No, not to answer, madam, all those hard things
That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.
Tennyson, The Princess, ii.
*** The Arabs call her name Balkis, or Belkis; the Abyssinians, Macqueda; and others, Aazis.
Sheba (The queen of), a name given to Mde. Montreville (the Begum Mootee Mahul).—Sir W. Scott, The Surgeon’s Daughter (time, George II.).
Shebdiz, the Persian Bucephalos, the favorite charger of Chosroës II., or Khosrou Parvis, of Persia (590-628).
Shedad, king of Ad, who built a most magnificent palace, and laid out a garden called “The Garden of Irem,” like “the bowers of Eden.” All men admired this palace and garden, except the prophet Houd, who told the king that the foundation of his palace was not secure. And so it was, that God, to punish his pride, first sent a drought of three years’ duration, and then the Sarsar, or icy wind, for seven days, in which the garden was destroyed, the palace ruined, and Shedad, with all his subjects, died.
It is said that the palace of Shedad, or Shuddaud, took 500 years in building, and when it was finished the angel of death would not allow him even to enter his garden, but struck him dead, and the rose garden of Irem was ever after invisible to the eye of man.—Southey, Thalaba, the Destroyer, 1. (1797).
Sheep-Dog (A), a lady-companion, who occupies the back seat of the barouche, carries wraps, etc., goes to church with the lady,and “guards her from the wolves,” as much as the lady wishes to be guarded, but no more.
“Rawdon,” said Becky, ... “I must have a sheep-dog ... I mean a moral shepherd’s dog ... to keep the wolves off me.” ... “A sheep-dog, a companion! Becky Sharp with a sheep-dog! Isn’t that good fun!”—Thackeray, Vanity Fair, xxxvii. (1848).
Sheep of the Prisons, a cant term in the French Revolution for a spy under the jailers.—C. Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, iii. 7 (1859).
Sheep Tilted at. Don Quixote saw the dust of two flocks of sheep coming in opposite directions, and told Sancho they were two armies—one commanded by the Emperor Alifanfaron, sovereign of the island of Trap´oban, and the other by the king of the Garaman´teans, called “Pentap´olin with the Naked Arm.” He said that Alifanfaron was in love with Pentapolin’s daughter, but Pentapolin refused to sanction the alliance, because Alifanfaron was a Mohammedan. The mad knight rushed on the flock “led by Alifanfaron,” and killed seven of the sheep, but was stunned by stones thrown at him by the shepherds. When Sancho told his master that the two armies were only two flocks of sheep, the knight replied that the enchanter Freston had “metamorphosed the two grand armies” in order to show his malice.—Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. iii. 4 (1605).