Sulamith: A Romance of Antiquity Part 6

Many ages have pa.s.sed since then. There have been kingdoms and kings, and of them no trace has been left, as of a wind that has sped over a desert. There have been prolonged, merciless wars, after which the names of the commanders shone through the ages, like ensanguined stars; but time has effaced even the very memory of them.

But the love of the lowly maiden of the vineyard and the great king shall never pa.s.s away nor be forgotten,--for love is strong as death; for every woman who loves is a queen; for love is beautiful.

CHAPTER NINE

IX.

Seven days had sped since Solomon,--poet, sage, and king,--had brought into his palace the lowly maiden he had met in the vineyard at dawn. For seven days did the king take joyance in her love, nor could be sated therewith. And a great joy irradiated his countenance, like to the golden light of the sun.

It was the time of light, warm, moonlit nights,--sweet nights of love.... Upon a couch of tiger fells lay the naked Sulamith; and the king, sitting upon the floor at her feet, filled his emerald goblet with the aureate wine of Mauretus, and drank to the health of his beloved, rejoicing with all his heart, and narrated to her the sage, strange legends of eld. And Sulamith's hand rested upon his head, stroking his wavy black hair.

"Tell me, my king," Sulamith had once asked, "is it not wonderful that I fell in love with thee so instantly? I now call all things to mind, and meseems I began belonging to thee from the very first moment, when I had not yet had time to behold thee, but had merely heard thy voice. My heart began to flutter and did open to meet thee, as a flower opens to the south wind on a night in summer. How hast thou taken me so, my beloved?"

And the king, quietly bending his head toward the soft knees of Sulamith, smiled tenderly and answered:

"Thousands of women before thee, O my comely one, have put this question to their beloveds, and hundreds of ages after thee will they be asking their beloveds about this. There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. This is not my wisdom, Sulamith,--these are the words of Agur, son of Jakeh, heard from him by his disciples. But let us honour the wisdom of others also."

"Yea," said Sulamith pensively, "mayhap it is even true that man shall never comprehend this. To-day, during the banquet, I wore a sweet-smelling cl.u.s.ter of stacte upon my breast. But thou didst leave the table, and my flowers ceased to give out their smell. Meseems, thou must be beloved, O king, of women, and men, and beasts, and even of flowers. I oft ponder, yet comprehend not: how can one love any other save thee?"

"And any save thee, save thee, Sulamith! Every hour do I render thanks to G.o.d for that He has set thee in my path."

"I remember, I was sitting upon a stone of the wall, and thou didst put thy hand on mine. Fire ran through my veins; my head was dizzied. I said within me: Behold, there is my lord, my king, my beloved!"

"I remember, Sulamith, how thou didst turn around to my call. Under the thin raiment I saw thy body, thy beautiful body, that I love as I love G.o.d. I love it,--covered with its golden down, as though the sun had left its kiss upon it. Thou art graceful, like to a filly in the Pharaoh's chariot; thou art fair like the chariot of Ammi-nadib. Thy eyes are as two doves, sitting by the rivers of waters."

"O, beloved, thy words stir me. Thy hand sears me sweetly. O, my king, thy legs are as pillars of marble. Thy belly is like an heap of wheat, set about with lilies."

Surrounded, irradiated, by the silent light of the moon, they forgot time and place; and thus hours would pa.s.s, and they with wonder beheld the rosy dawn peeping through the latticed windows of the chamber.

Sulamith also said once:

"Thou hast known, my beloved, wives and virgins without number, and they were all the fairest women on earth. I become ashamed whenever I consider myself,--a simple, unschooled girl,--and my poor body, scorched of the sun."

But, touching her lips with his, the king would say, with infinite love and gratefulness:

"Thou art a queen, Sulamith! Thou wast born a true queen. Thou art brave and generous in love. Seven hundred wives have I, and three hundred concubines, and virgins without number have I known; but thou, my timid one, art my only one,--thou fairest among women. I have found thee like as a diver in the Gulf of Persia, that filleth a great number of baskets with barren sh.e.l.ls and pearls of little price, ere he get from the bed of the sea a pearl worthy a king's crown. My child, a man may love thousands of times, yet he loveth but once. People without number think they love, yet only to two of them doth G.o.d send love. And when thou didst yield thyself up to me among the cypresses, under the rafters of cedars, upon the bed of green, I did with all my soul render thanks to G.o.d, so gracious to me."

Sulamith also asked once:

"I know that they all loved thee, for not to love thee is impossible.

The Queen of Sheba did come to thee from her domain. They say, that she was the wisest and fairest of all women that had ever been on earth. As in a dream, I recall her caravans. I know not why, but since my earliest childhood I have been drawn to the chariots of the great. I was then perhaps seven, perhaps eight. I remember the camels in golden harness, covered with caparisons of purple, laden with heavy burthens; I remember the mules with the little bells of gold between their ears; I remember the droll monkeys in silvern cages; and the wondrous peac.o.c.ks. There was a mult.i.tude of servants in garments of white and blue, marching; they led tame tigers and panthers upon ribbands of red. I was but eight then."

"O child, thou wert but eight then," said Solomon with sadness.

"Didst thou love her more than me, Solomon? Wilt tell me something of her?"

And the king told her all pertaining to this amazing woman. Having heard much of the wisdom and beauty of the King of Israel, she had come to him from her domain with rich gifts, desiring to prove his wisdom and subdue his heart. This was a magnificent woman of forty, who was already beginning to fade. But through secret, magic means she contrived to make her body, that was growing flabby, seem graceful and supple, like a girl's, while her face bore an impress of an awesome, inhuman beauty.

But her wisdom was ordinary wisdom, and the petty wisdom of a woman to boot.

Desiring to test the king with riddles, she at first sent to him fifty youths of tenderest age, and fifty maidens. They were all so cunningly dressed that the keenest eye could not have discerned their s.e.x. "I shall call thee wise, O King," said Balkis, "if thou shalt tell me which of them is woman, and which man."

But the king burst out laughing, and ordered that every he and she sent him be brought a separate bason of silver, and a separate ewer of silver, for laving. And whereas the boys bravely splashed in the water and cast it in handfuls at their faces, drying their skin vigorously, the girls acted as women always do at their ablutions. They lathered each hand gently and solicitously, bringing it closely to their eyes.

In so easy a manner did the king solve the first riddle of Balkis-Makkedah.

Next she sent Solomon a large diamond, the size of a hazel nut. This stone had a thin, exceedingly tortuous flaw, that perforated its entire body with a narrow, intricate path. The task was to put a silken thread through the jewel. And the wise king let into the opening a silk worm, which, having pa.s.sed through, left the finest of silken webs in its wake.

Also, the beauteous Balkis sent King Solomon a precious goblet of carved sardonyx, of magnificent workmanship. "This goblet shall be thine," she had commanded that the king be told, "if thou fillest it with moisture taken neither from earth nor heaven." And Solomon, having filled the goblet with froth falling from the body of a fatigued steed, ordered it to be carried to the queen.

Many such hard questions did the queen put to Solomon, but could not belittle his wisdom; nor with all her secret charms of love's pa.s.sion in the night might she contrive to retain his love. And when she had finally palled upon the king, he had cruelly, hurtfully made mock of her.

Everybody knew that the Savvian queen never showed her lower extremities to anyone, and for that reason wore a garment reaching to the ground.

Even in the hours of love caresses did she keep her legs closely covered with raiment. Many strange and droll legends had sprung up on this account.

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 G.o.d, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.s, 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-Makkedah, had ordinary human legs, but crooked and grown over with coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sumed 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:

"Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER TEN

X.