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Gérard de Nerval

Travels in the Near East (Voyage en Orient, 1843)

Part XV: Ramadan Nights (Les Nuits Du Ramazan) – The Storytellers: Chapters 1 to 3

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1830 - 1836, Claude Lorrain

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1830 - 1836, Claude Lorrain
Rijksmuseum

Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved

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Contents

Foreword (A Tale in the Café)

I would convey only a faint idea of ​​the pleasures of Constantinople during Ramadan and of the principal charms of its nights, if I were to pass over in silence the marvellous tales recited, or declaimed, by the professional storytellers attached to the principal cafés of Istanbul. To translate one of these legends is at the same time to increase one’s understanding of a literature that is both learned and popular, and which frames, spiritually, tradition and religious legend considered from the Islamic point of view.

I was considered, in the eyes of the Persians who had taken me under their protection, to be a taleb (a learned man); and they introduced me, therefore, to various cafés situated behind the mosque of Bayezit, ones in which opium smokers used to gather. Today, such opium consumption is forbidden; but foreign merchants in Turkey frequent from habit this area far from the tumult of the central districts.

Here one seats oneself, requests that a hookah or a chibouk be brought, and listens to stories that, like our newspaper serials, continue for as long as possible, a process which is clearly in the interests of the cafe owner and the narrator.

Although I began studying Oriental languages at a very young age, here I only know the core vocabulary; however, the animation of the story interested me as always, and, with the help of my friends from the caravanserai, I was able to at least obtain an idea of ​​the subject.

I can therefore render the content, roughly, of one of those pictorial narratives in which the traditional genius of the Orientals delights. It is best to say that the café we occupied was situated in the working-class district of Istanbul which borders the bazaars. In the surrounding streets are the workshops of blacksmiths, metal-chasers, and engravers, who make or repair the fine weapons exhibited at the Besestain; of those who work iron and copper utensils; and of those of various other trades related to the varied merchandise displayed in the numerous divisions of the great bazaar. Therefore, the café’s customers would seem, to our worldly folk, somewhat coarse. However, a few neatly-dressed individuals were noticeable here and there, on the benches and platforms.

In Turkey, the sense of equality exists, sincerely, among all, and is supported, in that everyone has a summary education, adequate enough for grasping artistic sentiment and gaining understanding — such education is obligatory, and people of all classes send their children to study for years in the mosques, where they are educated free of charge — so one is not surprised to see a man of the lowest rank reach the highest of positions, for the exercise of which he merely needs to acquire specialist knowledge.

The storyteller we were to hear appeared to be well-known. Besides the coffee drinkers, a large crowd of lesser folk were gathered outside. Silence was demanded, and a young man with a pale face, fine features, sparkling eyes, and long hair which escaped like those of the santons from under a cap of a different shape from the tarbouches or fezzi, seated himself on a stool in the space, four or five feet square, which occupied the centre of the benches. Coffee was brought him, and everyone listened religiously; for, according to custom, each part of the story was to last half an hour. These professional storytellers are not poets: they are, so to speak, rhapsodists; they arrange and develop a subject already treated in various ways, or one based on ancient legends. This is how the adventures of Antar (Antarah ibn Shaddad) Abou-Zayd, or Medjnoun are renewed, with a thousand additions and changes. This time, it was a story intended to glorify those ancient workers’ guilds to which the Orient has given birth.

— ‘Praise be to God,’ he began, ‘and to his favourite, Ahmad (Muhammad), whose black eyes shine with such sweet radiance! He is the only apostle of truth.’

Everyone cried out:

— Amin! (That is so!)

The History of the Queen of the Morning and Soliman, Prince of Genies

Chapter 1: Adoniram

—To serve the purposes of the great king Soliman-Ben-Daoud (Solomon, son of David) , his servant Adoniram had for ten years renounced sleep, pleasures, and the joys of feasting. Leader of the legions of workers who, like innumerable swarms of bees, competed to build those hives of gold, cedar, marble, and bronze that the King of Jerusalem intended for Adonai (the Lord) and prepared for his own greatness, the master, Adoniram, spent the nights in planning, and the days in creating, the colossal figures intended to adorn the edifice.

He had established, not far from the unfinished Temple, forges in which the hammers constantly sounded, underground foundries where liquid bronze slid along a hundred channels in the sand, and took the forms of lions, tigers, winged-dragons, cherubim, or even those strange, overwhelming genies... ancient beings, half-vanished from the memory of humankind.

More than a hundred thousand artisans subject to Adoniram carried out his vast designs: the foundrymen numbered thirty thousand; the masons and stonecutters formed an army of eighty thousand; seventy thousand labourers helped to transport the materials. Scattered in numerous battalions, carpenters scattered in the mountains felled age-old pines, even in the Scythian deserts, and cedars on the slopes of Mount Lebanon. By means of three thousand three hundred stewards, Adoniram exercised discipline and maintained order among these tribes of workmen, who carried out their tasks without confusion.

However, the restless soul of Adoniram presided with a sort of disdain over such mighty works. To accomplish one of the seven wonders of the world seemed to him a petty task. The further their labours advanced, the more evident the weakness of the human species appeared to him, and the more he groaned over the inadequacy and limited means of his contemporaries. Ardent in conceiving, more ardent in executing, Adoniram dreamed of gigantic creations; his brain, bubbling like a furnace, gave birth to sublime monstrosities, and, while his art astonished the princes of the Israelites, he alone thought pitiful the tasks to which he found himself reduced.

He was a sombre and mysterious character. The King of Tyre, who had employed him, had presented him to Soliman. But where was Adoniram’s homeland? No one knew! Where was he born? A mystery. Where had he learned the elements of his profound, and varied, practical knowledge? None knew. He seemed able to create everything, divine everything, and perform everything. What was his origin? To what nation did he belong? It was a secret, and the best kept secret of all: he suffered none to question him on the matter. His misanthropy left him a stranger and a solitary amidst the lineage of Adam’s children; his dazzling and audacious genius placed him above all men, who no longer felt themselves to be his brothers. He participated in the spirit of light and the genius of darkness!

Indifferent to women, who gazed on him furtively, and never spoke of him; scornful of men, who avoided his fiery gaze, he was as disdainful of the dread inspired by his imposing appearance, and by his tall and robust figure, as of the impression produced by his strange and fascinating beauty. His heart was mute; the activity of the artist alone animated his hands made to knead the world, and alone bowed his shoulders made to lift it.

If he had no friends, he had devoted slaves, and had allowed himself a companion, only the one ... a child, a young artist, from those families of Phoenicia who had, not long since, transported their sensual divinities to the eastern shores of Asia Minor. Pale of face, a meticulous artist, a docile lover of nature, this Benoni had spent his childhood in schooling, and his youth beyond Syria, on those fertile shores where the Euphrates, still a modest stream, finds on its banks only shepherds sighing out their songs in the shade of green laurels starred with roses.

One day, at the hour when the sun sets over the sea, a day when Benoni, before a block of wax, was delicately modelling a heifer, studying himself in order to replicate the elastic mobility of the muscles, his master, Adoniram, approached, contemplated for some time the almost-finished work, and frowned.

— ‘A sad labour,’ he cried, ‘born of patience, taste, and puerility!... Genius, nowhere to be found; will-power, none. The peoples of the world degenerate; and already isolation, diversity, contradiction, indiscipline, eternal instruments of the ruin of enervated peoples, paralyse their poverty-stricken imaginations. Where are my workers: my foundrymen, my stokers, my blacksmiths?... Dispersed!... These cooling furnaces should, at this hour, be resounding with the roar of flames, incessantly fanned; the earth should have received the imprints of these models kneaded by my hands. A thousand arms should be bent over the furnaces ... yet here we are alone!’

— ‘Master,’ Benoni replied gently, ‘those coarse people are not possessed of the genius that inflames you; they need rest, and the art that captivates us leaves their thoughts idle. They have taken leave for the whole of this day. The orders of our wise Soliman have obliged them to rest.... Jerusalem blossoms in celebration.

— ‘A festival! What does that matter to me? Rest!... I have never known it, myself. What enervates me is idleness! What work are we tasked with? A temple for goldsmiths, a palace for pride and voluptuousness, jewels that a firebrand might reduce to ashes. They call this: building for all eternity!... One day, attracted by the lure of vulgar gain, hordes of conquerors, conspiring against this weakened people, will in a few hours tear down its fragile edifice, and nothing will remain but a memory. Our statues will melt in the light of torches, like the snows of Lebanon when summer comes; and posterity, as it traverses these deserted hillsides, will say again: ‘It was poor and weak, that nation of Israelites!’

— ‘What, Master! So magnificent a palace such as this, ... the richest, largest, most solid temple of all....

— ‘Vanity! Vanity! As King Soliman says, in his vanity. Do you know what the children of Enoch created in the past? A work not to be named ... which frightened even the Creator: he made the earth tremble by overturning it, and, from its scattered material, Babylon was built, ... a pretty city where one could send ten chariots abreast speeding along its battlements. Do you wish to behold a monument? Do you know of the Pyramids? They will last until the day when the mountains of Qaf which surround the world collapse into the abyss. It was not the sons of Adam who raised them!’

— ‘They say, however....’

— ‘They lie: the Flood left its mark on their summits. Listen: two miles from here, above the Kidron, there is a block of rock six hundred cubits square. Grant me a hundred thousand men armed with pickaxes and hammers; and from that enormous block I would carve the monstrous head of a Sphinx ... which would smile with fixed, implacable gaze upon the heavens. From the heights of the clouds, Jehovah would see it and turn pale in amazement.... That would prove a monument indeed. A hundred thousand years would pass, and the children of men would still say: ‘A great people marked its passage here.’

— ‘Lord,’ said Benoni to himself, shivering with fear, ‘from what line is this rebellious genius descended?’

— ‘These hills, which they call mountains, are merely pitiful. Again, if one laboured to set them one atop another, carving colossal figures at their corners, ... they might be worth something. At the base, one might dig a cavern large enough to house a legion of priests: they could place their ark there, with its golden cherubim and its twin tablets of stone, and Jerusalem would possess a Temple; but we are about to house God as if He were some rich seraf (banker) from Memphis....’

— ‘Your thoughts always aspire to the impossible.’

— ‘We were born too late; the world is old, and age is feeble; and so, you are right. Decadence, and decline! You yourself copy nature coldly, you busy yourself like a housewife weaving a linen veil; your stupefaction renders you, in turn, a slave to some bull, lion, horse, or tiger, and your imitative work aims to compete with no more than the cow, lioness, mare, or tigress; ... those beasts achieve, in reality, what you attempt in art, and far more, for they transmit life through form. Child, there is no art here: art is creation. When you draw one of these decorations that snake along a frieze, do you limit yourself to copying the flowers and foliage which lie close to the ground? No: you invent, you ply the stylus at the whim of your imagination, intermingling the most bizarre fantasies. Well, instead of only existing people and creatures, why do you not also seek unknown forms, nameless beings, incarnations before which humankind has recoiled, terrible couplings, figures likely to generate respect, joy, stupor or terror? Remember the ancient Egyptians, the bold, naive artists of Assyria. Did they not tear from flanks of granite those sphinxes, those cynocephali, those basalt divinities whose appearance caused the Jehovah of King David to recoil in revulsion? In gazing on those fearsome symbols, from age to age, generations will know that there once existed audacious geniuses. Did these people think only of existing forms? They scorned them, and, strong in their powers of invention, they dared to cry out to the One who created everything: ‘You did not devise these granite beings, and would never dare to animate them.’ But the fertile God of Nature has bowed you beneath the yoke: matter limits you; your degenerate genius plunges into vulgarities of form; and art is lost.’

— ‘Whence does this Adoniram arise,’ Benoni said to himself, ‘whose spirit aspires beyond humanity?’

— ‘Let us return to those amusements that are within the humble reach of our great King Soliman,’ resumed the founder, passing his hand over his broad forehead from which he swept locks of black curling hair. Here are forty-eight bronze oxen of a fairly good stature, as many lions, birds, palms, and cherubs.... All these are a little more expressive than Nature. I intend them to support a sea of ​​bronze ten cubits long and five cubits wide, cast in a single mould, to be edged with a border of thirty cubits enriched with decoration. But I have models to complete. The mould for the basin is ready. I fear it may crack from the heat: we must hurry, yet, you see, friend, the workers are celebrating; they desert me.... a celebration, you say; what celebration? Occasioned by what?’

— The storyteller ceased his narration here; the half hour had passed. Everyone was now free to request coffee, sorbets or tobacco. A few conversations began on the merit of the details, or on the attraction that the narration promised. One of the Persians near to me observed that the story seemed to him to be taken from the Suleymannama of Ferdowsi.

During this pause — for the rest the narrator takes is so called, just as every complete vigil is called a session — a little boy who accompanied him went through the ranks of the crowd, holding out to each a begging bowl, which, full of coins, he brought back to the feet of his master. The latter resumed the dialogue, with Benoni’s reply to Adoniram.

Chapter 2: Balkis (The Queen of the Morning)

‘Several centuries before the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt, Sheba, the illustrious descendant of Abraham and Keturah, came to settle in the fortunate land that we call Yemen, where she founded a city which first bore her name, and which is known today as Marib. Sheba had a brother named Iarab, who bequeathed his name to stony Arabia. His descendants located their tents, here and there, while Sheba’s posterity continued to reign over Yemen, a rich empire which now obeyed the laws of Queen Balkis, direct heiress of Sheba, of Joktan, of the patriarch Eber... whose father had for great-great-grandfather Shem, common father of the Israelites and the Arabs.’

— ‘You sound like an Egyptian book’s preface,’ interrupted the impatient Adoniram, ‘and you drone on in the monotonous tone of Moussa-Ben-Amran (Moses), the prolific liberator of the race of Iacoub (Jacob). Men of words have thus succeeded the men of action.’

— ‘As the givers of maxims have the sacred poets. In a word, master, the Queen of the South, the princess of Yemen, the divine Balkis, comes here to consult the wisdom of the Lord Soliman, and to admire the wonders of our hands, and has entered Solyma (Jerusalem) this very day. Our workers following the king went to meet her, the countryside is full of people, and the workshops are deserted. I ran there among the first, saw the procession, and have returned to your side.’

— ‘Proclaim their rulers to them, and they will fly to their feet.... Idleness, servitude....’

— ‘Curiosity, above all, and you would understand, if you had seen. The stars in the sky are fewer in number than the warriors who follow the queen. Behind her appeared sixty snow-white elephants laden with towers, from which gold and silk shine: a thousand Sabaeans, skin bronzed by the sun, advanced, leading camels whose knees bent beneath the weight of the princess’s gifts and equipment. Then came the Abyssinians, lightly armed, and whose ruddy complexion resembles beaten copper. A cloud of Ethiopians, black as ebony, circled here and there, leading the horses and chariots, obeying all, and watching over everything. Then.... But what is the good of my story? You do not deign to listen.’

— ‘The Queen of the Sabaeans,’ murmured Adoniram dreamily, ‘a degenerate line, but of pure and unmixed blood.... And what does she at this court?’

— ‘Did I not say, Adoniram? She comes to view a great king, to put to the test that wisdom which is so celebrated, and ... perhaps to see it fail. She thinks, it is said, of marrying Soliman-Ben-Daoud, in the hope of obtaining heirs worthy of her lineage.’

— ‘Madness!’ the artist cried, impetuously, ‘Madness!... Slaves’ blood, blood of the vilest creatures.... it fills Soliman’s veins! Does the lioness unite with some common domesticated dog? The people have sacrificed in high places, and abandoned themselves to foreign women for so many centuries that their degenerate offspring have lost the vigour and energy of their ancestors. What is this peace-loving Soliman? The child of a war-trophy, and the old shepherd-king Daoud; and he himself, David, merely a descendant of Ruth, an exile from the country of Moab who fell at the feet of a farmer from Ephrathah (Bethlehem). You admire this great nation, my child: it is now only a shadow of itself, and its line of warriors is extinct. The nation, now at its zenith, approaches its fall. Peace has enervated them, luxury and voluptuousness see them preferring gold to iron, and these cunning disciples of a subtle and sensual king are now only fit for peddling their wares, and spreading usury throughout the world. And Balkis would descend to these depths of ignominy, she, the daughter of patriarchs! And you say, Benoni, she is here, do you not?... This very evening, she enters the walls of Jerusalem?’

— ‘Tomorrow is the Sabbath day. Loyal to her faith, she refuses to enter a foreign city at evening, in the absence of the sun. She has therefore had her tents pitched on the banks of the Cedron, and, despite the entreaties of the king, who came to meet her, amidst magnificent pomp, she intends to spend the night in the countryside.’

— ‘Her prudence is to be praised! She is still young?’

— ‘She can scarcely be called young now. Yet her beauty dazzles. I have gazed on her as one does the rising sun, which swiftly scorches, and forces one to lower one’s eyelids. Everyone, at sight of her, fell, prostrate; I among the others. And, rising, I bore away her image in my mind. But, O Adoniram! Night falls, and I hear the workmen returning in crowds to seek their wages; for tomorrow is the Sabbath.’

Then came many master craftsmen. Adoniram placed guards at the entrances to the workshops, and, opening his vast coffers, began to pay the workmen, who presented themselves one by one, whispering a secret word in his ear; for they were so numerous that it would have been difficult to discern the wage to which each was entitled.

In fact, on the day they were enrolled, they received a password which they were not to communicate to anyone under penalty of their lives, and in exchange swore a solemn oath. The masters shared their password; the journeymen also had theirs, which differed from that of the apprentices.

So, as they passed by Adoniram and his stewards, they pronounced their password in a low voice, and Adoniram distributed a different salary, according to their place in the hierarchy of functions.

The ceremony completed, by the light of resin torches, Adoniram, chose to spend the night working in privacy, and dismissed the young Benoni, extinguished his torch, and, reaching his underground workshop, lost himself in the shadows.

At daybreak the next day, Balkis, the Queen of the Morning, entered the eastern gate of Jerusalem with the first rays of sunlight. Awakened by the noise of her attendants, the Israelites ran to the gate, while the workmen followed the procession with noisy acclamation. Never had so many horses, nor so many camels, nor so large a cohort of white elephants led by so numerous a swarm of black Ethiopians, been seen.

Delayed by the interminable ceremony required by etiquette, the great King Soliman, having donned a dazzling costume, was extracting himself, with difficulty, from the hands of the officers of his wardrobe, when Balkis, descending to the ground at the palace vestibule, entered therein, after having saluted the sun which was already rising radiantly over the hills of Galilee.

Chamberlains, wearing turret-shaped caps, their hands armed with long golden wands, welcomed the queen, and led her, ultimately, to the room where Soliman-Ben-Daoud was seated, in the midst of his court, on a high throne from which he hastened to descend, with wise caution, to welcome his august visitor.

The two sovereigns greeted each other with all the veneration for royalty that monarchs profess, and are pleased to encourage; then they sat side by side, while slaves filed past, laden with the gifts offered by the Queen of Sheba: gold, cinnamon, and myrrh, and above all incense, in which Yemen traded widely; then elephant-tusks, bags of various spices, and precious stones. She also offered the monarch a hundred and twenty talents of pure gold.

Soliman was then of a mature age; happiness, through maintaining in him a perpetual serenity, had removed from his features the wrinkles and more melancholy imprints of deep passion. With shining lips, eyes set flush with his head and separated, as he himself had said, through the lips of the Shulamite, by a nose like an ivory tower, and a placid brow like that of Serapis, he displayed the immutable peace and ineffable quietude of a monarch satisfied with his own greatness. Soliman resembled a statue of gold, with hands and face of ivory.

His crown was of gold as was his robe; the purple of his cloak, a gift from Hiram, prince of Tyre, was embroidered with gold thread; gold glittered on his belt, and gleamed from the hilt of his sword; his golden shoes rested on a carpet trimmed with gold; while his throne was made of gilded cedar.

Seated at his side, that pale lady of the morning, wrapped in a cloud of linen fabric and diaphanous gauze, looked like a lily lost in a cluster of daffodils. A discreet coquetry, which she enhanced even further by apologising for the simplicity of her morning costume.

— ‘Simplicity of dress,’ she said, ‘befits opulence, while not dispelling grandeur.’

— ‘It becomes divine beauty,’ replied Soliman, ‘to trust in its power; and for a man, distrustful of his own weakness, to neglect nothing.’

— ‘A delightful sense of modesty which further enhances the brilliance with which shines the invincible Soliman... the Ecclesiastes, the wise man and arbiter of kings, the immortal author of the verses of Sir-Hasirim (The Song of Songs), that canticle of tender love... and of so many other flowers of poetry.’

— ‘What! Beautiful queen,’ replied Soliman, blushing with pleasure, ‘What! You have deigned to cast your eyes on ... my feeble attempts!’

— ‘You are a great poet!’ cried the Queen of Sheba.

Soliman puffed out his golden chest, raised his golden arm, and passed his hand complacently over his ebony beard, divided into several braids, and plaited with golden cords.

— ‘A great poet!’ repeated Balkis. ‘Which means that one forgives with a smile the moralist’s errors you display.’

This unexpected conclusion, deepened the lines on the august face of Soliman, and produced a sudden movement in the crowd of courtiers closest to them. Among them were Zabud, favourite of the prince, all laden with jewels; Zadok the high priest, with his son Azariah, steward of the palace, haughty as regards his inferiors; then Ahia, Elihoreph the grand chancellor, and Jehoshaphat the master of the archives ... who was a little deaf. Dressed in a dark robe, was Ahias of Shiloh, an upright man, feared because of his prophetic genius; moreover, he was a cold and taciturn source of words of mockery. Very close to the sovereign, one could see crouching, in the depths of three heaped cushions, old Benaiah, the peace-loving commander-in-chief of the tranquil armies of placid Soliman. Harnessed with chains of gold and jewelled stars, bent under the burden of his honours, Benaiah was the demi-god of war. The king had once charged him with killing Joab and Abiathar the high priest, and Benaiah had stabbed them. From that day on, he appeared to the wise Soliman worthy of the greatest trust, who charged him with assassinating his younger brother, Prince Adonijah, son of King Daud, ... and Benaiah had, indeed, slaughtered the brother of the wise Soliman.

Now, asleep in his glory, weighed down by the years, Benaiah, almost in his dotage, followed the court everywhere, heard nothing, understood nothing, and revived the remains of his failing life by warming his heart with the smiling glances that his king let shine upon him. His discoloured eyes incessantly sought the royal gaze: the former lion had become a mere dog in his old age.

When Balkis had let fall from her adorable lips those piquant words, which left the court dismayed, Benaiah, who had understood nothing, and who accompanied with a cry of admiration every word of the king or his hostess, Benaiah, alone, in the midst of the general silence, with a benign smile, said:

— ‘Charming! Divine!’

Soliman bit his lip and whispered quite directly:

— ‘The fool!’

— ‘A memorable speech!’ continued Benaiah, seeing that his master had spoken.

Then, the Queen of Sheba burst into laughter.

With an appropriateness born of intellect, which struck everyone, she chose this moment to present one after the other three riddles for consideration by the famously sagacious Soliman, the most skilful of mortals in the art of decoding rebuses and unravelling charades. Such was the custom then: the courts dealt in such sciences ... which they have now wisely renounced, while the penetration of riddles was a matter of state. It is on this that a prince or a wise man was judged. Balkis had travelled two hundreds of miles to subject Soliman to this test.

Soliman readily interpreted the three riddles, thanks to the high priest Zadoc, who, the day before, had paid the high priest of the Sabaeans to provide him with their solution.

— ‘Wisdom speaks through your mouth,’ said the queen with a certain emphasis.

— ‘It seems that is what many believe…’

— ‘However, noble Soliman, cultivation of the tree of wisdom is not without peril: after a time, one risks becoming desirous of praise, indulging people to please them, and inclining to materialism to win the support of the crowd....

— ‘Have you detected in my writings...?’

— ‘Ah! Sir, I have read your works with great attention, and, as I wish to educate myself, my desire to submit certain obscurities to you, certain contradictions, certain...sophisms, to my eyes, doubtless because of my ignorance…such a desire is not foreign to the goal of my long journey.

— ‘I shall do my best,’ Soliman said, not without a degree of complacency, ‘to support my theses against so formidable an adversary.’

In truth, he would have preferred to go for a stroll beneath the sycamores of his villa at Millo. Enticed by the piquant spectacle, the courtiers craned their necks and opened wide their eyes. What could be worse than to risk, in the presence of one’s subjects, appearing less than infallible? Zadoc was alarmed; the prophet Ahias, of Shiloh, barely repressed a vague, cold smile, and Benaiah, toying with his decorations, displayed a foolish joy that anticipated ridicule for the king’s retinue. As for Balkis’ followers, they were as mute and imperturbable as sphinxes. Add to the advantages the Queen of Sheba possessed the majesty of a goddess; the charm of a most intoxicating beauty; features of adorable purity; gleaming eyes dark as those of a gazelle; a profile so well formed, so elongated, that it almost appeared full face to those pierced by her gaze; a mouth indicating both laughter and voluptuousness; and a supple body of a magnificence that could be divined through the gauze; then imagine, too, a subtle, mocking, haughty expression full of that playfulness shown by those of noble lineage accustomed to authority, and you will conceive the embarrassment of Lord Soliman, at once astonished and charmed, eager to conquer by means of his intellect, yet already half-conquered at heart. Those large dark eyes, mysterious and gentle, yet calm and penetrating, gleaming from a face ardent and glowing as freshly-molten bronze, troubled him in spite of himself. He felt as though the ideal, mystical figure of the goddess Isis was alive at his side....

A second pause ensued. The politeness natural to Orientals caused the audience to refrain from critical comments. The tobacco was renewed, and the pipes re-lit; refreshments were requested. Then, the storyteller continued; commencing in a lively and powerful manner, according to the usage of the time, those philosophical discussions recorded in the Jewish commentaries.

— ‘Do you not encourage,’ resumed the queen, ‘selfishness and hardness of heart by saying: “If you answer for a friend, you have enclosed yourself in a net; take the very clothes from him who engages himself on behalf of another...” In another proverb, you praise wealth and the power of gold....’

— ‘Yet elsewhere I celebrate poverty.’

— ‘Contradiction, indeed. Ecclesiastes exhorts us to work, shames the lazy, and further on cries: “What will a man get from all his labours? Is it not better to eat and drink?” In Proverbs, you condemn debauchery, and yet you praise it in Ecclesiastes....’

— ‘You jest, I think...’

— ‘No, I merely paraphrase: “There is nothing better than to drink and rejoice; industry is mere pointless labour, since men die like beasts, and their fate is the same.” Such is your moral, O wise one!’

— ‘A mere figure of speech, while the basis of my doctrine....’

— ‘But there it is; others, alas, have now read your words: “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life…for she is your portion in life.” You often return to that. From which I conclude that it suits you to objectify people in order to command them more surely as slaves.’

Soliman would have justified himself, but by use of arguments which he did not want to employ before his people, and betrayed his impatience, by his agitation.

— ‘Finally,’ continued Balkis with a smile seasoned with a languid glance, ‘finally, you are cruel to our sex; what woman would therefore dare to love the austere Soliman?’

— ‘O queen! In my Song of the Bridegroom, my heart, full of amorous passion, reveals my depths of feeling like dew on the flowers of spring!’

— ‘An exception, one in which the Shulamite should glory; but you have become harsh, with your weight of years....’

Soliman suppressed a rather sullen grimace.

— ‘I foresee,’ said the queen, ‘some gallant and polite compliment. Take care! Ecclesiastes will hear you, and you know what he says: “I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.” What! Do you not follow these austere maxims, and is it not a misfortune for the daughters of Zion that you received from heaven that beauty sincerely described by yourself in these terms: “I am the flower of the fields, and the lily of the valleys!”

— ‘O Queen, that is merely another figure of speech....’

— ‘O King! Such is merely my opinion. Deign to meditate on my criticism, and enlighten the obscurity of my judgment; for error is on my side, and you are to be congratulated that wisdom dwells in you. “The penetration of my intellect will be recognised,” you have written, “the most powerful will be surprised on beholding me, and princes will show their admiration. When I am silent, they will wait for me to speak; when I speak, they will gaze at me attentively; and, when I discourse, they will place their hands over their mouths.” Great king, I have already experienced a part of these prophecies: your mind has charmed me, your appearance has surprised me, and I do not doubt that my expression testifies to my admiration. I await your words; they will find me attentive, and, during your speeches, your servant will place her hand over her mouth.’

— ‘Madame,’ said Soliman with a deep sigh, ‘what becomes of the wise man when compared to you? Since hearing you speak, Ecclesiastes would stand by only one of his sayings, the weight of which he feels: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!”’

All admired the king’s reply.

— ‘A pedant, a pedant no less,’ said the queen to herself. ‘If only one could cure him of his mania, his passion for authorship.... he would simply be gentle and affable, and he is rather handsome still.’

As for Soliman, having delayed answering her in full, he endeavoured to divert from his own person a conversation of a kind which he had so often encouraged.

— ‘Your Serenity,’ he addressed Queen Balkis, ‘possesses a very beautiful bird, there, whose species is unknown to me.’

Six young black African lads, dressed in scarlet, seated at the feet of the queen, were entrusted with the care of this bird, which never left its mistress’ side. One of the page-boys held it on his fist, and the Queen of Sheba often looked upon it.

— ‘We call it Hud-Hud’, she replied. ‘The great-great-grandfather of this long-lived bird was once, it is said, brought by Malays from a distant country which they alone had viewed, and whose location we no longer know. It is a very useful creature which executes various commissions of mine as regards the inhabitants and spirits of the air.’

Soliman, without fully comprehending her explanation, bowed to her, like a king who understood everything marvellous, and put out his thumb and forefinger to play with the bird Hud-Hud; but the bird, while responding to his advances, did not allow him to seize it.

— ‘Hud-Hud is a poet’ said the queen ‘and, as such, is worthy of your sympathies.... However, she is like me a little severe, and often she moralises too. Would you believe that she has even doubted the sincerity of your passion for the Shulamite?’

— ‘Divine bird, you surprise me!’ replied Soliman.

— ‘That pastoral, the Song of Songs, is certainly very tender,’ squawked Hud-Hud, nibbling on a golden scarab, ‘but the great king who addressed such plaintive elegies to his wife, the Pharaoh’s daughter, would surely have shown her greater love by living with her, than he did by obliging her to live far from him, in the city of David, reduced to beguiling the days of her neglected youth with his verse... even though it were the most beautiful in the world?’

— ‘What sorrows you recall! Alas! The daughter of the night followed the cult of Isis.... could I, without committing a crime, grant her access to the holy city, render her a neighbour of the ark of Adonai, and allow her to dwell close to the august temple that I am raising to the God of my fathers?...

— ‘The matter is delicate,’ Balkis observed judiciously, ‘forgive Hud-Hud; birds are sometimes frivolous; mine prides herself on being a connoisseur, especially of poetry.’

— ‘Really!’ replied Soliman-Ben-Daoud. ‘I would be curious to know....’

— ‘Her wicked opinion, my lord? For wicked it is, by my faith! Hud-Hud thinks you to blame for comparing the beauty of your lover to that of the horses of the pharaoh’s chariot, her name to an oil poured out, her hair to flocks of goats, her teeth to sheep shorn and yielding, her cheek to half a pomegranate, her breasts to two goats, her head to Mount Carmel, her navel to a cup in which there is always liquor to drink, her belly to a heap of wheat, and her nose to the tower of Lebanon which looks towards Damascus.’

Soliman, wounded, let his golden arms fall, in his discouragement, onto those of his armchair, also golden, while the bird, puffing herself up, beat the air with her wings of sinople and gold.

— ‘I will answer this bird that serves your penchant for mockery, as well as I can, by saying that Oriental taste allows such license, that true poetry seeks images, that my people find my verses excellent, and prefer the richest of metaphors....’

— ‘Nothing is more dangerous for nations than the metaphors employed by their leaders,’ resumed the Queen of Sheba. ‘Free of your august style, such figures, over-bold perhaps, will find more imitators than critics, and your sublime fantasies risk misleading poetic taste for ten thousand years. Instructed in your style, did not the Shulamite compare your hair to palm-branches, your lips to lilies that distil myrrh, your waist to that of the cedar, your legs to marble columns, and your cheeks, lord, to little beds of aromatic flowers, planted by the perfume-makers? So much so that King Soliman appeared to me constantly as some kind of peristyle, surrounding a botanical garden, supported by an entablature shaded by palm-trees.’

Soliman smiled somewhat bitterly; he would have wrung the neck of the eloquent hoopoe with satisfaction, which meanwhile was pecking at his chest, at the place beneath which his heart lay, with strange persistence.

— ‘Hud-Hud is trying to help you understand where the source of poetry lies,’ said the queen.

— ‘I know it only too well,’ replied the king, ‘since I have had the happiness of gazing on your face. Let us quit this discourse; will my queen do her unworthy servant the honour of visiting my palace in Jerusalem, and especially the temple that I am building to Jehovah on Mount Zion?’

— ‘The world resounds with the tale of these wonders; my impatience equals their splendour, and serves to increase my wish not to delay the pleasure of viewing them that I promised myself.’

At the head of the procession, which slowly passed through the streets of Jerusalem, were forty-two tympani producing a thunderous sound; behind them came musicians dressed in white robes, directed by Asaph and Iditimia; fifty-six cymbal-players, twenty-eight flautists, as many psaltery and zither players, not forgetting the trumpets, instruments which Gideon had formerly made fashionable, beneath the walls of Jericho. Then in a triple row, came the thurifers, walking backwards, swinging censers in the air, in which burnt the perfumes of Jerusalem. Soliman and Balkis lounged in a vast palanquin carried by seventy Philistines conquered in war....

(The session was over. We parted ways, talking about the various twists and turns of the story, and arranged to meet again the following day.)

Chapter 3: The Temple

The storyteller continued:

— Newly rebuilt by the magnificent Soliman, the city was created to an impeccable plan: streets laid out with a rule, square houses all alike, a veritable beehive though of monotonous appearance.

— ‘In these beautiful, wide streets,’ said the queen, ‘the irresistible sea breeze must sweep over the passers-by as if they were pieces of straw, and, during intense heat, the sun, penetrating without obstacle, must heat them to the temperature of ovens. In Marib, the streets are narrow, and lengths of cloth stretched over the street, from one house to another, catch the breeze, cast shade on the ground, and maintain the coolness.’

— ‘It would be to the detriment of symmetry,’ replied Soliman. ‘Here is the peristyle of my new palace, which took thirteen years to construct.’

They entered the palace, which received the attention of the Queen of Sheba, who found it rich, comfortable, original, and in exquisite taste.

— ‘The plan is sublime,’ she said, ‘the arrangement admirable, and, I confess, the palace of my ancestors, the Himyarites, built in the Indian style, with square pillars adorned with statues as capitals, does not approach this in boldness or elegance: your architect is a great artist.’

— ‘I am he, who ordered all, and paid the workmen,’ the king said, proudly.

— ‘But the master who executed it? Who is the genius who has accomplished your design so nobly?’

— ‘A certain Adoniram, a strange, half-savage character, who was sent to me by my friend the King of Tyre.’

— ‘Shall I not see him, lord?’

— ‘He flees the world, and evades praise. But wait, Queen, till you have visited the Temple of Adonai. It is more than the work of a mere craftsman: it is I who dictated the plans and indicated the materials to be used. Adoniram’s role was limited to the execution of my poetic imaginings. The work has been in progress for five years; two more only are needed to bring it to perfection.’

— ‘Seven years, then, will prove enough for you to house your God worthily; it took thirteen to establish his servant fully.’

— ‘Time has nothing to do with the matter,’ objected Soliman.

As much as Balkis had admired the palace, she criticised the Temple.

— ‘You were too ambitious,’ she said, ‘and the artist was allowed less freedom. The whole is a little heavy, and burdened with detail.... too much cedarwood everywhere, projecting beams.... the timbered side-walls alone, which lack solidity to the eye, appear to support the upper level, of stone.’

— ‘My aim,’ objected the prince, ‘was to prepare the believer, by a strong contrast, for the splendour within.’

— ‘God above!’ cried the queen, arriving within the enclosure, ‘What sculptures! Here are wondrous statues, strange animals of imposing aspect. Who cast or chiselled these marvels?’

— ‘Adoniram: statuary is his principal talent.’

— ‘His genius is universal. Only, here the cherubim are too heavy, too brightly gilded, and too large for this room which they overwhelm.’

— ‘I desired it so: each of them cost six and twenty talents. You see, O Queen! Everything here is of gold, and gold is the most precious metal of all. The cherubim are of gold; the columns of cedar, gifts from my friend King Hiram, are plated with gold; gold covers all the walls; on these walls of gold, there will be palm-trees of gold and a frieze with pomegranates of solid gold, and about the gold partitions I will hang two hundred shields of purest gold. The altars, the tables, the candlesticks, the vases, the floors, the ceilings; all will be covered with gold....’

— ‘That seems rather a lot of gold,’ objected the queen, humbly.

King Soliman continued:

— ‘Is there aught too splendid for the King of Men? I wish to astonish posterity.... But let us enter the sanctuary, the roof of which is yet to be raised, in which the foundations of the altar have already been laid, opposite my throne which is almost finished. As you see, there are six steps; the seat is of ivory, supported by two lions, at whose feet are crouched twelve lion-cubs. The gilding is to be burnished, and we are waiting for the canopy to be erected. Deign, noble princess, to be the first to be seated on this still virgin throne; from there, you may inspect the work in its entirety. Except, you will be exposed to the rays of the sun, for the roof is still incomplete.’

The princess smiled, and took the Hud-Hud bird on her fist, at which the courtiers gazed with keen curiosity.

There is no species of bird more illustrious or more respected in all the Orient. Not for the delicacy of her black beak alone, nor her scarlet cheeks; nor the sweetness of her hazel-grey eyes; nor the superb crest of fine golden plumage which crowned her charming head; nor for her long jet-black tail or the brilliance of her wings of gold-green, enhanced with streaks and fringes of bright gold; nor for her spurs of tender pink; nor her purple legs, was the dashing Hud-Hud the object of the queen’s and her subjects’ favour. Beautiful without knowing it, faithful to her mistress, affectionate to all who loved her, the hoopoe shone with an ingenuous grace without seeking to dazzle. The Queen, as we have seen, consulted this bird in trying circumstances.

Soliman, who wished to gain the Hud-Hud’s favour tried at that moment to receive her on his fist; but she did not lend herself to this attention. Balkis, smiling with finesse, called her favourite to her and seemed to whisper a few words.... swift as an arrow, Hud-Hud vanished into the azure air.

Then the queen seated herself; everyone gathered around her; they talked for a few moments; the prince explained to his hostess the plan of the ​​bronze sea conceived by Adoniram, and the Queen of Sheba, struck with admiration, demanded again that the man be presented to her. At the king’s command, they sought everywhere for the reticent Adoniram.

While the guards searched the forges and buildings, Balkis, who had seated the king of Jerusalem beside her, asked him how the roof of his throne-room would be decorated.

— ‘It will be decorated in the same manner as all else,’ replied Soliman.

— ‘Do you not fear, by this exclusive predilection for gold, to appear to criticise the other materials that Adonai has created? And do you really think nothing in the world more beautiful than that metal? Allow me to offer an amendment to your scheme ... of which you shall be the judge.’

Suddenly the air darkened, the sky was covered with black flecks which grew larger as they approached; hosts of birds swooped on the Temple, gathered themselves and, descending in circles, flocked together and distributed themselves among trembling and splendid foliage; their outstretched wings formed rich bouquets of green, scarlet, jet-black, and azure. This living pavilion unfolded under the skilful direction of the hoopoe, who fluttered through the feathered crowd.... a charming tree was thus formed above the heads of the two royal personages, of which each bird seemed a leaf. Soliman, bewildered, charmed, found himself sheltered from the sun beneath this quivering roof, which supported itself on beating wings, and cast, over the throne, a dense shadow from which a sweet and gentle harmony of birdsong escaped. After which, the hoopoe, towards whom the king still held a grudge, flew, to perch, submissively, at the queen’s feet.

— ‘What does my lord think of this?’ asked Balkis.

— ‘Admirable!’ cried Soliman, trying to attract the hoopoe, which stubbornly eluded him with the intention of attracting the queen’s attention.

— ‘If this fancy pleases you,’ she continued, ‘I will gladly pay you homage with this little pavilion of birds, on condition that you spare me the pain of having them gilded. You only have to turn the bezel of this ring towards the sun when you wish to summon them.... The ring is precious. I inherited it from my ancestors, and Sarahil, my nurse, will scold me for having given it to you.’

— ‘Ah! Great queen,’ cried Soliman, kneeling before her, ‘you are worthy to command all men, all kings, and the elements. May heaven and your grace be so kind as to accept half my throne, and find at your feet only the most submissive of subjects!’

— ‘Your proposal flatters me,’ said Balkis, ‘and we will talk of it later.’

Both descended from the throne, followed by the host of birds, which cloaked them like a canopy, creating various decorative figures above their heads.

When they were near the place where the foundations of the altar had been laid, the queen noticed an enormous vine uprooted and tossed aside. Her face became pensive, she made a gesture of surprise, the hoopoe uttered plaintive cries, and the flock of birds fled on beating wings.

Balkis’s gaze had become severe; her majestic figure seemed to rise, and, in a grave and prophetic voice she cried:

— ‘The ignorance and frivolity of men! The vanity of pride!... You have raised your own glory above the relics of your ancestors. This vine, this venerable wood....’

— ‘Your Highness, it was in our way; we tore it out to make room for the altar of porphyry and olive-wood which will be adorned with four golden seraphim.’

— ‘You have desecrated, and shattered, the first vine plant ... planted long ago by the hand of the father of the race of Shem, the patriarch Noah.’

— ‘Is it possible? replied Soliman, deeply humiliated, ‘and how do you know this...?’

— ‘Rather than believing pomp and grandeur to be a source of knowledge, I think the opposite, O king, and have made a religion for myself of study and learning. Listen again, man blinded by your vain splendour: this wood that your impiety condemns to perish, do you know what fate the immortal powers have reserved for it?’

— ‘Speak.’

— ‘It is reserved as the instrument of torment to which the last prince of your race will be nailed.’

— ‘Let this impious wood be sawn into pieces then, and reduced to ashes!’

— ‘Fool! Who can erase what God has written? And how can your wisdom be substituted for the supreme will? Prostrate yourself before a decree that your material spirit cannot supplant: that punishment alone will save your name from oblivion, and will cause a halo of immortal glory to shine upon your house....’

The mighty Soliman sought, in vain, to hide his confusion behind a cheerful and mocking countenance, as his people arrived, to announce that the sculptor Adoniram had at last been found.

Soon Adoniram, announced by the clamour of the crowd, appeared at the entrance to the Temple. Benoni accompanied his master and friend, who advanced with a burning eye, an anxious brow, in a state of disorder, an artist suddenly torn from his flights of inspiration and his work. No trace of curiosity weakened the powerful and noble expression of the features of this man, rendered even more imposing by the serious, bold, and domineering character of his handsome physiognomy than by his lofty stature.

He halted, at ease, proud in demeanour, showing neither familiarity nor disdain, a few steps from Balkis, who failed to withstand his incisive eagle-like gaze without experiencing a confused feeling of timidity.

Nonetheless, she soon overcame her involuntary embarrassment; swift reflection in regard to the status of this master workman, standing before her with bared chest and arms, restored her to herself; she smiled at her own reaction, almost flattered at having felt so young and innocent again, and deigned to speak to the craftsman.

He answered, and his voice struck the queen like the echo of a fleeting memory; however, she did not recognise him, never having seen him before.

Such is the power of genius; that beauty of the spirit; the spirit attaches itself to such, and cannot be distracted. Adoniram’s conversation made the princess of the Sabaeans forget all that surrounded her; and, while the artist showed, by pacing its outlines, the work he had undertaken, Balkis followed, almost without knowing, while the king, and both sets of courtiers, followed the steps of the divine princess.

The latter never tired of questioning Adoniram about his works, his country, and his origins.

‘My Lady,’ he replied with some embarrassment, casting upon her his piercing glance, ‘I have traversed many countries; my homeland is wherever the sun shines; my early years were spent on the vast slopes of Mount Lebanon, from which one can view Damascus beyond the distant plain. Nature and men have sculpted those mountainous lands, bristling with menacing cliffs, and ruins.’

— ‘It is not,’ observed the queen, ‘in such desert places that one learns the secrets of the arts in which you excel.’

— ‘It is there at least that thought arises, that imagination wakens, and that, by dint of meditation, one learns to create. My first master was solitude; in my travels since I have employed that knowledge. I have turned my gaze upon memories of the past; I have contemplated the monuments, and have fled from human society....’

— ‘Why so, master?’

— ‘I do not enjoy the company of my own kind... and I felt alone.’

This mixture of sadness and grandeur moved the queen, who lowered her eyes, to collect her thoughts.’

— ‘You see,’ continued Adoniram, ‘I gain little merit by practicing the arts, since learning gives me no trouble. My models I have found amidst the desert; I reproduce the impressions that I receive from those forgotten ruins, and from the terrible and grandiose figures of the gods of the ancient world.’

— ‘More than once already,’ interrupted Soliman with a firmness that the queen had not seen in him until then, ‘more than once, dear master, I have repressed that idolatrous tendency of yours, that fervent worship of the monuments of an impure theogony. Keep your thoughts your own, and let bronze and stone display naught of them to the king.’

Adoniram, bowing, suppressed a bitter smile.

— ‘My lord,’ said the queen to console him, ‘a master’s thought doubtless rises above such considerations as are likely to disturb the conscience of the Levites.... in his artist’s soul, he says to himself that all beauty glorifies God, and seeks such beauty with a naive piety’.

— ‘What do I know, moreover,’ said Adoniram, ‘of what powers they possessed in their time, those gods, extinguished and petrified, of the geniuses of the past? Why be anxious concerning them? Soliman, king of kings, asked me for prodigies, and I recalled that the ancestors of the world left wonders behind them.’

— ‘If your work is beautiful and sublime, added the queen with enthusiasm, ‘it will become the model for all, and so as to recreate that beauty, posterity, in turn, will copy your art.’

— ‘Great queen, your intellect, truly fine, is as great as your beauty.’

— ‘Are such ruins,’ Balkis hastened to ask, ‘so numerous on the slopes of Lebanon?’

— ‘Entire cities are buried there, beneath a shroud of sand that the wind lifts and re-places in turn; then there are hypogea known only to me that cost ​​superhuman labour.... Labouring only for the birds of the air, and the stars in the sky, I wandered at random, sketching figures on the rocks, and carving statues on the spot with great blows of my chisel. One day.... but is this not abusing the patience of my august listeners?’

— ‘No!’ cried the queen, ‘Your story captivates me.’

— ‘Shaken by the hammer which drove my chisel into the entrails of the rock, the earth echoed beneath my feet, sonorous and hollow. Armed with a lever, I rolled aside the block that unmasked the entrance to a cavern into which I descended. It was pierced in the living stone, its roof supported by enormous pillars burdened with carvings, of many a bizarre design, pillars whose capitals served as roots for the ribs of the boldest vaults. Among the arcades of this forest of stones, scattered legions of diverse colossal figures stood motionless, smiling through the centuries, their appearance filling me with intoxicating terror; human beings, giants disappeared from our world, symbolic animals belonging to vanished species; in a word, all that the magnificent dreams of a delirious imagination would scarcely dare conceive!... I lived there for months, for years, questioning these spectres of a vanished world, and it is there amidst those marvels of primitive genius that I absorbed the artistic tradition that I follow.’

— ‘The fame of those forgotten works still resonates with us,’ said Soliman thoughtfully, ‘they say, that there, in the accursed lands, one may view the debris of that impious city submerged by the waters of the Flood, the remains of guilty Enochia ... built by the gigantic descendants of Tubal; the city of the children of Cain. Anathema on their arts of impiety and darkness! My new Temple reflects the light of the sun; its lines are simple and pure, and the order, the unity, of the plan, proclaim the uprightness of our faith through the very style of this dwelling that I build for the Eternal Lord above. Such is my will; it is that of Adonai, who transmitted it to my father.’

— ‘My King,’ Adoniram cried out fiercely, ‘your plans have been followed in their entirety: God will recognise your obedience; I wish the world to be struck by your greatness.’

— ‘Industrious and subtle man, you shall not sway your king and lord. It is for that purpose that you have cast your iron monsters, objects of admiration and terror; those giant idols which are counter to all that is consecrated by the rites of Israel. But take care: the strength of Adonai is mine, and, my power, if challenged, will reduce Baal to powder.’

— ‘Be merciful, O king,’ said the Queen of Sheba gently,’ to the creator of those monuments to your glory! The centuries march on, human destiny accomplishes its progress according to the will of the Creator. Is it to disregard Him, simply to interpret His works more nobly? Must we reproduce, endlessly, the cold immobility of those hieratic figures created by the Egyptians, and leave behind, as they did, statues half-buried in the granite sepulchre from which they cannot free themselves, enslaved spirits chained in stone? Let us dread, great prince, as we would a dangerous negation of spirit, the idolatrous worship of habit.’

Offended by her reproach, but captivated by the queen’s charming smile, Soliman allowed her to compliment the man of genius, warmly; a man whom he himself admired, though not without irritation, a man who, ordinarily indifferent to praise, welcomed it now with an elation entirely new.

These three great personages were then within the outer peristyle of the Temple — situated on a high, quadrangular plateau — from which one could view the vast, uneven and hilly landscape. A dense crowd, covered the distant countryside, and the outskirts of the city built by Daoub (David). To view the Queen of Sheba, from near or far, the king’s entire people had invaded the outskirts of the palace and the Temple itself; his masons had quit the quarries of Gilboa, his carpenters had deserted the distant building-sites, his miners had returned to the surface. The call of fame, sending its summons through the neighbouring regions, had set this host of workmen in motion and drawn them to the heart of the kingdom. Thus, the workmen, the women and children, the soldiers, merchants, slaves and peaceful citizens of Jerusalem had gathered there, pell-mell; the plains and valleys were barely enough to contain that immense crowd, and the eyes of the queen, a mile away or more, rested, astonished, on that mosaic of human heads arranged in that vast amphitheatre stretching as far as the horizon. A few clouds, intercepting, here and there, the sun which flooded the scene, projected onto that living sea a few patches of shadow.

— ‘Your people,’ said Queen Balkis, ‘are more numerous than the grains of sand on the shore....’

— ‘People from many a land have hastened to view you; my only astonishment is that the whole world is not besieging Jerusalem this very day! Thanks to your presence, the countryside is deserted; the city is abandoned, and even the tireless workers of master Adoniram....’

— ‘Truly!’ interrupted the Princess of Sheba, ‘who was searching in her mind for a way to honour the artist: workmen like those who serve Adoniram would be masters of their trade elsewhere. They are the soldiers who follow this leader of an army of artists.... Master Adoniram, we wish to review your workmen, congratulate them, and compliment you in their presence.’

Wise King Soliman, at these words, raised his arms above his head in amazement.

— ‘How’, he cried, ‘are we to gather together the workers who are constructing the Temple, now they are scattered midst the festival, wandering the hills or confused with the crowd? They are numerous, indeed, and it were an idle attempt to seek to group together, in a few hours, men from so many countries who speak such diverse tongues, from the Sanskrit dialects of the Himalayas, to the obscure, guttural jargon of wildest Libya.’

— ‘No matter, my lord;’ said Adoniram simply, ‘the queen seeks nothing impossible, and a few moments will suffice.’

With these words, Adoniram, making a pedestal of a block of granite nearby, and towering above the outer portico, turned towards the innumerable crowd, over which his eyes wandered. He made a sign, and the waves of that sea of forms turned pale, for all the people raised their heads, and turned their faces towards him.

The crowd were attentive and curious.... Adoniram lifted his right arm, and, with his open hand, traced a horizontal line in the air, from the centre of which he described a descending perpendicular line, thus presenting the two right angles produced by a plumb line suspended from a ruler, a sign which the Syrians employed for the letter T, transmitted by the peoples of India to the Phoenicians, who named it tha, and taught it then to the Greeks, who call it tau.

Designating, in the ancient way, by means of hieroglyphic analogy, the tools of the Masonic profession, the letter T was now the sign for his artisans to gather.

Thus, Adoniram had scarcely traced those lines in the air, before a regular movement manifested itself in the crowd. The human sea became troubled, agitated waves surged in every direction, as if a gale of wind had suddenly disturbed its surface. At first there was merely general confusion; the waves ran in conflicting directions. Soon groups of people gathered, grew larger, separated; gaps were created; legions were arranged in squares; parts of the multitude were driven back; thousands of men, led by unknown leaders, ranged themselves like an army, which then divided itself into three main bodies, subdivided into distinct cohorts, dense and deep.

Then, as King Soliman sought to comprehend the magical powers displayed by Adoniram, the ground shook; and a hundred thousand men, aligned in a few moments, advanced as one, silently, on all three sides. Their heavy and regular step echoed throughout the countryside. In the centre, were the masons, and all those who worked stone: the masters in the front line, then the companions, and behind them the apprentices. To their right, and following a like hierarchy, were the carpenters, joiners, sawyers, and shapers. To the left, were the founders, the chasers of metal, the blacksmiths, the miners and all those who devote themselves to that industry.

More than a hundred thousand artisans, approached, like great waves invading the shore....

Troubled, Soliman withdrew two or three paces; he turned away and saw behind him only the glittering but feeble procession of his priests and courtiers.

Adoniram stood, calm and serene, before the two monarchs. He stretched out his arm; all halted, and he bowed humbly before the queen, saying:

— ‘Your request is fulfilled.’

She almost bowed down before his occult and formidable power, so sublime did Adoniram appear to her in his simplicity and strength.

She recovered herself, however and, with a gesture, saluted the assembled army of artisans. Then, detaching from her neck a magnificent pearl necklace to which was attached a jewelled star framed by a triangle of gold, a symbolic ornament, she appeared to offer it to the artisans, while advancing towards Adoniram, who, bowing before her, felt with a shudder that precious gift fall over his shoulders and half-naked chest.

At that very moment, a vast acclamation from the depths of the crowd answered that generous act of the Queen of Sheba. As the artist’s head came close to the radiant face and beating heart of the princess, she said to him, in a low voice:

— ‘Master, watch over yourself, and be careful!

Adoniram raised his large, dazzled eyes to her, and Balkis was astonished at the penetrating sweetness in that proud gaze.

— ‘Who is this mortal,’ wondered Soliman dreamily, ‘who subdues men as the queen commands the inhabitants of the air?... A sign of his hand brings forth armies; my people are his, and my dominion is reduced to a miserable herd of courtiers and priests. A mere movement of his eyebrows might render him king of Israel.’

His musing prevented him from observing the countenance of Balkis, who followed with her eyes the true leader of his nation, the king of intelligence and genius, the peaceful and patient arbiter of the destinies of the Lord’s elect.

The return to the palace was silent; his people’s loyalties had now been revealed to the wise Soliman, ... who had believed he knew all, yet had not suspected this. Defeated as to his doctrine; conquered by the Queen of Sheba, who commanded the creatures of the air; vanquished by an artisan who commanded men, the Ecclesiastes, foreseeing the future, meditated on the destiny of kings, saying to himself:

— ‘These priests, once my tutors, today my advisers, charged with the mission of teaching me all there is to know, have concealed the truth, and hidden my ignorance from me. O the blind trust of kings! O the vanity of wisdom!... Vanity! vanity!’

While the queen also gave herself up to her reveries, Adoniram returned to his studio, leaning familiarly on his pupil Benoni who was intoxicated with enthusiasm, lost in celebration of the grace and incomparable spirit of Queen Balkis.

But, more reticent than ever, his master remained silent. Pale, and with panting breath, Adoniram gripped the flesh of his broad chest, now and then, with a clenched right hand. Returning to the sanctuary where he was wont to labour, he enclosed himself, alone, and casting his eyes on a roughly carved statue, found the work insufficient, and shattered the stone. Finally, he collapsed on an oaken bench; and, veiling his face in his hands, cried out in a stifled voice:

— ‘Adorable, and fatal goddess!... Alas! Why were my eyes destined to behold this pearl of Arabia!’

The End of Part XV of Gérard de Nerval’s ‘Travels in the Near East’