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Updated: June 15, 2025
The Hoopoe told of her power and glory, her riches, her wisdom, and her beauty, until Solomon sighed a great sigh and said, "It seems too good to be true! But we shall see." So the King wrote a letter to Balkis, bidding her follow the guidance of fate and come to the court of the wise King. This note he sealed with musk, stamped with his great signet, and gave to the Hoopoe, saying,
And the more Balthasar studied the twelve houses of the sun, the less he thought of Balkis, and Menkera, observing this, was filled with a great joy. "Acknowledge, my lord, that Queen Balkis under her golden robes has little cloven feet like a goat's." "Who ever told you such nonsense?" asked the King. "My lord, it is the common report both in Sheba and Ethiopia," replied the eunuch.
He felt a grievance against Balkis that her beauty was not without blemish in the imagination of those who knew nothing about it. At the thought that he had possessed a woman who, though in reality perfectly formed, passed as a monstrosity, he was seized with such a sense of repugnance that he had no further desire to see Balkis again.
Below, extended on a litter of purple and gold, Balkis looked small and brilliant like the star. Balthasar was conscious of being drawn towards her by some terrible power. Still he turned his head away with a desperate effort, and lifting his eyes he again saw the star. Thereupon the star spoke and said: "Glory to God in the Heavens and peace on earth to men of good will!
The sun was already high when the brigands unbound their prisoners, and, letting them sit in the shade of a rock, threw them some mouldy bread which Balthasar disdained to touch but which Balkis ate greedily. She laughed. And when the brigand chief asked why she laughed, she replied: "I laugh at the thought that I shall have you all hanged."
On nearing the bedchamber he beheld the King of Comagena come forth covered with gold and glittering like the sun. Balkis, smiling and with eyes closed, lay on a purple couch. "My Balkis, my Balkis!" cried Balthasar. She did not even turn her head but seemed to prolong a dream. Balthasar approached and took her hand which she rudely snatched away. "What do you want?" she said.
At that time it was considered, of course, that Ishmael was Abraham's heir. Certainly he was a much finer man than Isaac, with whom I became acquainted a long time afterward. There were some very beautiful women at the court of Solomon. One of these was Balkis, the famous Queen of Sheba." "Did you ever meet Cleopatra?" I interrupted.
For three weeks he remained unconscious and as one dead, but having on the twenty-second day recovered his senses, he seized the hand of Sembobitis, who, with Menkera, watched over him, and cried, weeping: "O, my friends, how happy you are, one to be old and the other the same as old. But no! there is no happiness on earth, everything is bad, for love is an evil and Balkis is wicked."
"My lord!" asked Sembobitis, "have you concluded a good commercial treaty?" That day Balthasar supped with the Queen of Sheba and drank the wine of the palm-tree. "It is true, then," said Balkis as they supped together, "that Queen Guidace is not so beautiful as I?" "Queen Candace is black," replied Balthasar. Balkis looked expressively at Balthasar.
Upon which they surrounded them, and having bound them they tied them to the tail of an ass and proceeded on their way. The black man so bound threatened the brigands with death. But Balkis, who shivered in the cool, fresh air of the morning, only smiled, as if at something unseen. They tramped through frightful solitudes until the heat of mid-day made itself felt.
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