"THE BOOK OF DELIGHT"
The connection between Zabara's work and the Solomon and Marcolf legend was first pointed out in my "Short History of Jewish Literature" (1906), p. 95. I had long before detected the resemblance, though I was not aware of it when I wrote an essay on Zabara in the Jewish Quarterly Review. To the latter (vi, pp. 502 et seq.) the reader is referred for bibliographical notes, and also for details on the textual relations of the two editions of Zabara's poem.
A number of parallels with other folk-literatures are there indicated;
others have been added by Dr. Israel Davidson, in his edition of the "Three
Satires" (New York, 1904), which accompany the "Book of Delight" in the
Constantinople edition, and are also possibly by Zabara.
The late Professor David Kaufmann informed me some years ago that he had a manuscript of the poem in his possession. But, after his death, the manuscript could not be found in his library. Should it eventually be rediscovered, it would be desirable to have a new, carefully printed edition of the Hebrew text of the "Book of Delight." I would gladly place at the disposal of the editor my copy of the Constantinople edition, made from the Oxford specimen. The Bodleian copy does not seem to be unique, as had been supposed.
The literature on the Solomon and Marcolf legend is extensive. The following references may suffice. J.M. Kemble published (London, 1848) "The Dialogue of Solomon and Saturnus," for the Aelfric Society. "Of all the forms of the story yet preserved," says Mr. Kemble, "the Anglo-Saxon are undoubtedly the oldest." He talks vaguely of the intermixture of Oriental elements, but assigns a northern origin to one portion of the story. Crimm had argued for a Hebrew souice, thinking Marcolf a name of scorn in Hebrew. But the Hebrew Marcolis (or however one may spell it) is simply Mercury. In the Latin version, however, Marcolf is distinctly represented as coming from the East. William of Tyre (12th cent.) suggests the identity of Marcolf with Abdemon, whom Josephus ("Antiquities," VIII, v, 3) names as Hiram's Riddle-Guesser. A useful English edition is E. Gordon Duff's "Dialogue or Communing between the Wise King Salomon and Marcolphus" (London, 1892). Here, too, as in the Latin version, Marcolf is a man from the Orient. Besides these books, two German works deserve special mention. F. Vogt, in his essay entitled Die deutschen Dichtungen won Salomon und Markolf, which appeared in Halle, in 1880, also thinks Marcolf an Eastern. Finally, as the second part of his "Untersuchungen zur mittelhochdeutschen Spielmannspoesie" (Schwerin, 1894), H. Tardel published Zum Salman-Morolf. Tardel is skeptical as to the Eastern provenance of the legend.
It has been thought that a form of this legend is referred to in the fifth century. The Contradictio Solomonis, which Pope Gelasius excluded from the sacred canon, has been identified with some version of the Marcolf story.