents for thegood and S1mple reason that She bored him ,
her heart being the only part of her buried atTyre .In addition to these eight Queens , it seems , according to Heimweh , that :
while he could not make Consorts of them ,
he nevertheless consorted with a large nu mber ofother ladies
,which gave rise to the saying that
Hiram was a great believer in consorted action . Hemay be said , indeed , to have gathered every rosebud that bloomed in his extensive gardens , andearned for himself the proud title of Husbandmanof his People . ” 1
That in spite of his outward appearance andmurderous proclivities Hiram should have been so
multifariously attractive to women speaks volumesfor his personal charm and customary good humor
,
and justifies the appellation of Merry Monarchwhi ch was universally applied to him .
1 F or those desi rous of further information on thi s subject, GastonPoteau ’s del ightful chapters, unfortunately unsui ted to a work ofthis scope, are recommended .
106
Aside from that Hiram was an intensely practical
,ceaselessly industrious , shrewdly intelligent
King . He preferred comm on sense to Solomon ’ swisdom, and had no use for the experimentaldreams of Shush for which he substituted concreteand marble realities . Under his energetic and farseeing rule Tyre reached a pinnacle of glory andprosperity which remained for centuries the envyof neighboring chromclers who were constantly predicting her downfall . But Hiram had built on toofirm a foundation .
And this foundation was shellfish . The preciousmollusc 1 which infested the shores of the TyrianSea and from which was extracted and compoundedby secret processes the famous purp le dye for whichall nations of the earth clamored . Hiram was quickto grasp the fundamental issues at stake Theprosperity of Tyre depended on her dye , the latterfor its manufacture on a monopoly of the marinefauna above mentioned . The future of Tyre waswithin the ocean . Hiram understood that she mustconsequently be mistress upon its surface .With this in view he transformed Old Tyre on
1 Murex rubr ica s .
107
the mainland into an impregnable fortress su r
rounded by fifteen miles of walls . Then he turnedhis attention to the islands situated half a mile ou tfrom the Shore and consolidated them into a site forhis New Tyre enclosing an area two and a half milesin circumference .
“Verily,
” the Tyrian Envoy to the court of Davidremarked in those days ,
“it i s time to retire !” 1
It is estimated by contemporaries that more thanthirty thousand workmen were drowned during theprocess , but the seemingly impossible was finallyaccomplished, H iram himself working with the vanguard u p to his waist in water, and being the firstto step from island to island as the dividing channels were in turn abolished .
“Tyre has gone dry !” he exclaimed j oyfully as
the last spadeful of earth was put in ?
At the northern extremity of the new territorythus formed he established the S idon Harbor
, sev
enty thousand square yards in extent protected bygigantic dykes . At the southern end likewise heprovided the Egyptian Harbor, affording a safeanchorage of eighty thousand square yards guardedby enormous moles and a breakwater two miles
1 Heb ron Papyrus, ch . 8, v . 19.
2 Ibid.,v . 22.
108
was fondest of that which a grateful nation bestowed upon him , calling h im 1ts Sailor King .
Which of the trio originated the great conferencewhich took place at Tyre during the early monthsof the third year of the reign of Balkis is not easilydetermined at this late date . Some are of the opinion that it was Shush , desirous of enli sting the support of his allies against Sheba . Others lean towardsthe theory that the meeting was proposed by Solomon for the purpose of establishing a naval holidayto be observed by the three nations . The veryslender internal evidence available all points , however, to the fact that it was Hiram who issued aninvitation to Solomon alone, and that Shush onbeing advised of this suspicious circumstancepromptly invited himself also, to the considerableannoyance of the other two .
That the conference was held at Tyre would seemto corroborate this view . A very brief fragmentwhich still survives of a letter from Hiram to Solomon , written apparently at this time , likewisesupports the latter .
quiet time together,the docu m ent 1 states,
1 A rchives of Tyre, fragment 76 .
110
and decide on these matters by ourselves . Mypersonal opinion is that if you scratch S heshonkyou ’ ll find Sheba, and very probably Shush , andour little plan for E zion will knock a ll that into aturban . ideal opportunity when all of ou r colleagues are rushing off to Sheba to visit that Balkisgirl . Incidentally I hear she handed the brassbanana to Shush . I ’d go and see her myself if Iwere not so very much occupied ; as for you , I su ppose you ’re not interested in assu m ing any furtherdomestic obligations , and I don
’ t know as I blameyou . you simply must come over .Whatever the rest of the missive may have con
tained, two references in it— that to Sheshonk andthat to “our little plan for E zion
”—would seem toprove quite conclusively the purport of these negotiations. S heshonk, as has already been seen, wasanxious to interest Hiram in the proposition of acanal to which the latter was opposed for politicalreasons . On the other hand, access to the Red Seafor his fleets could not fail to attract him . Theresult was undoubtedly the “little plan for
E zion .
In other words , E zion-geber, the harbor on theGulf of Akabah at the head of the Red Sea
,and the
southernmost city of Solomon ’ s dominions,where
111
later on during that self- same year the latter constructed a powerful fleet from materials furnishedby Hiram .
That this was the proj ect referred to in the letterthere can be no question , and that an attempt wasmade to put it into effect without the prior knowledge of Shush is also perfectly clear . His presenceat the conference indicates , however , that he gotwind of the scheme and made use of it to fill his ownsails ; and the fact that the
“plan for E zion”was in
full Operation a few months later, without any op
position from him , makes it certain that he receivedconcessions at the conclave in return for hisa cquiescence .Heimweh , after painstaking researches , statesthat :
“The exact nature of these concessions is difficult to establish, the treaty concerning them havingbeen of a most secret character . On the other handit seems fairly evident that these concessions had todo with naval ratios in the Red Sea , and with thegranting of a free hand to Shush in all matterspertaining to his future ventures on the mainlandof Arabia . That in this was foreshadowed his longstanding intention of attacking Sheba there canhave been no doubt in anyone ’ s mind .
112
between these two worthies , being done to annoyShush who could not hear the name of Balkisspoken without having an attack of the hiccoughs .And then an extraordinary thing seems to havehappened .
Amessenger arrived from Sheba who cast a letterdown before Solomon , whereupon, smiling, the boyfell dead at his feet, having apparently run all theway from Marib to Tyre without a stop ? In anycase the letter is authentic , announcing the startling fact that Balkis had determined to visitSolomon
for very VERY important reasonsand was even now on her way to his court, andappealing to him under the laws of internationalhospitality to protect her j ourney .
“Such a nerve she got it yet !” Solomon is reported to have exclaimed ?
But the opportunity for further annoyance of
Shush was not to be missed , and one can imagine themerry Hiram roaring at his colleague ’ s discomfi tu re . F or while he himself would not have hesitated to attack Sheba at a moment ’ s notice if such
1 Gorton has one of his usual fabulous ta les in connection with thisinc ident to the effect that the boy had actually died some time before b u t kept on running from force of habit .
1 A rchi ves of Tyre, fragment 80 .
114
action had seemed profitable to him ; and while ,moreover , both he and Solomon were thoroughlyaware of the inner meaning of the treaty j ust concluded with Shush , nevertheless here was an u nex t
pected means of provoking the latter and deprivinghim , temporarily at least , of the fruits of hisconcessions which can only have appealed to theirsense of humor .The treaty of course must stand ; not even Shush ,for whom treaties were usually mere scraps of papyrus , would have dared to break this one in thepresence of Tyre and I srael . By the same tokenthe laws of international hospitality were absolutelyinviolable . Balkis had announced her departure forSolomon ’ s court—she was already his guest underthe law. Her person was sacred , her realm unassailable !
“Balkis comes and goes in safety, Solomondecreed .
“I
’
ll say she does !” Hiram added .
Shush was completely outwitted .
“Foiled again !” he muttered , and retired to hisown tents to sulk ?
So the great conference broke up , amid gales oflaughter from Hiram .
1 A rchi ves of Tyre, fragment 82.
115
CHAPTER VI
P ILGRIM’ S PROGRESS
1
One of the greatest controversies arising from themany perp lexities bequeathed to posterity by thereign of Balkis has raged for centuries overthe question of the real motive for her visit to Solomon , aside from her natural curiosity to see withher own eyes the most talked of man in Asia Minor .A controversy which has engaged the attention notonly of scholars and historians , but of men in allwalks Of life in every period of the world ’ s su bsequent history ; and has precipitated by far the largerportion of the world ’ s bitterest disputes— if one i sto accept the verdict of one of the most eruditeinvestigators Of all time .Gossoon , to whom reference is of course made, inhis Underlying Ca u ses of H istory,
1 has given tosociety the fruit of his exhaustive , and , as he himself admits in his preface , exhausting researches intothe actual wellsprings of the great schisms whichhave rent mankind at various times . And it is hisunshakable conviction that the endless and acrimoniou s speculation concerning the Queen ’ s voy
1 A monumenta l work in twenty- four volumes now unfortunatelyout of p rint b u t ob ta inab le in the more important l ib raries .
116
The first group , known as the NecessitarianSchool , whose greatest exponent i s unquestionablyHornblower, hold to the theory that Balkis did notundertake the j ourney of her own accord , but wassent for by Solomon and coerced into conveningwith him ; a belief expressed in their motto , Neces
sity i s the mother of conventions . Among thereally important partisans of this theory one findsPontius Pilate, Ivan the Terrible , Martin Luther ,Mary de Medici, Napoleon , Wagner , LordGladstone, Adelina Patti and George Washington .
The second category, Often spoken of as theH erO1cs, has numbered among its disciples suchpersonalities as Confucius, Julius Caesar, BrianBoru , Lucrecia Borgia , Queen E lizabeth, CardinalRichelieu , Frederick the Great, the Duke of
Wellington, Bismarck , Victor Hugo, Lord Byronand Florence Nightingale .They, on their side , profess to find in thefamous j ourney a startling proof of statesmanship on the part of Balkis and her advisers . Totheir minds Balkis was a heroine and S henanikin aparagon of diplomacy.
118
The third class , usually referred to as the Abolitionists, a smaller clique of which , as might be ex
pected, Heimweh is the acknowledged master,flatly deny that the visit to Solomon ever tookplace ; or , if they grudgingly admit it in the face ofscriptural testimony, it is only to assert that thevisiting Queen was not Balkis but another . Ofthe more outstanding adherents to this view one
may cite Cleopatra , Charlemagne , Abelard , Dante ,Christopher Columbus , Montezuma , William Tell,Charlotte Corday, Lord Tennyson, Tolstoi andQueen Victoria .
3
One need have no hesitation whatever in statingonce and for all that all three of these schools arehopelessly in error .One has only to go to Gaston Poteau for the explanation . What, as he himself points ou t,
D iogenes really spent his life searching for andArchimedes actually discovered when he sprangfrom his bath shouting “
Eureka,” Poteau in turn
unraveled . Without for a moment detractingfrom Gossoon ’ s work , the truth of which he regretfully admits , the Frenchman utterly refutes Hornblower, Transom, Heimweh and the rest of them,
119
and all their tenets , and proves the correctness Ofh is deductions beyond peradventure?Poteau rests his case on the testimony of Talmud ,
S henanikin and Balkis herself .In Talmud ’ s diaries of the period under consideration he finds the following instructivepassage °2
Verily, the Queen suffers exceedingly from lossof Sleep , pondering throughout the night over thequestions which do so vex her mind . It is her wishto visit Solomon , to lay these perplexing mattersbefore him, and while I do not believe that anylasting good will come of it I do encourage her inthis determination , deeming the j ourney may bebeneficial to her . ”
This would seem to dispose of the Necessitariantheory, and, if anything, supports the Heroic pointof view . Poteau, however, immediately quotes thefollowing significant extract from Shenanikin :
Lay late this morning, thinking of this and of
that, and in particular Of the Queen’ s dilemna,
and as troublesome a problem as ever I did see .
1 That the results o f h is enqui ry have not hitherto been morewidely accepted is merely an indication of the fact that the publ icmind is a lways more incl ined to believe Obscurely complicated rumorsthan simple, unadorned verities.
1'D ia ries of a Co u rt Physician, tab let 372.
120
I have thought VERY deeply about thisthing, she says ,
“and I have decided that it mustbe due to some little fault of my own . We all haveou r faults of course , and it is so much better torecognize them and try to get the better of themthan to remain blind to them , as this only leads tounhappiness and often prevents one from fulfillingone ’ s highest mi ssion in life , and of course one ’ smission in life is a very important thing .
But the trouble is I have tried and tried to thinkof a fault and I can ’ t find any. I am not in theleast conceited, but I can
’ t help realizing that I am
pecu liar that way, because I really haven’ t any
faults, and I always think that false modesty isworse in many ways than pride . And so I havedecided to go and ask Solomon about it , since hehas had so mu ch experience and is really TREMEND OU SLY clever . I thought it was awfu llycute of him to pretend to cut the baby in two whenthe mothers were quarreling about it last month,and he is always doing bright things like that, sothey say .
I have already begun to put down questions Iwant to ask him and shall add to them a little everydav so that I can really profi t by my visit, andperhaps I can help him with some suggestions . I
122
always think there is nothing like an intelligentquestion to draw a person out . I find I alreadyhave four hundred and Sixty-two of them on mylist, and of course before I get to Jerusalem I ’ llhave a great many MORE .
Can anyone seriously maintain that the foregoing does not entirely dispose Of the Necessitarians,the Heroics , and the Abolitionists as well , at onestroke of the pen ? Balkis went to Solomon inperson, Of her Own free will, and for reasons farremoved certainly from affairs of state, Of whichlatter she does not breathe a word, she who waswont to fill pages with both hands concerning themost minute undertakings of her realm . Poteaumakes this very clear .
“Ce n
’
est pas pou r des pru nes, he writes in hiswitty style ,
“it i s not for a dish Of prunes that theQueen undertook this j ourney . It was not forreasons Of state, nor was it to take the air . It wasto consult Solomon on a personal matter—u ne
afl'
aire tres delicate—concerning her own character . What was the nature of this fault which she
so desired to discover, the basis of that experiencewhich rendered him so competent to enlighten her ?
Why did la petite Balkis run at once to him whohad been marri ed seven hu ndred times
123
The answer j umps into one ’ s eyes , as he expresses it . Balkis went to Solomon to ask him whyit was—in his opinion , who had discovered attrac
tions in SO many different women— that no mancould be found who was willing to have her for h iswife .
4
A s may be imagined , the Queen’ s cortege for the
j ourney was one of considerable Splendor, and involved antecedent preparations Of overwhelmingmagnitude . From contemporary outside sourcesone learns S imply that she came to Solomon
with a very great train, with camels thatbore spices, and very much gold and preciousstones .This is a coldly furnished forth description of theglittering pageant which filled her courtyards withthe motley of a thousand rainbows , and poured ou tof Marib into the plain beyond for three days andnights . Never before perhaps , and certainly neversince , has Arabia witnessed such a procession winding across its golden sands, over the hills and faraway .
Two such processions, for of this host one partset ou t in advance of the other and proceeded by
124
In th is panel the Qu een is shown arriving‘
at the; '
gates of J eru salem . Certain inacc u racies in the treatment of the scene prove that the original painting wascomposed from hearsay . Among the fi gu res
”
repre
sented wil l be noted Ab isha i , riding at the h ea‘d of th e
escort , Magog, conversing with the m u sicians, and'inthe right foregrou nd , Ah ishar p u sh ing Benaiah ’forwardto greet the royal visitor Wh ile the pictu re is obvi
ou sly not the work of an eyewitness of the event ,nevertheless the accu rate rendition of the fortifi cationsof J eru salem marks it as contemporary .
the
Under the gateway wi ll be observed a charabanc fu l lof Solomon ’
swives, in the depiction ofwhom the artist;h as very happi ly cau ght the mingled scorn and amazement with wh ich these ladies v iewed thei rmaster ’5 royal
gu est . Some scholars are of the opini on that lthe twoQu eens in the front row facing Balkis are Ichneumono ! 13pointing ou t the gu est of Panorama , and that the [ladyin the back row scratch ing her left sho u lder is Pi laff ,
J) I I I
b u t th is I S mere conjectu re .
1 -‘f t ’ lf
with cloth of gold to protect them from the stainsof travel .There next appeared another company of
Guards , especially detailed to watch over the tengilded cages containing the Queen ’ s cats , and preserve order in the twenty tanks of black goldfishfrom which these felines were fed , an extremelyarduous task owing to the peculiar ferocity of thisbreed of the ichthyomorphic species . 1 The rear ofthis subdivision was occupied by the royal servants ,hair-dressers and manicurists , under the immediatesupervision of S Ophonisba , and contained , besides ,the Queen ’ s ivory bath and the seventy-fi ve whiteshe-asses who provided the milk in which she
immersed herself daily in that commodiousreceptacle .After these , in her j eweled litter of state— fi ttedfor the occasion with j ade wheels rimmed with goldand drawn by thirty full-blooded zebras j inglingwith silver bells and diamond studded harnesspreceded by a corps of air purifiers known as
Dust Biters , and attended by her tablet carriers ,time passers and cramp eradicators , the Queen, ina simple traveling dress of spun glass with herlocks concealed by a close-fi tting cap of elephant ’s
1 I chthyosa u m s P arvu s.
126
hair, feverishly dictating questions in preparationfor her impending interview.
‘It ’ s the first seven hundred questions that are thehardest,
’
one of the scribes is reported to have informed S ophonisba .
The remainder of the train was made up of
slaves, cooks , dream interpreters and scribes ,together with the five hundred camels bearing thegifts for Solomon, and the other presents in kind .
” 1
1 The mere catalogu e of these offer ings, as l isted on a contemporary
A ssyr ian inscr iption recently u nearthed, gives one a more intell igentconception of the stu pendou s character of this royal mu nifi cencethan any labored descr iptive paragraphs cou l d a fford .
of horses from Togarmah,” so the inscr iption reads,fifty milk-white steeds with skins of satin and flowing silky manes,
each with hi s harness of finest leather stu dded with gol d .
And from the I sles that l ie beyond the portals of the Sea, of
ivory one hu ndred manehs of finest gra in withou t any blemish ; and
of ebony yet another hu ndred, in di verse shapes fi t for all manner
of u sage and pol ished l ike u nto a b u rnished mi rror .
And of lambs from Kedar one hu ndred, pu re as snow ; and of
goats l ikewise a hu ndred, for a milking and a feasting ; and of
rams from that land yet another h u ndred to be an acceptab lesacr ifice.
And of spice from Sheba, fifty camel loads, all manner of spicetherein for a seasoning and a sweetening ; and of gu m another fiftycamel loads, and of gold yet another fifty camel loads.
And of preciou s stones from Sheba, fifty camel loads, to everyfi ve camels among them a d i fferent stone, and the names thereof weresard i u s, topaz, d iamond, beryl, onyx , j asper, sapphi re, emerald,carb u ncle and j ade.
This is the list of the gi fts, nor has any been a dded thereto, al l
very fa ir and withou t any b lemish, and cu nningly fashioned for a
127
The Queen ’ s train reached the coast at Hodeidahwithout mishap , it having been her intention toembark at that point and proceed by sea to E zion
geber there to rej oin the first section , and it was atthe former port, according to Poteau , that one of
the most ludicrous , and at the same time annoying,incidents of the voyage took place .F or it seems that camp having been pitched ,while the camels and other beasts with their para
phernalia were being loaded onto barges speciallyprepared for their reception , when it came time toput the Queen ’ s cats aboard , the latter were nosooner safely ensconced on the deck than the ratsbegan to abandon the vessel in great haste, swarmsof them scurrying ashore through every loopholeand down every rope .Whereupon the sailors , ever a superstitious lot,mutinied , declaring that the departure of rodentsfrom a ship could only spell disaster in the nearfuture , and refusing to take passage on such a fore
pleasu re and a del ight, which the Qu een b rou ght to the King,Solomon, for an offer ing .
A s someone has remarked of travel in that day“I t was not the heat b u t the cu p idi ty that came high !”
128
Aye, mates, that we do,by the great blistem
’
ng
barnacle! Yo he and a bottle of g u m .
“But this is mutiny !” she warned them .
Queen ,” they replied,
“
you guessed it the firsttime . ”
Things looked very black, but Balkis was not oneto be abashed by circumstances . With a frownwhich , according to an eye-witness of the scene ,would have split a rock in two she sprang from herlitter and drew a line in the sand with her big toe .
“Sheba expects every man to do his duty, she
informed them .
“When I ’ve finished counting upto ten those of you who haven ’ t stepped across thisline and returned to your ships will be put to deathon the spot . Take your choice .”
“Verily, they grumbled ,“we are between the
she-devil and the deep Red Sea .
”
“One, two, three, four Balki s began to count .At the word ten every man had stepped across ,and the great Hodeidah rat mutiny, or WhiskerRebellion as it was always called henceforth forsome reason, was at an end .
1
1 M any of the sa i lors managed to captu re rats which they tookaboard with them in cages, thereby assu aging their fears to some
extent, which su ggests to Steinkopf the or igin of mascots ; the wholeepisode, moreover , fu rnishi ng in h is opinion the basis for the cere
monies of Crossing the L ine stil l held on shipboard to this day, in
130
A departure was finally made , amid greatdemonstrations of enthusiasm from the beach, andthe fleet proceeded in a leisurely manner up thecoast
,tacking this way and that before the varying
winds,and resorting to the banked tiers of oars
when a calm caught the heavy -laden bargesdrifting . Poteau states that
“The presence aboard of so much live stockunaccustomed to watery locomotion , and con
sequently assailed by terrors and other discomfortsof a gastronomic nature , resulted in a constantneighing and hee-hawing, a perpetual bleating andbaaing and bellowing, an uninterrupted whifflingand burbling of camels, which could be heard formiles and drew men , women and children ou t fromthe coastwise villages on both shores of the RedSea , marveling at this unusual din upon the surfaceof the waters .Added to this the intermittent mewing and purring of the Queen ’ s cats , the noise of the musiciansmaking merry with their trumpets and dru ms , theceaseless whirring of gambling wheels, and the
which, as he points ou t, the process of shaving plays an importantpart and u ndou btedly has some connection with the a forementionedreference to whiskers.
131
singing of the sailors at their chanties all combinedto produce a terrifying cacophony in the midst ofwhich the ship ’ s companies sought such sleep as
they might achieve, and which brought the fishgaping from the depths , as one chronicler has said .
As for Balkis, she seems to have spent her timesorting ou t her question tablets and scramblingabout in the rigging to her heart ’ s content . Thesailors , already considerably disturbed by theabnormal features of this voyage , were at first ingreat trepidation at the sight of the Queen walkingcarelessly from mast to mast along the ropes andwinding herself around the spars , but they gradually became accustomed to the spectacle and derivedmuch innocent amusement from it .”
So the days and nights passed and Coomfi daband Jeddah were astern , and then Yemho,
Aboonood and Moilah ; the waters narrowed underthe shadow of Sinai and the Gulf of Akabah wasentered , until finally on a placid morning the shining minarets of E zion-geber came spiring over thehorizon to greet the approaching armada .
7
The Queen ’ s barge anchored in the outer harbor,
while the accompanying vessels were being made132
greeted by her recent guests and by the Envoyattached to her person by Solomon as his Specialrepresentative . 1
The Queen stopped to inspect the guard of honordrawn up on the pier, exchanged a few kindlywords with a veteran of the Philistine War, andthen drove through the principal streets behindher prancing zebras between closely packed ranksof cheering humani ty to the Governor ’ s palacewhere a state luncheon was served , at the end of
which she is supposed to have made her famousobservation, to the effect that
“We , who are about to diet, salute youThe remainder of the day was spent in a review
of the garrison , during the course of which Balkisconferred the Order of the Ivory Bath on a numberof offi cers and was elected Honorary Captain of
l” 2
1 A s for this Envoy, a certa in Magog who appears to have bornesome resemblance to Colossu s, Potea u is also responsib le for the
statement that“Thi s personage pe r formed hi s d u ty with great zeal—aw e bea u
cou p de conviction—and hav ing been attached to the Qu een’s person
by Solomon as his representative, he also qu ite evidently became
very m u ch attached to her on
’
h is own accou nt, a fact to which she
does not seem to have been entirely insensib le .
”
F rom Gorton one learns that it was common talk arou ndE zion that the Envoy was all
‘magog’over Balkis !”
2 Anna ls of S heba , cyl inder 9618.
1341
the E zion Legion , and in the late afternoon herconvoy set out through the North Gate forJerusalem
,increased by M agog ’ s voluminous suite
and by her own sumptuary caravan .
From E zion the great host traveled slowlynorthward through Edom , arranged in a hollowsquare of which the Queen ’ s litter , attended nowby Magog, was the center , and disposed in ranksof two hundred camels abreast the better to guardagainst stragglers . On through the Desert of ! in ,
past Mount Hor to Kadesh , and ever onward to! ephath at the southern extremity of the DeadSea , or the Great Salt Lake as it was better known .
Thence , bearing westward , to Arad, and thennorthward again along the black stone paved roaduntil Hebron was reached, where Balkis rested fortwo weeks while she sent couriers to Solomon withthe news of her near approach .
Poteau says that the enthusiasm over hercoming passed all bounds . All along the line ofmarch the towns and villages were hung with garlands and decorated with triumphal arches ; andthe route which she followed was lined with spectators come from every corner of I srael, many of
135
whom had been encamped on the spot for weeks ,sometimes for months , awaiting her arrival .Her appearance was greeted everywhere withfrantic acclamations , and the magnificence of herenormous retinue aroused the bewildered, althoughalways shrewdly appraising, admiration of thesimple country folk .
‘
Oy, oy !’ they cried continuously.
‘From goldshe got it everything ! What did she done she
should get it so much mezameh? See now, zebrasyet ! ’
It i s estimated that Balkis received two hundredand forty deputations , accepted the freedom ofmore than three hundred communities , tasted somesix hundred and fifty bowls of goat ’ s milk, pattedthree thousand four hundred and seventy- six littlegirls on the head , and had her hand kissed twelvethousand times, so much so, in fact, that herknuckles became calloused from such indiscriminate osculation .
”
At the end of two weeks Balkis set forth witha chosen escort on the last stages to Jerusalem ,
leaving the bulk of her establishment to follow aday later , and taking with her only her immediateattendants , the nobles and Heralds , one each of
every kind of present for Solomon , her wardrobe ,136
CHAPTER VII
THE YOUNG VI SITOR
l
The dawn came with a throbbing of drums,ushering brilliant sunlight into a sky tremblingwith brazen music, and with the fremescent chirmof gathering hosts .At an early hour, down from Ophel through the
! ion quarter , the entire P eleth ite Corps in fullmarching paint—green striped with yellow—underthe command of the veteran Abishai , passed ontheir way to the Ephraim Gate to line theapproaches of the city and maintain order amongthe hurrying thousands j ostling one another forcoigns of vantage along the route of the royalentry . All traffic south , and west on the JoppaCauseway, was stopped , and incoming caravansdiverted north to the Acra and Bezetha gates .Considerable difficulty was experienced at first,
so Poteau relates , in clearing the Bethlehem road,but after several hundred spectators had beencrushed to death and otherwise incapacitated by thechariots provided for such emergency, some semblance of discipline was finally achieved ; and thegood-natured throngs submitted to the patrols , whoadopted the simple plan of cutting off the feet of
138
those whose enthusiasm caused them to pushforward in too great proximity to the establishedlines , the order of the day reading :
“I f anyone ’ s foot off end you , cut it off .
His arrangements once completed , Abishai himself proceeded to the Queen ’ s camp with a guardof honor consisting of a Composite Regimentpicked from every division in the corps , each manof which possessed the Armageddon Medal as wellas a galaxy of other stars and decorations whichalmost entirely concealed his breastplate—as imposing a body of men , Poteau asserts , as ever wentover the top of a wall .In the meantime the crowds assembled before theGate were amusing themselves with thumbnailsketches of Balkis done on brick by the hawkers ,and pointing ou t, quite inaccurately in themaj ority of cases , the celebrities as they arrivedone by one in gorgeous litters to take up theirstations .
“Oy oy ! they cried constantly . See now, such
a one yet !2
Meanwhile in the Queen ’ s camp a correspondingactivity of preparation obtained , and it was quite
Hebron Papyru s, ch . 38, v . 7 .
139
evident to all concerned that Balkis would beshamelessly late . In the first place , having spenttwo thirds of the night in the contemplation of
Jerusalem,when the time came to awaken her
Balkis could not be aroused from her sleep .
S ophonisba finally solved the problem by ticklingthe soles of her feet with an ostrich feather , a libertywhich none but the privileged nurse would havepresumed to take , but much precious time hadalready been lost .In addition to this a whole series of accidentsoccurred which threw the entire establishment intoa state of dithering confusion . For the fi rst timein their careers the she-asses refused to give a su ffi cient quantity of milk for the Queen ’ s bath ; sixof the nobles discovered that their personal baggage had been left behind at E zion and committedsuicide ; and , as though this had not been enough,fifty of the Queen ’ s cats broke loose from theircage and hurled themselves into the nearest goldfish tank , where they were promptly bitten to
death by these bloodthirsty carnivora .
The bulk of these mishaps were concealed fromthe Queen , but, what with one thing and another,she was only trying on her four hundred and sixtyfi rst dress in an endeavor to decide on a suitable
140
shape of a crescent, embossed with precious stonesand surmounted by a crest of peacock ’ s feathersspread ou t fanwise, from the horns of which twentychains of j ewels , ten on each side , fell in loops ofvarying lengths to rej oin her necklace of sardiusand ruby supporting the great blazing pendant ofthe Order of the Ivory Bath . Under the flamingSplendor of her salamander hair the long emeraldearrings that reached to her pale shoulders gleamedlike sunlit leaves in a forest glade .”
3
The presentation of Abishai having finally takenplace , the guard of honor stuck their gum insidetheir helmets and Balkis gave the signal fordeparture .Well, where do we go from here ?
”she enquired .
Preceded by the guard , in the midst of whichthe Heralds on their dromedarie s attracted universal attention , she went forth from her camp inan open litter of solid gold borne by two hundredslaves , seated on an ivory throne inlaid withemeralds . Abishai and Magog rode beside her,glaring j ealously at each other across the litter, soGorton asserts , while behind her came her retinue ofnobles , the Lords Hamdani , I stakhri , Idrisi and
1412
others ; the six missing ones having escaped theQueen ’ s notice in the general excitement .Down the Bethlehem road they went, amid mani
festations of popular delight which threatened attimes to interrupt her progress so eagerly did thepeople press forward , and which required the mostruthless swordplay on the part of the troop s toquell ; and so finally to the open space before theEphraim Gate , now filled with a great concourseof higher officials , where the demonstrations ofwelcome from the populace bordered on thedelirious
hats , shoes , lunch baskets and even babiesbeing hurled into the air,
” according to Poteau .
Here a halt was made , while the Princes anddignitaries were presented to the Queen and perm itted to kiss her hand .
1 Among these personagesmay be cited Hoshea , Prince of Ephraim , repre
senting the Princes of the Tribes ; Ahishar, themaster of the royal hou sehold ; Ahithophel andJehoiada , the royal councilors ; and Benaiah, thecommander of the Aggressive Expeditionary
1 Gorton insists that several of them were so charmed by her
person that no sooner had they passed be fore her than they madethe ir way to the end of the line aga in, and that in this manner not
a few of them were presented to her three and even fou r times, b u tthere i s no record of this in any contemporary chronicle.
143
Forces,known as Black Benaiah the Lion Killer .
To each of them Balkis said“So pleased to meet you , lovely day , i sn
’ t it ?
and for those who filed past on her left she added,“excuse it please , the hand nearest the heart youknow !”
They for their part merely replied“Greetings, Queen, welcome to ou r city, and
were hurried on by those behind .
At the last, in answer to frenzied appeals fromthe multitude , Balkis arose from her seat andkissed her hands in all directions , finally addressinga few words to the cheering thousands .
“Hello everybody !” she cried .
“All I can say atthis moment is I srael 90 bragh !
” 1
Whereupon , with a loud crashing of cymbalsthe great four-man metsiltaim and tseltselz
'
m—anda j oyous clarioning from the long straight metalhatsotserah,
the cavalcade was put in motion oncemore, and Balkis passed in solemn maj esty throughthe ponderous portals of the Ephraim Gate,guarded by the massive Tower of Furnaces , intothe City of David to where , on the h igh summi t ofOphel , one awaited her coming with anxious heartbeats, for all the immensity of his wisdom
‘ Sheban for Long li ve Israe l .1414
One must turn to Poteau for a detailed accountof her triumphal passage through the city ; spacewill not permit, mere duplication of his glowingparagraphs will not j ustify, a repetition of thatfamous description—the garlanded , flower strewnstreets ; the festoons of humanity literally clingingto the cornices of the flag draped buildings likeclustered bees at a swarming ; the continuouslyswelling storm of applause which rolled like arising tide before her ; the magnificent bearing ofthe Cherethite Corps who lined the approach to thepalace under the comm and of Eleazar , the victorof the Battle of the Barley Field ; the dazzlingsplendor of her cortege as it wound slowly up thehill ; the entrancing loveliness of the slender littlefigure in the shimmering litter , bowing and smiling,and clapping her little hands together in an ecstasyof tremulous enchantment .
Oa lala !”
she kept exclaiming to herself overand over again in Sheban .
“O u lala , oa lala
1
I t is during this ride that Benaiah is supposed tohave remarked that
“Verily, Delilah has nothing on Balkis .‘ Approx imately, Wh at do you know abou t that?
1 ° 145
To which the witty Ahishar is reported to havereplied :
“Verily,Balkis has practically nothing on
herself !” 1
Solomon, meanwhile , was awaiting the Queenattired from head to foot in crimson fabrics edgedwith gold, his body fresh from the hands of hisbarbers , painters , valets and perfumers—seated inthe porch of the House of Lebanon , that imposingedifice one hundred cubits in length by fifty wide,paneled, beamed and roofed with cedar, fromwhich he commanded a V iew of the open courtyardin which Balkis must shortly alight .He was surrounded by the Envoys , the Captainsand Princes of I srael and their retinues, and hisown body servants and pages , while at his elbowstood a privileged group including Adoniram , theappraiser of tribute , his tutor Jehiel, and themighty Shammah , who had fought against thePhilistines under David . At one side a sharim of
five hundred singers , led by Jedu th u n in person ,alternated with the nogem
'
m of three hundred
Hebron Papyru s, ch . 40, v . 9.
146
And then , as Poteau himself points ou t, rumorshad undoubtedly reached him of the camel loads ofquestion tablets on which Balkis had been workingwhile he slept !At all events for one reason or another it i scertain that Solomon was extremely nervous andspent his time , so one learns from Hornblower,
fussily finding fault with h is appearance ,and feverishly running through his Books of
Deportment and the pages of his favorite proverbsand epigrams . ”
And then with an accompanying roar of cheersand blaring of bands the head of the column filedinto the courtyard ; the Cherethites formed inmassed ranks on either side of the stairs ; Benaiah ,and Hoshea , and Ahishar and the rest came hastening up the step s to the King ’ s foot- stool . Balkishad arrived .
“What is she like ?” Solomon found time to ask .
Every inch a Queen, dressed in chromaticscales , Ahishar told him , but there was no opportu nity for further questioning.
of her semi - insane, sem i- acrobatic, parentage, and he had heard of heryou thf u l escapades and contortionistic propensities, and i t may wel lbe that Solomon was all of a twitter ,” to q u ote Transomaga in, “lest Balk is shou ld come tu mb l ing u p the sta irs to greet him,
or take to r u nning arou nd the ledges of hi s pa lace .
”
148
The Queen ’ s litter had reached the foot of thestairs , and she was at that moment alighting fromit
,leaning on the arms of Magog and Abishai . A
swift flutter of the hands to her j eweled headdress ,an appraising glance around her at all this magnifi cence summoned to do her honor , and Balkisturned to the ascent before her, searching for herhost .Solomon arose and went down the step s to meether .F or a few breathless seconds they stood face toface in silence , each no doubt revising previouslyconceived estimates of the other, and then Abishaicame forward .
“Queen ,” he announced , in his abrupt soldierly
manner ,“ shake hands with King Solomon !”
“So good of you to come, Solomon murmured ,as he stooped to kiss her finger tips . “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desirecometh it is a tree of life !”
“Oh , how sweet ! Balkis exclaimed . You
must let me copy it down some time .”“Just a li ttle thing of my own, Solomon informed her deprecatingly .
“But I think it ’ s lovely, Balkis insisted . Andyour city is simply grand ! Of course I love Marib ,
149
but if I couldn ’ t live there I ’d like to live inJerusalem , if you know what I mean ?
”
“Queen,
” Solomon assured her ,“
you don’t know
the half of it !” and with graceful courtesy he ledup to the porch .
1
At the top of the stairs Balkis paused for amoment and narrowly inspected the grand-standcontaining the King ’ s Ladies .
“Those are your wives , I suppose, she remarkedto Solomon , who would have hurried her on .
“Doyou mind if I look at them—hum , some of themmust have been really quite pretty at one time .I t is at this point in his narrative that Poteauindulges in a statement which , were it not for hishabitual veracity of relation , one would be temptedto disbelieve .
“In spite of the music, he says , the remark
made by the Queen was overheard by Ichneumonof Egypt who promptly repeated it to Pilaffof Tripoli , and in a very few seconds it had beentranslated into two hundred and thirty-threelanguages and gone the rounds of the crowded
Hebron Papyru s, ch . 40, v . 22.
150
which were received witl. loud exclamations ofwonderment on the part of the throng and com
mitted into the hands of the proper officials for safekeeping .
1
“Some of the things are really rather sweet ,Balkis kept telling them ,
“but of course it ’ s thespirit behind the gift that counts , i sn
’ t it ?”
Whereupon the irrepressible Ahishar remarkedbehind his hand to Benaiah that
“Every little bit added to what you ’ve got makesjust a little bit more ! Just a little thing of myown .
2
A tour of inspection was then made through thePorch of Pillars and the Porch of the Throne ,around the columned courtyards , and into the royalpalace—a massive building of costly hewed stonessawed with saws within and without from cellars tocopings , some of them ten cubits square, andbeamed with cedar—where a state lu ncheon wasserved on the gold plate . 3
1 The gol d and jewelry to Azmaveth, gu ard ian of the major and
minor profits, the gu m and spices to J oash , cu stodian of the cellarsof oil , the var ied equ ipment to J ehonathan, j anitor of the roya lstorehou ses and castles, and the animals to Shitra i and Obil, wardensof the herds and camels.
2M emoirs of Bena iah fragment 42
' Potea u states that throu ghou t these ceremonies Balkiswas simply an animated exclamation point, this symbol replacing for
152
This luncheon , followed by the gala banquet thatevening, ushered in a round of functions whichlasted for three weeks and piled peelings on ossifi ed remnants , according to Ahishar ; and whichdrove the unfortunate provender official for themonth to his grave— the worthy Ahimaaz, fromNapthali , who was married to Solomon
’ s daughter,Basmath .
1
Then for another three weeks Balkis entertainedthe court in her own camp
'
at a series of acrobaticdisplays and lavish feasts which included a privateluncheon for the King ’ s wives , no record of whichunfortunately is available, although Poteau assertsthat
“I t is rumored that at the close of the entertain
ment a large ornament in the shape of a bell waspresented to Balkis by I chneumon and hung
the time being the q u estion mark which ord inar ily expressed hermenta l attitu de towards her su r rou ndi ngs.
Indeed, u nder the stress of all these wonders, she ventu red to makea q u ite passable epigram of her own, to the effect that
‘Solomon dwelt in marvel halls ! ’Everything, it seemed, was WONDER F UL , the b u ildings were
simply GRAND , the food was so GOOD , the six hu ndred pages werej u st SWEET, Shammah and Bena iah were DARLINGS, Solomon
himself was too LOVELY F OR WORD S AND SO CLEVER
Gorton insists that her name was in real ity B ismu th, b u t thi s viewis not su pported by the majority of genealogists .
153
around her neck amid gales of laughter from thespectators
,the inner significance of which the
Queen does not ever seem to have grasped .
1
7
One may not leave the account of those firstweeks in Jerusalem without some slight referenceto the Queen ’ s own private impressions of Solomon ,recorded in her intimate diaries .2 Pilaster had beenworthy of underlining and Colossus had earned hisscattered capitals , but in the case of her host Balkisfound it necessary to make use exclusively of thelatter calligraphy in order to express the immensityof her fascinated admiration .
“SOLOMON I S A BEAR , she writes in one
place . “OF COURSE HE I S TERRIBLYFUNNY TO LOOK AT AND VERY FUSSYABOUT HI S CLOTHES , BUT I ALWAYSTHINK IT I S SUCH A MISTAKE TOJUDGE PEOPLE BY APPEARANCES
,
AND WHEN YOU REALLY GET TOKNOW HIM , YOU S IMPLY CAN
’T HELPLOVING HIM . HE IS SO POLITE , ANDSO UNCONCEITED ABOUT ALL HI S
1 Th is is ind ignantly denied by the Heroic School .2 Solomon, vol . 52, left handed .
154
MAKE IT INTERESTING . HE WA STELLING ME THE OTHER DAY ABOUTWHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO SAMSON WHEN THAT DELILAH WOMANGYPPED HIM , AND IT WAS SO FASCINATING AND SOME OF IT TERRIBLYFUNNY . I WI SH I COULD REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS THAT SAMSONSAID WHEN HE PULLED DOWN THETEMPLE OF DAGON SOMETHINGABOUT COLUMNS RIGHT AND COLUMN S LEFT AND BEING THE FIRSTCOLUMNIST IN HI STORY BUT INEVER CAN REMEMBER STORIES UNLESS I WRITE THEM DOWN RIGHTAWAY .
AND THEN HE IS ALWAYS SO MODEST ABOUT ALL THE WONDERFULTHINGS HE SAYS , AND TRIES TO PASSTHEM OFF AS THOUGH THEY WEREREALLY QUITE INS IGNIFICANT , ANDI DON ’T THINK HIS COURT REALLYAPPRECIATE THEM AT ALL . BUT IRESPOND SO QUICKLY TO THINGS OFTHAT SORT THAT I CAN ALWAYS SEETHE BEAUTY IN EVERYTHING THAT
156
HE SAYS EVEN THOUGH I DON ’T A LWAYS UNDERSTAND IT RIGHT AWAY,
BECAUSE OF COURSE SOME OF HI SSAYINGS ARE ENTIRELY TOO DARKFOR POOR ME , BUT HE I S AWFULLYPATIENT ABOUT REPEATING THEM .
”
In another paragraph she states that :I LOVE HIM VERY, VERY MUCH , IN
A WONDERFUL SPIRITUAL WAY, ANDI FEEL THAT OUR MINDS WERE SPECI ALLY MADE FOR EACH OTHER . IDON ’T KNOW HOW TO E ! PRESS ITE ! ACTLY , BUT I THINK H IS SPIRITCALLED TO MINE ACROSS THEDESERT AND THAT I S REALLY WHYI CAME TO HIM . I KNOW OF CASESWHERE TWINS HAVE DONE THAT ,
AND PERHAPS MENTALLY WE AR E
TWINS TOO . I TOLD THAT TO AHI SHAR YE STERAY AND HE LAUGHEDAND SAID ‘YES , GOLD DUST TWINS .
’
HE I S SO WITTY .
I DON ’T THINK SOLOMON I S VERYHAPPY
,AND SOMETIMES WHEN I
TALK TO HIM HE LOOKS AS THOUGHHE WERE REALLY IN GREAT PAIN ,
157
AND I HOPE THAT BEFORE I GO I CANDO SOMETHING TO HELP HIM , BE
CAUSE I KNOW THAT I HAVE AN UN
D ER STAND ING HEART IF HE WILLONLY CONFIDE IN ME .
Perhap s it has something to do with that Shulamite girl . I must get Benaiah to tell me more aboutit, as he seems to be awfully up on everything that
’ sgoing on and is qu ite a DARLING , although heis frightfully r u de to Abishai and Magog andHoshea and the others when they come around .
I’m very much afraid they ’re all falling in love withme , poor dears, but wha t can I do ?
I sometimes wish that I were not so terriblyATTRACTIVE to married men .
So the weeks passed in reciprocal festivities andthe time came for the Queen ’ s official interview withSolomon . Poteau has interesting accounts of theelaborate preparations made by both parties for thisfunction— the setting forth of Solomon ’ s Libraryof Knowledge , in which every conceivable question ,from Who mends the crack of dawn to What keepsnight from breaking when it falls, was answered ;
158
sometimes quite lengthy intervals of thought between questions . ”
As was customary ln such cases , the meetingopened with an address by the host in which everyknown branch of knowledge was touched upon andset forth for the edifi cation of the guest . As maybe imagined, with such a lecturer as Solomon thisfeature of the program took up considerable time, 1
and covered every subJ ect connected with the earth ,the sea and the sky, the animal, mineral and vege
table kingdoms , the beautiful and the damned , andthe history of the human race from the Age of
Innocence down to the Dangerous Ages, includingthe mysterious Wasted Generation
all of it assembled,”so Poteau states, in
compact form in what was known as Solomon ’ sO u tli ne of H istory, or Wells of I nformation, twocosmic volumes embellished with charts .”
The lecture once terminated , the second part ofthe program was entered upon to which a privilegedpublic was admitted . Three black pennies havingbeen flipped according to custom , Solomon won thetoss and prepared to ask his questions . As will beseen below from the stylographic reports of theproceedings the King ’ s riddles give evidence of
‘ Some chroniclers estimate as mu ch as two and a hal f days.
160
careful preparation and seem t o have troubledBalki s not a little .SOLOMON : Some hunters went hunting .
They said afterwards ,‘What we caught we threw
away, and what we did not catch we kept .’ What
were they hunting ?”
A long pa u se.
BALKI S : “Oh dear !P a u se.
BALKIS : I don ’ t know .
SOLOMON :“Fleas .”
L a u ghter among the S hebans.
BALKI S : “Aren ’ t you horrid !SOLOMON :
“A temple rests upon a single col
u nm encircled by twelve cities . Each city hasthirty buttresses . Each buttress has two women ,one white and one black , that go round it in turns .Solve the riddle .”
BALKI S : “I’m all mixed up already . What
was the first part ?”
Q u estion repeated. A long pau se.
BALKI S : “How many buttresses did you
say?”
Q u estion repea ted. A long pau se.
BALKIS : “Go ahead , I’ ll bite !”
L au ghter . S u ppressed.
161
SOLOMON : The temple is the world, the colu mm the year, the twelve cities are the months , thethirty buttresses are the days , the two womenlight and darkness .”
BALKIS : “Oh, but you’re cheating !
S ensation in the P orch .
SOLOMON :“Huh ?
BALKIS : Some of the months have thirty-onedays . Of course if I ’d known thatL ou d lau ghter among the spectators. S u p
pressed. Obj ection su stained by the recorder .
E a'ception taken by S olomon. Noted.
A SHEBAN :“Hooray ou r side !
RECORDER : Order in the Porch !SOLOMON : There be four things which arelittle upon the earth , but they are exceeding wise .
”
BALKIS : “Now don ’ t hurry me
A very long pau se.
BALKI S : “Fish , flesh or fowl ?
SOLOMON :“That ’ s a leading question .
Obj ection su stained by the recorder . A long
pa u se.
BALKIS : By me !SOLOMON “The ants are a people not
strong, yet they prepare their meat in summer . Theconies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their
162
RECORDER : Order in the Porch . Pass outquietly please .SOLOMON : The way of an eagle in the air ;the way of a serpent upon a rock ; the way of aship in the midst of the sea ; and the way of a manwith a maid .
”
P rolonged applau se.
BALKIS : “Oh, that’ s lovely . I don ’ t know
how you do it .A VOICE : You tell them , Balkis !RECORDER :
“Throw that man ou t.
S cu fi le. A spectator is ej ected.
BALKI S : “I t
’
s too sweet, really !SOLOMON : Just a little thing of my own .
Emit A hishar.
BALKIS : “You ’re a wise one, all right allright, I
’ ll tell the world !”
10
And then it wa s the Queen ’ s turn . Before anaudience which packed every available square footof the Porch she spread ou t her tablets before herand expounded her riddles, some of which seem to
have thrown the meeting into an uproar and greatlyincensed Solomon, the more so since his wives insisted on being present and kept up a continuous
164i
babel of recrimination at his failure to make abetter showing .
BALKI S : Ready ?”
SOLOMON :“Shoot .
BALKI S : Why does B come before C in thealphabet ?”
A pa u se.
ICHNEUMON : Oh , that’ s easy !
A pau se.
BALKIS : Can ’ t you guess ? S hall I tell you ?”
SOLOMON :“Go ahead .
”
P’
SALT :“Quitter !”
BALKIS : “Because a man must be before hecan see . I think that ’ s awfully good , don
’ t you ?”
SOLOMON ' Slick !”
ICHNEUMON :“Not so good .
BALKI S : Why is a man sailing up the TigrisRiver like one putting his father into a sack ?”
TCH ALK :“Louder and funnier ! ”
SOLOMON :“Just a moment
A pau se.
BALKI S : I t’
s a peach . You ’ ll never guess it .PSHA : Chestnut, you mean .
A pau se.
BALKIS : G ive it up ?”
SOLOMON :“All right, spill it .
165
PILAFF : You big bum !BALKI S : Because he 18 going to Bagdad
see, bag dad ?”
Groans. S u ppressed. L a u ghter among the
S hebans.
BALKI S : Got you that time . Here ’ sanother .ICHNEUMON : Now then , Solomon,your toes !”
BALKI S : How many soft-boiled eggs couldGoliath eat on an empty stomach ?”
PILAFF :“I think that ’ s vulgar .
BALKI S : Well, what do you say ?
SOLOMON :“Of course he wouldn ’ t have put
all his eggs in the same bread basket !Cheers from the grand
-stand.
P’
SALT :“Yeah , Solomon !
RECORDER : Answer the question .
SOLOMON : Seventy times seven .
”
Appla u se.
BALKI S : No, silly ! Only one, because afterthat his stomach wouldn ’ t be empty any longer .That ’ s a good one, isn
’ t it ?”
SOLOMON :“Wonderful .
TCH ALK : You poor boob !BALKIS : Why is a mouse like a bale of hay ?”
166
A pa u se.
BALKI S : Give it up , do you ?
SOLOMON : E xp u rgated by order ofcorder .
PANORAMA : Tee hee , tee— I beg pardon .
SOLOMON : I know . Because they springfrom the ground .
P rolonged applau se.
PILAFF : You can ’ t laugh that off !BALKI S : That ’ s awfully good , of course, but
it’
s not the right answer . ”
SOLOMON : E xp u rgated by order of the re
corder .
ICHNEUMON : E arp u rgated by order of therecorder .
BALKIS : H ow dare you speak to me likethat ?”
PILAFF : E xp u rgated by order of the recorder .
PANORAMA :“Tee hee , tee—ouch , Psha ,
quit pinching me !”
PSHA : E xp u rgated by order of the recorder .
BALKI S : E xpu rgated by order of the re
corder .
SOLOMON : There ’ s something in what yousay .
RECORDER : Give the answer .168
S u spense.
BALKI S : The right answer is Because theypropagate— see, prop a gate .
”
SOLOMON :“Oy oy !
”
Uproar . Three scribes drop dead. Balkis
lau ghs for twenty minu tes. S olomon has a fi t ofapoplex
'
y. M eeting adj ou rned.
11
And finally the one last riddle of all, which theQueen put to Solomon in private on the eveningbefore her departure for Sheba . The questionwhich had brought her all the way to Jerusalem,
and his answer to which she does not ever seem tohave understood .
“Why is it,”she asked him , that I who am so
beautiful and have had so many suitors cannot finda husband ?”
Solomon, so Poteau states , thought for a longwhile and then made the following reply, couched interms least calculated to offend his guest , to whomhe often referred afterwards as “that asphinx iatingwoman .
”
“Queen, he told her . There ’ s many a slip of
the tongue twixt the cup and the lip , and the ear isalways more sensitive than the eye .
”
169
I don ’t get you at all , Balki s complained , butit sounds awfully clever !”
“Just a little thing of my own, Solomon murmured .
And with this cryptic utterance to ponder overshe went from him , loaded with gifts— lead and tinfrom Tarshish and brass from Tubal, emeralds andcedar and fine linen from Syria , honey and oil fromI srael, purple and blue from Eden and Tyreand returned to her own country .
in what perplexity of mind , to quotePoteau ’ s beautiful passage, one cannot surmise ;leaving behind her such memories as one may notpresume to speculate upon . A great and welcomesilence descended on Jerusalem , but from the su mmit of Ophel a glory was departed, over the Valleyof Hinnom the smoke of many camp fir es was dis
persed, in the House of Lebanon a faint aromafloated for many days , and then died .
And on the throne in the Porch of Judgment perhaps one sat who brooded over many things, andcame to regret his wisdom . Who knows ?”
170
to stir a finger,although his mind was active until
the end,and then he breathed his last, gently but
firmly,in his two hundred and seventy- sixth year .
‘This hurts me more than it does you !’ were his
dying words .One imagines him lying there recapitulating theevents of his inordinately long life , searchingthrough the storehouses of his memory for evermore and more distant recollections—h is deseendants gathered around him on his one hundredthbirthday, and the statues in the gardens at Yath il,
and the soft voice of Aida , and the waters of theRed Sea that would not stand aside , and his firstj eweled box , and his father
’ s long whiskers, and agold rattle .Transom is equally obscure . He devotes long
chapters to the political consequences of the Queen ’ smission , continuing his narrative through decades ofSheban foreign policy, but of Balkis he neverbreathes a syllable from the time he leaves her atthe Ephraim Gate .This reticence is even more marked in the case ofGorton . He , for his part , extends his secret revelations of the court of Sheba for several volumes, inthe introduction to which one i s astonished to discover that
172
Soon after her return to Marib , S 0phonisbamarried S henanikin and , to the great annoyance ofall concerned, established a new dynasty whichruled in Sheba for many generations . ”
But of Balkis never a word , not even of a fi ctitious nature, and where Gorton is afraid to treadmust indeed be perilous grou nd !All this is extremely disconcerting .
It becomes positively astounding when one looksfor a solution of the problem in the writings ofTalmud and Shenanikin, and in the Queen
’ s owndiaries . For in none of them does one come acrossthe slightest clue which affords any indication ofthe Queen ’ s fate .Talmud , one i s disappointed to learn , died onlya few months after the departure of Balkis forJerusalem .
S henanikin, with his customary indifference tohis surroundings , does not appear to have beenaware of the return of the natives until severalmonths had elapsed, and when he finally does referto the subj ect it is only to plunge into rhapsodiesover S ophonisba , in the midst of which such u n
important details as the whereabouts of his173
sovereign niece seem to have escaped his attentioncompletely .
One turns breathlessly then to the pages of theQueen ’ s diary to be confronted with the fact thatthe last entry is written somewhere between E zion
and Marib , on the last long stage of the j ourneywhich she set ou t to make entirely by land this time .A quite insignificant entry from which one gathersthat the caravan was progressing normally andwithout any hint of impending mishap .
3
All that one can distill from this conspiracy of
silence , therefore , i s that she was alive and well ata point approximately midway between E zion andthe borders of Sheba , that her suite arrived insafety at Marib , and that she herself vanishedutterly from the scene, no record of the occurrenceappearing in any contemporary chronicle .Such an event is obviously incredible , and forcenturies scholars , historians and biographers , irrespective of their assumed indifference arising no
doubt from an inability to answer the riddle, haveasked themselves the ever pressing question :
“What happened to Balkis ?”
The customary explanation of course has always174
it not for some extraordinary discoveries,them
selves the fruit of arduous and painstaking labors,
here presented to the world for the first tu ne In
this work .
“What happened to Balkis ?
Such is the question which has so vexed humanity,
and at last now it can be told , and in so doing therei s more that must be told .
In 1906 the present writer had occasion to spendseveral weeks in a deserted farmhouse near thefishing village of Beeswax , Maine , while passingthrough the tedious period of convalescence after asevere attack of temporary insanity . Left to hisown resources during the long solitary evenings
,he
formed the habit of rummaging through the attic,searching for lost wills, hidden documents and rarebooks such as are not infrequently found in suchrepositories .His zeal had already been rewarded by the di s
covery of a first folio Shakespeare , two hithertounknown volumes by Benj amin Franklin, and acomplete set of the Bowdoin College A lu mni
B u lletin much sought after by collectors , whenin moving a large Sheraton sideboard he came
176
across a heavy little trunk of ancient design , theponderous iron hinges of which had rusted andfallen apart with age .Upon inspection, this was found to containseveral thousand fragments of torn paper of dif
ferent sizes and quality, closely covered with fadedwriting in varying colors of ink , which at a glancewas seen to be in monkish Latin by the same hand .
As may be imagined , such a find could only appealas one of absorbing interest to the discoverer whoforthwith purchased the farmhouse and all itscontents , and set himself to the task of reconstitu t
ing the document .After ten years of u nremitting labor, guided bythe various colored inks and the different texturesof parchment, the writer was able to piece togetherthe manuscript which under his hand took the formof a thi ck volume several hundred pages in length
,
the contents of which he then proceeded to translate with such eagerness of spirit as even a laymanwill no doubt appreciate . Judge of his disappointment, therefore , when after a feverish perusal ofthe thickly lettered pages the book revealed itselfto be merely a school reader, in u se probably insome monastic academy, and of interest only topedagogues as will be seen from the following ex
177
tracts chosen at random from the body of thetext
“I have a pig , a little more piggy than other pigs .He has an understanding heart . His name isA eschilu s Aesop Aeneas Epaminondas . He waits
patient wa its for me at the door and makes j oy
I . have a . lamb . His name is Genseric AttilaNebuchadnezzar Hannibal . He has needs to becl ipped .
Down the road Where I do live there are two talltrees . Boh u nku s is the name of one, Josephus isthe other .Under the . trees
,
there does sit a dog who gives
me tremblings . H e has not an understandingheart . H is name i s Tambu rlane Appolyon
Theodoric Baj'
azet, .and he gives me long.! crooked
looks .With a heavycheartL the Writer; embittered ; by adecade of fru itlesstoi l,w as on the point of sendingthe manu script to a Boston magazine, .When flbythe merest zchance he came upon a startling. .dis‘
covery. On the margin of the two hundred and
thirteenth page unmistakable indications of . erasure.Were observed A meticulous examination of othermargins revealed a similar state of affairs .
178
necessary to acquire a knowledge of Neurotic inorder to translate the writing, an undertakingfraught with stupendous difficulties since nogrammar of this obscure tongue is available anywhere in the world, the only copy having beenpossessed by the ill-fated Library of Louvain . But,nothing daunted , the writer persevered and finally,after two more years of unceasing toil, he was in aposition to unbar the portals of the secret .On the very first page the word BALKI S came
sh in ing forth from the text like a beacon !
Upon careful examination the document so
fortuitously rescued from oblivion proved to be thej ournal of a certain P tu nk, an Egyptian by birth,in the confidential employ of a Bedouin Chieftain .
The greater part of his writing has to do with theroutine matters connected with his service, and isof no immediate concern to readers of this work,much of it, indeed, being taken up with referencesto his small son, P . 3rd ; but at the outset of hischronicle he gives an account of a series of eventswhich solve once and for all, after some three thousand years of perplexity, the mystery concerningthe disappearance of Balkis .
180
Such,no less , i s the nature of the material which
the present writer is now in a position to set beforethe public as a result of fifteen years of labor,counting himself amply rewarded in that he shouldhave been chosen by Providence to be the humbleinstru ment whereby this epoch making discoveryis presented to mankind .
That portion of the manuscript dealing withBalkis , reproduced herewith for the first time inany language, has been faithfully translated fromthe original in the possession of the writer, who isprepared to submit the latter for the inspection of
experts and learned societies in any part of theworld . Those familiar with Neurotic will note atonce that the manuscript i s in the famous Bes
’
Tsellar dialect . As can readily be ascertained bycomparison , the only alterations in the text consistof sundry emendations, indicated below, which thegraphic style of the scribe seemed to render advisable in a work destined for general consumption .
The story runs as follows“I am P tu nk, the discreet, soft-footed and per
fectly trained servant of my Lord, A chmet BenTarzan , the Sheik of the Desert .
181
My Lord is a perfect devil with the women . Heis a mixture of well-bred brutality and languid insolence which gets them every time . He is thetallest, broadest, strongest, handsomest , cruellestand most passionate man in Ar abia . His word islaw . He is utterly pitiless when aroused andshows no mercy . But he has got his at last .I t came to pass that my Lord went on apilgrimage to Marib to gaze upon the maddeningbeauty of the Queen, Balki s . From that day forthhe spared no eff ort of his iron will in order to winher for him self, by fair means or foul , preferablyfoul , for such is his fiery , indomitable Bedouinnature . The Queen , all unconscious of the inexorable fate which lay in store for her , played into hishands . She went on a j ourney to Jerusalem . Therest was easy .
Months passed, and the Queen’ s caravan pitched
camp on the return j ourney at an oasis , the preciselocality of which my Lord was aware of . He wishedto know . I t was quite simple .Night fell and the camp sank to rest ; like gaunt ,silent shadows my Lord and I gave the sentinelsthe slip and entered the Queen ’ s tent . With burning eyes my Lord lifted her in his strong arms andplaced her in a sack which he had brought with
182
On the evening of the tenth night the palm treesof our beautiful desert home loomed up over thehorizon . In a few hours we were dismountingbefore my Lord ’ s spacious tent and entering thevast apartment fitted with every convenience— andfi l led with a motley collection of quaint knickknacks such as he loves to have about him— where,when not in the saddle , he resides in surroundingsof mingled barbaric splendor and dignified luxury .
My Lord , laughing softly, pulled the Queen ou tof the sack by her hair and cast it from him far outinto the night . Th en with a gesture of carelesscontempt he flung her onto a pile of soft cushionsin a corner of the tent where she lay silently quivering with pent- u p emotions , while he gave a few curtorders to his men who stood before him in attitudesof easy grace mingled with respectfu l deferenceprepared to obey his slightest wish .
‘Who are you ? ’ the Queen asked finally, in su b
dued accents mixed with pride .‘Who am I— ha ha— I am the Sheik A chmet BenTarzan
,
’ my Lord informed her nonchalantly, witha look which stripped the covers off the cushionsand left them bare before him .
‘What are you going to do to me ? ’ she mutteredhoarsely .
184
‘I give you three guesses ,’ my Lord rep lied, with
another long, low laugh .
The Queen drew herself up to her full heightand held herself proudly erect .
‘Why have you done thi s to me , you brute ?’
she
screamed brokenly .
‘Why have I done this to you ?’ my Lord repeated
her words with a mocking smile . ‘Because I want
you . I want what I want when I want it . Andnow—ha ha—I want you !
’
With a few quick steps he was at her side andcaught her in his arms , crushing her to him untilher ribs cracked . Struggle as she might against hissavage embraces she was utterly helpless in hishands which well she knew could have broken herlike a toy . Passionately he kissed her lip s, her hair,her eyes , her ears , her nose , her neck , hershoulder, her wrist , her elbow and her left footwhich had somehow become tangled up in the loosefolds of his long flowing robe . Then with a suddenchange of mood he let her go , and she fell back ontothe cushions with a dull thud .
‘
Now then , stop your nonsense,’ my Lord com
manded with a significant scowl . ‘
And make itsnappy ! ’ And , drawing his robe closely about hismanly form , he stalked maj estically from the tent .
185
EQJHDEEN [BF SG’
JEBA
In a few moments he returned , his cruel lip sparted in a lingering smile , his eyes half open, halfshut, to find that she had not stirred .
‘What ’ s the big idea ? ’ he asked with a pitilesslaugh .
‘Must I wait on you as well as for you ? ’
Whereupon
During the following weeks I observed that agreat change had come over my Lord . At the firsthe had simply taken the Queen to satisfy a passingfancy, meaning to toss her aside when he hadwearied of her , but now he was becoming desperately enamored of her . I , who know him so in
timately, could see it in a hundred different ways .He began , for instance , to treat her withextraordinary brutality mingled with scorn, dragging her around the tent by her hair and maltreating her to his heart ’ s content .
‘Kiss me, you little piece of cheese ! ’ he wouldcommand through clenched teeth, and when she
refused .
186
taking advantage of his upraised arm , she Sprangat him with a knife and stabbed him seventeentimes .
‘You wretch ,’ she screamed breathlessly .
‘Curse
you , curse you !’
‘
I’
m stuck for fair ! ’ my Lord gasped throatilyand crashed insensible to the floor .And then an extraordinary thing happened .
While I was hastening to my Lord ’ s side to tendh is wounds the Queen suddenly pushed me awayand fell on her knees beside him , moaning andweeping, and fondling his hand .
‘Oh , what have I done ?’
she mu rmured brokenly .
‘What have I done ? A chmet Ben Tarzan , mybeautiful Arab , speak to me , speak to me ! I didn
’ tknow before but I know now, and, oh , the difference to me ! Love has come to me at last . You
are a lawless savage , a wild night creature, a superbbrute , a fierce desert man , and I love you , I love
you , I love you !’
‘Don ’ t bite the hand that ’ s beating you ,’ my
Lord muttered faintly, and the Queen bowed herhead on his breast, sobbing quietly .
Whereupon I retired, knowing as I did that noservice of mine could compare with the gentleministration of loving hands . F or three hours my
188
Lord hovered between life and death , and thenh is eyes Opened slowly and rested upon the Queen ’ supturned face , beaming with happiness , love anddevotion .
‘
I am yours ,’ she cried tensely .
‘Take me inyour strong arms and hold me close , A chmet BenTarzan, my beautiful Arab lover—A chmet—myLord
‘Maybe I will , and then again maybe I won’ t,
’
my Lord whispered sternly, but I , who know himso intim ately, saw that all was well with themboth .
”
That section of P tu nk ’
smanuscript directly concerned with Balkis ends at that point . He goes onthen to other matters , and there one must leave her ,Balkis the Tomboy, Queen of Sheba , become thedesert bride of an Arab Sheik ; sharing the hardship s of his roving life , she who had known theglories of Solomon ’ s court ; queening it over h islittle group of faithful followers , she who had ruledover millions . What did life bring to her of j oyand sorrow , of security and strife, of prosperityand ill-fortune— that no one will ever know .
One last question , however, arises as one preparesto close the chronicle of her days . How was it thatthe Arab Chieftain whose wife she became was
189
able to accommodate himself to that defect whichhad hitherto driven all men away from her ?
The answer is found in a brief sentence of
P tu nk’
s subsequent narrative .“My Lord , A chmet Ben Tarzan , he states,was very nearly stone deaf, and became entirely
so shortly after his marriage with Balkis .Fortunate man .
190
Mirrors of Wa sh ington
Anonymo u s
This book does for ou r statesmen and public9
men, what“the gentleman with a du ster
’
did for eminent Englishmen in The Mirrors ofDowning Street. Painfully plain tru ths about
the major personalities of the present and the
recently past era are told—the minds, hearts,
and souls of the great men of America are
dissected. The author speaks in plain English
and does not mince matters where his dis
eussions of the personalities and the psychol
ogy of the statesmen of today are concerned.
This volu me is not ill-natured, bu t it is a
searching and an unbending survey that will
unquestionably make Washington and the
country at large ,
“sit u p and take notice.
”
G. P. Pu tnam’s Sons
The M irrors of Downing Street
TH E CLASS OF
F ASH IONSOME SOCIAL REF LECTIONS
The Au thor prefers to remain anonymou s
He signs h imself
A GENTLEMAN WITH A DUSTER
The Gentleman with a D u ster who so mercilesslyand brilliantly clarifi ed the mirrors of Downing S treet.now tu rns his a ttention to English Society—and what a
dru bbing it gets . Perhaps the sorriest victims to fallu nder his cleanser are Col. Repington and Margot
Asq u ith . H is name for the latterwill su rely stick The
Grandmother of the F lapper.
”Bu t society at large is
not Spared. and there can be no q u estion as to the sin
ceri ty of the a u thor. The Spectator, realizing this. says.The book is not a p iece of mere Gru bb S treet morality
prepared by someone who thinks that this is the dish thep u blic desires at the moment.
”
TheGlass of F ashion is at times savagely ferociou s , b u tit sc intillates brilliancy throu ghou t.
newm ax G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS LONDON
Cru ise of theKawa
Dr. Walter E. Traprock,F . R. s. s. E. U.
A deliciou s literary b u rlesqu e—su perlativelyamu sing. H ere are fou nd the wak/wak, that
horrid su per-seamonster ; the gallant fatw liva
b irds who lay squ are eggs ; the flowing boopabowl, and th e sensu ou s nabiscos plant; thetantalizing, tatooing, fab u lou s folk mu sic ; thebeau tifu l, tru sting F ilbertine women and theirqu aint marriage cu stoms, as well as the dreadresu lts of the wh iteman’s coming—all describedwith a frank freedom, literary charm andmetion
lou s regard for tru th whi ch is delightfu l .The Cru ise of th eKawa stands u niqu e among
the literatu re of modern exploration. Noth inglike it has ever come ou t of th e Sou th Seas. It
is th e travel book of years. Strikingly ill u strated,too, from special photograph s , it tells pictorially,as well as verbally , the exciting, amu sing and
entertaining story of an exploration in the Sou thSeas.
0 . P. Pu tnam’
s Sons!
NewYork London
Boston P u blic L ibrary
Central Library , Copley Sq u are
D ivision of
Reference and R esearch Services
The Date D u e Card in the pocket indicates th e date on or before wh ich th isbook shou ld be retu rned to the L ibrary .
P lease do not remove cards from th ispocket.
![Queen of Sheba Two Riddles[1]](https://img.pdfslide.us/doc/110x75/577cc3921a28aba711966f2a/queen-of-sheba-two-riddles1.jpg)
