Some averred, that the queen had legs like a goat, grown over with wool; others swore, that instead of human feet she had webbed feet, like a goose. And they even related how the mother of Balkis had once, after bathing, sat down upon sand where just before a certain god, temporarily metamorphosed into a gander, had left his seed, and that through this she had borne the beauteous Queen of Sheba.
And so Solomon one day commanded to be built, in one of his chambers, a transparent floor of crystal, with an empty space beneath it, which was filled with water and stocked with live fish. All this was done with such extraordinary art that one not forewarned could never possibly notice the glass, and would take an oath that a pool of clear, fresh water lay before him.
And when all was in readiness, Solomon invited his regal guest to an interview. Surrounded by all the pomp of her retinue, she paced through the chambers of the House at Lebanon, and came up to the treacherous pool. At the other end of it sat the king, resplendent with gold and precious stones, and with a welcoming look in his dark eyes. The door opened before the queen, and she took a step forward,—but cried out and....
Sulamith claps her palms and laughs, and her laughter is joyous and child-like.
“She stoops and lifts up her raiment?” asks Sulamith.
“Yea, my beloved, she acted as any among women would have acted. She raised up the hem of her garment, and although this lasted for but a moment, not only I but all my court saw that the beauteous Savvian Queen, Balkis-Mâkkedah, had ordinary human legs, but crooked and grown over with coarse hair. On the very next day she set off, without bidding me farewell, and departed with her magnificent caravan. I had not meant to offend her. I sent after her a trustworthy runner, whom I ordered to give to the queen a bundle of a rare mountain herb,—the best means for the extirpation of hair upon the body. But she returned to me the head of my emissary in a bag of costly purple.”
Solomon also told his beloved many things out of his life, which none other among men and women knew, and which Sulamith carried with her into the grave. He told her of the long and weary years of his wanderings, when, fleeing from the wrath of his brethren, he was forced to hide under an assumed name in foreign lands, enduring fearful poverty and privations. He told her how, in a far-off, unknown country, while he was standing in the market place, in expectation of being hired to work somewhere, the king’s cook had approached him and said:
“Stranger, help me carry this hamper of fish into the palace.”
Through his wit, adroitness, and skilled demeanor, Solomon so pleased the officers of the court, that in a short while he had made himself at home in the palace, and when the head cook died he had taken his place. Further, Solomon told of how the king’s only daughter,—a beautiful, ardent maiden,—had fallen in love with the new cook and had confessed her love to him; how they fled from the palace one night, and had been re-taken and brought back; how Solomon had been condemned to die; and how, by a miracle, he succeeded in escaping from the dungeon.
Avidly did Sulamith listen to him, and, when he grew silent, amidst the stillness of the night their lips joined, their arms entwined each other, and breast touched breast. And when morning drew near, and Sulamith’s body seemed a foamy pink, and the fatigue of love encircled her splendid eyes with blue shadows, she would say with a tender smile: