“May thy wisdom, thy kindness and thy kingdom spread far and wide, Oh, King! so that my helpless offsprings be spared the torments that I have endured during the length of my days!” prayed the mare, with a tremor which betrayed extreme weakness. The next instant saw the poor brute tremble, stagger, fall and expire.
If Solomon had counted on an easy triumph over his formidable adversary, his arrival at Jerusalem, after years of untold hardships and trials, undeceived him. The city showed every indication of great prosperity; the kingdom stood firmly established, and the brilliance of the royal Court had no rival in the gorgeous Orient. Embassies came to pay the homage of princedoms and empires near and far, bringing presents of rare animals, gold, costly products, and precious stones, and they departed overawed by the superhuman wisdom of Israel’s mighty ruler, who amazed the ambassadors not alone by addressing each one in his native language but by showing a minute acquaintance with their secret matters of state, and by reading their hidden thoughts. The envoys reported to their sovereigns that a demi-god had come to reign over an earthly kingdom.
For a shabby mendicant to overthrow a power of Ashmodai’s devices and resources was indeed a business to make even a Solomon despair of success.
Having entered the city, the beggar-king sought the haunts of the paupers without breathing a syllable as to his identity, lest Ashmodai be alarmed by his presence, which was a circumstance to be feared. Solomon the beggar knew that he looked so unlike Solomon the Wise that he long hesitated to approach his whilom faithful Benaiah, who, innocent of the demon’s fraud, continued as dashing and as loyal as ever before. The attempt at an interview resulted in the general’s throwing a silver coin to get rid of the importunate beggar, who dared accost him as though he was his equal. In his despondency Solomon turned his back on his endeared capital, roamed about for many days distracted with grief, until, having caught sight of the sea, he fell prostrate on the shore, prayed in great humility, wept and fell asleep. He had a dream in which Eldad, who had died during his wanderings, appeared to him in the guise of an angler, unloosening a large fish from his hook which he presented to the dreamer. A scream in the air startled Solomon from his sleep, and a slap on his cheek by some cold thing brought him to his feet. Before him lay a fish in contortions, above him two birds were soaring, one higher than the other, who, in their fight for the prey, evidently had allowed it to drop on the sleeper’s face. Parched with thirst and stung by hunger, Solomon tore the fish open, when, lo! the ring, Eldad’s gift, the all-controlling charm, was there. No sooner was it on the King’s finger than an appalling earthquake shook the shore, while from the heart of God’s city burst a prodigious pillar of smoke and flame, losing itself in the deep azure. Useless to add that this was the trail of Ashmodai’s precipitous flight, who, immediately apprised of his adversary’s triumph, fled as fast as he could, spreading consternation as he went.
Solomon by this time had enough experience with the chief of demons to last him for the rest of his life; yet nothing else but Ashmodai’s subsequent vengeance was the cause of his falling from grace in after years, so that the wisest of ancient kings not alone forfeited the power vested in the Omnipotent Name, but closed a glorious career so ingloriously that he died an object of pity to some of his subjects and of hatred to the rest. Having secured the means of building the Temple without the aid of ordinary implements, he would have acted wisely in dismissing the chief of invisible hosts instead of detaining him unjustly, and preying into mysteries not intended for man. Solomon’s aspiration to be more than human, while it gratified his vanity, brought on eventually his ruin, while his mind was never at ease, even under the constant guardianship of the “Heroic Sixty,” his close bodyguard.
Note.—“We also tried Solomon, and placed on his throne a counterfeit body; afterward he turned unto God and said, O Lord, forgive me, and give me a kingdom which may not be obtained by any after me; for thou art the bestower of kingdoms. And we made the wind subject to him; it ran gently at his command whithersoever he directed, and we also put the demons in subjection under him, and among them such as were every way skilled in building, and in diving for pearls.” (Koran, Surah 38.)
The Talmudic version of Solomon’s temporary dethronement runs thus:—Conscious of the fact that the stability of his kingdom depended on the signet on his finger, Solomon had but one trusty concubine named Amina whom he entrusted with the invaluable jewel during moments when the body’s natural functions rendered its removal obligatory, it bearing the ineffable Name. One day Sakhar, a malicious demon, appeared to Amina in the shape of Solomon, possessed himself of the ring, usurped the throne, transformed or deformed the real monarch, and ruled the land to suit himself, altering the laws, and doing all the mischief a devil is capable of doing. In the meantime Solomon, distracted by the incident, and wholly unknown to his court, wandered about, depending on alms for subsistence. This misadventure of the wise king was brought about by an image of himself made for worship at his order by another devil to comfort his favorite wife, Jerada, the beautiful princess of Sidon, whose father had fallen during the siege of that city by Solomon’s army. As soon as the worship of the image ceased, the devil fled the palace and threw the signet into the sea. A fish swallowed the thaumaturgic ring, was caught, and providentially fell into Solomon’s hand, thus possessing him of the omnipotent charm which enabled him to recover his kingdom. As to Sakhar, he was caught, a stone was tied around his neck, and he was ruthlessly thrown into the lake of Tiberias. Sakhar standing for the Hebrew noun sheker—falsehood, and Amina for emunah,—faith or firmness, the deeper sense of the allegory needs no further elucidation. Among the most familiar legends which cluster around Solomon’s rule is that of his green carpet woven of silk and of a magnitude sufficiently ample not alone to hold his throne, but an army of men to his right hand and a host of spirits to his left. At the king’s command the winds transported the entire equipment, slow or fast, according to his majesty’s pleasure, while the royal head was shaded by an enormous flock of birds on the wing. Countenance is given to this fable in the Koran,—“And his armies were gathered together unto Solomon, consisting of genii, and men, and birds.” (Surah, 27.)