Part 3

And they, made glad that the king had summoned them only for this, at once filled the bowl by casting into it small and large silver coin. And when, with tears, she began to thank the king, he smiled radiantly and said:

“Wait, this is not yet all. This morning’s wind has bestowed joy upon me as well, which I did not expect. And therefore, to the gifts of these merchants, I shall add my kingly gift also.”

And he commanded Adoniram, the treasurer, to put on top of the money of the merchants enough gold coin to cover the silver entirely out of sight.

Solomon desired to see none unhappy on this day. He distributed more rewards, pensions, and gifts than he sometimes did within a whole year, and he pardoned Ahimaaz, the governor of the land of Naphtali, against whom his wrath had flamed before, because of his lawless levies; and he commuted the faults of many who had transgressed the law, nor did he overlook any of the petitions of his subjects,--save one.

When the king was passing out from the House at Lebanon through the small southern door, one in a garment of yellow leather stood up in his path,--a squat, broad-shouldered man, darkly-ruddy and morose of face, with a black, bushy beard, with a neck like a bull’s, and an austere gaze from underneath shaggy, black eyebrows. This was the high priest of Moloch’s temple. He uttered but one word in a supplicating voice:

“King!...”

In the bronze belly of his god were seven divisions: one for meal, another for doves, the third for sheep, the fourth for rams, the fifth for calves, the sixth for beeves; but the seventh, meant for living infants brought by their mothers, had long stood empty at the interdict of the king.

Solomon walked in silence past the priest, but the latter stretched out his hands after him and exclaimed with supplication:

“King! I adjure thee by thy joy!... Show me this kindness, O king, and I shall reveal to thee what danger threatens thy life.”

Solomon made no reply; and the eyes of the priest, who had clenched his powerful hands into fists, followed him to the exit with a ferocious glare.

VI.

At nightfall Sulamith went to that spot in the old city where, in long rows, stretched the shops of the moneychangers, usurers, and dealers in sweet-smelling condiments. There she sold to a jeweller for three drachmas and one dinar her only valuable,--her earrings for festal days; of silver, in the form of rings, each with a little golden star.

Then she paid a visit to a seller of perfumes. In the deep, dark, stone niche, in the midst of jars with gray Arabian amber, packets of frankincense from Lebanon, bunches of aromatic herbs, and phials with oils, was sitting an Ægyptian, a castrate,--old, obese, wrinkled, immobile, all fragrant himself; his legs tucked under him, and blinking his lazy eyes. He carefully counted out of a Phoenician flask into a little clay flagon just as many drops of myrrh as there were dinarii among all the moneys of Sulamith; and when he had finished this task he said, gathering up with the stopper the remnant of the oil around the neck of the bottle, and laughing slyly:

“Swarthy maiden, beautiful maiden! When this day thy beloved shall kiss thee between thy breasts and say: ‘How fragrant is thy body, O my beloved!’--recall me at that moment. I have poured over three extra drops for thee.”

And so, when night had come, and the moon had risen over Siloam, blending the blue whiteness of its houses with the black blueness of the shadows and the dull green of the trees, Sulamith did arise from her humble couch of goats’-wool and hearkened. All was quiet in the house. Her sister was breathing evenly upon the floor, nigh the wall. Only outside, in the wayside bushes, the cicadas chirped stridently and passionately; and the blood throbbed noisily in her ears. The shadow of the window-lattice, etched by the light of the moon, lay, sharp and oblique, upon the floor.

Trembling with timidity, expectation, and happiness, Sulamith loosened her garments, let them down to her feet, and, stepping over them, was left naked in the middle of the room, facing the window, in the light of the moon falling through the bars of the lattice. She poured the thick, sweet-smelling myrrh upon her shoulders, upon her bosom, upon her abdomen; and, fearing to lose even one precious drop, began to rub the oil over her legs, under her armpits, and about her neck. And the smooth, slippery touch of her palms and elbows against her body compelled her to shiver with sweet anticipation. And, smiling and trembling, she gazed out of the window, where, beyond the lattice, two poplars showed,--dark on one side, silvered on the other,--and whispered to herself:

“This is for thee, my love; this is for thee, my beloved. My beloved is the chiefest among ten thousand, his head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His lips are most sweet; yea, he is all desire. This is my beloved, and this is my brother, O daughters of Jerusalem!...”

And now, fragrant with myrrh, she lay down upon her couch. Her face is turned toward the window; her hands, like a child, she has squeezed between her knees; her heart fills the room with its loud beating. Much time passes. Scarce closing her eyes, she is plunged into dozing, but her heart keeps vigil. As in a dream, it seems to her that her dear is lying beside her. In a joyous fright she casts off her drowsiness; she seeks her beloved near her on the couch, but finds no one. The moon’s design upon the floor has crept nearer the wall, is dwindled and more oblique. The cicadas are calling; the Brook of Kidron babbles on monotonously; the doleful chant of a night watchman is heard in the city.

“What if he comes not to-day?” thinks Sulamith; “I did implore him,--and what if he hath suddenly obeyed me?... I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roses and lilies of the field: awake not love till it come.... But now my love hath come to me. Make haste, my beloved! Thy bride awaits thee. Make haste like to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.”

The sand crunches in the yard under light steps. And the soul of the maiden deserts her. A cautious hand knocks at the window. A dark face shows on the other side of the lattice. The low voice of her beloved is heard:

“Open to me, my sister, my dove, my undefiled! For my head is filled with dew.”

But a charmed numbness has suddenly taken possession of Sulamith’s body. She wants to rise, and can not; wants to move her hand, and can not. And, without understanding what is taking place with her, she whispers, gazing through the window:

“Ah, his locks are filled with the drops of the night! But I have put off my chiton. How shall I put it on?”

“Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. The morn is nigh, flowers appear on the earth, and the vines with the tender grape give a goodly smell; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard from the mountains.”

“I have washed my feet,” whispers Sulamith; “how shall I defile them?”

The dark head disappears from the window-lattice; the resounding steps pass around the house and cease at the door. The beloved cautiously puts in his hand by the hole of the door. His fingers can be heard groping for the inner bolt.

Then does Sulamith rise up, pressing her palms hard against her breasts, and whispers in affright:

“My sister sleeps--I fear to awaken her.”

She irresolutely dons her sandals, puts a light chiton upon her naked body, throws a vail over it, and opens the door, leaving marks of myrrh upon the handles of the lock. But there is no longer anyone upon the road that glimmers whitely in its solitude between the dark bushes in the gray murk of morning. The beloved had not waited, and was gone; not even his steps were to be heard. The moon has dwindled and paled, and floats on high. In the east, above the waves of the mountains, the sky is putting on a chilly pink before the dawn. In the distance the walls and towers of Jerusalem glimmer whitely.

“My beloved! King of my life!” Sulamith calls into the humid darkness. “I am here. I await thee.... Return!”

But none responds.

“I will run upon the highway; I shall, I shall overtake my beloved,” Sulamith says to herself. “I will go about the city in the streets and in the broad ways; I will seek him whom my soul loveth. O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breast of my mother! When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house. Thou wouldst instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of the juice of my pomegranates. I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him I am smitten by love.”

Thus does she commune with herself, and with light, docile steps runs upon the road toward the city. At the Dung Gates near the wall, two watchmen that had gone about the city at night are sitting and dozing in the chill of the morning. They awaken and stare with astonishment at the running girl. The younger arises and blocks her way with outstretched arms.

“Stay, stay, thou fair!” exclaims he with laughter. “Whither so fast? Thou hast passed the night on the sly in the bed of thy dear and art yet warm from his embraces; whereas we have been chilled through by the dampness of the night. It would be but fair if thou wert to sit a while with us.”

The elder also arises and wants to embrace Sulamith. He does not laugh; he breathes heavily, fast, and with wheezing; he is licking his blue lips with his tongue. His face, made hideous by great scars of healed leprosy, seems frightful in the pallid murk. He speaks in a voice hoarse and snuffling:

“Yea, of a truth. What is thy beloved more than other men, sweet maiden! Shut thy eyes, and thou canst not tell me apart from him. I am even better, for, of a certainty, I am more experienced than he.”

They clutch at her bosom, her shoulders, her arms and raiment. But Sulamith is lithe and strong, and her body, anointed with oil, is slippery. She tears herself away, leaving in the hands of the watchmen her outer vail, and runs back still faster along the same road. She has experienced neither offense nor fear,--she is all swallowed up in thoughts of Solomon. Passing by her house, she sees the door out of which she had just gone still left open, a gaping black quadrangle in the white wall. But she merely catches her breath, shrinks within herself, like a young cat, and runs by on her tip-toes with never a sound.

She crosses the bridge of Kidron, avoids the outskirt of the village of Siloam, and by a stony road gradually climbs the southern slope of Beth-El-Khav, into her vineyard. Her brother is still sleeping among the vines, wrapped up in a woolen blanket all wet from the dew. Sulamith rouses him, but he can not awaken, enchained by the morning sleep of youth.

As yesterday, the dawn is flaming over Anaze. A wind springs up. The fragrance of the grape in blossom streams through the air.

“I shall come away and look upon that place of the wall where my beloved hath stood,” Sulamith is saying. “I shall feel with my hands the stones that he hath touched; I shall kiss the ground beneath his feet.”

She glides lightly between the vines. The dew falls from them, chilling her feet and spattering her elbows. And now a joyous cry from Sulamith fills the vineyard! The king is standing beyond the wall. With a radiant face he stretches out his arms to meet her.

More lightly than a bird Sulamith surmounts the enclosure, and, without words, with a moan of happiness, entwines the king.

Several minutes pass thus. Finally, tearing his lips away from her mouth, Solomon speaks, enraptured, and his voice trembles:

“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair!”

“O, how fair art thou, my beloved!”

Tears of delight and gratefulness,--blessed tears,--sparkle upon Sulamith’s pale and beautiful face. Languishing with love, she sinks to the ground and whispers words of madness in a barely audible voice.

“Our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedars.... Kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth--for thy love is better than wine....”

After a brief space Sulamith is lying with her head upon Solomon’s breast. His left arm is embracing her.

Bending to her very ear, the king is whispering something to her; the king is tenderly apologizing, and Sulamith reddens from his words and closes her eyes. Then, with an inexpressibly lovely smile of confusion, she says:

“My mother’s children made me the keeper of the vineyard.... But mine own vineyard have I not kept.”

But Solomon takes her little swarthy hand and presses it fervently to his lips.

“Thou dost not regret this, Sulamith?”

“O nay, my king, my beloved. I regret it not. Wert thou to arise this minute and go from me, and were I condemned never to see thee after, I would to the end of my life utter thy name with gratitude, Solomon!”

“Tell me one thing else, Sulamith.... Only, I beseech thee, speak the truth, my undefiled.... Didst thou know who I am?”

“Nay,--even now I know it not. Methought.... But I am shamed to confess it.... I fear thou wilt laugh at me.... They tell, that here, upon Mount Beth-El-Khav, pagan gods do oft wander.... Many of them, it is said, are beautiful.... And methought: art thou not Hor, the son of Osiris; or else some other god?”

“Nay, I am but a king, beloved. But here, upon this spot, I kiss thy dear hand, scorched of the sun, and swear to thee that never yet--neither in the time of first love longings, nor in the days of my glory--has my heart flamed with such an insatiable desire as that which is awakened within me by thy mere smile, by the mere touch of thy flaming locks,--the mere curve of thy purple lips! Thou art comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains in the temple of Solomon! Thy caresses intoxicate me. Behold thy breasts--they are fragrant. Thy nipples are as wine!”

“O, yea,--gaze, gaze upon me, beloved. Thy eyes arouse me! O, what joy!--for thy desire is unto me,--me! Thy locks are scented. As a bundle of myrrh thou dost lie betwixt my breasts!”

Time ceases its current and closes over them in a solar cycle. Their bed is the green; their roof is of cedars; and their walls are of cypresses. And the banner over their tent is love.

VII.

The king had a pool in his palace,--an octagonal, fresh pool of white marble. Steps of dark-green malachite ran down to its bottom. A facing of Ægyptian jasper, snowy-white, with pink, barely perceptible little veins, served as a frame for the pool. The best of ebony had gone for the ornamentation of the walls. Four lions’ heads of pink sardonyx cast forth the water in thin jets into the pool. Eight mirrors of polished silver, the height of a man and of excellent Sydonian workmanship, were set into the walls, between the slender columns of white.

Before Sulamith was to enter the pool, young maid-servants poured aromatic compounds into it, that made the water to turn white and blue and to play with all the colours of a milky opal. The female slaves disrobing Sulamith gazed with delight upon her body; and, when they had disrobed her, they led her up to a mirror. Not a single blemish was there upon her beautiful body, made aureate like a tawny, ripe fruit by the golden down of soft hair. And she, gazing upon her naked self in the mirror, turned red and thought:

“All this is for thee, my king!”

She came out of the pool fresh, cool, and fragrant, covered with quivering drops of water. The female slaves put upon her a short white tunic of the finest Ægyptian linen, and a chiton of precious Sargonian byssin, of such a refulgent golden colour that the garment seemed woven out of the rays of the sun. They shod her feet in red sandals made from the skin of a young kid; they dried her dark, flaming locks and bound them with strings of large black pearls; and they adorned her arms with tinkling bracelets.

In such array did she come before Solomon, and the king exclaimed joyously:

“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun? O, Sulamith, thy beauty is more terrible than an army with flaunted banners! Seven hundred wives have I known and three hundred concubines, and virgins without number,--thou art but one, my fair! The queens shall behold thee and extoll thee, and all women upon earth shall praise thee. O, Sulamith, that day when thou wilt become my spouse and queen shall be the happiest my heart has known.”

Whereupon she walked up to the door of carved olive, and, pressing her cheek against it, said:

“I desire to be but thy slave, Solomon. Behold, I have put my ear to the post of the door. I beseech thee,--in accordance with the law of Moses, nail down my ear in witness of my voluntary bondage before thee.”

Then Solomon did command to be brought out of his treasure house precious pendants of deep-red carbuncles, fashioned to resemble elongated pears. He himself put them upon the ears of Sulamith, and said:

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

And, taking Sulamith by the hand, the king brought her to the banqueting house, where his companions and familiars were already awaiting him.

VIII.

Seven days had sped since Sulamith had stepped into the palace of the king. Seven days had she and the king taken joyance in love, yet could not be sated therewith.

Solomon loved to adorn his beloved with precious things. “How beautiful are thy little feet in sandals!” he would exclaim in rapture, and, getting down on his knees before her, he would kiss each toe in turn, and put upon them rings with stones so splendid and rare that their like was not to be found even upon the ephod of a high-priest. Sulamith would listen, entranced, whenever he discoursed upon the inner nature of stones, their magic properties and secret significations.

“Here is anthrax, the sacred stone from the land of Ophir,” the king would say. “It is hot and moist. Behold, it is red, like blood, like the evening glow, like the blown flower of the pomegranate, like thick wine from the vineyards of En-gedi, like thy lips, my Sulamith, in the morning after a night of love. This is the stone of love, wrath, and blood. Upon the hand of a man languishing in a fever or made drunk by desire, it waxes warmer and glows with a red flame. Put it upon thy hand, my beloved, and thou shalt see it enkindle. If it be brayed to a powder and taken in water, it imparts a glow to the face, allays the stomach, and maketh the soul to rejoice. He that weareth it attaineth power over men. It is a curative for the heart, brain, and memory. But it ought not be worn nigh children, for it doth arouse the passions of love around it.

“Here is a transparent stone, the colour of copper verdigris. In the land of the Æthiopians, where it is gotten, it is called Mgnadis-Phza. It was given me by the father of my wife, Queen Astis,--by Shishak, the Pharaoh of Ægypt, into whose hands it came through a captive king. Thou seest,--it is not beautiful; yet is its value beyond computation, for but four men on earth possess the stone Mgnadis-Phza. It possesses the unusual property of attracting silver to it, just like a covetous man that loveth the metal. I give it thee, my beloved, for that thou are not covetous.

“Gaze upon these sapphires, Sulamith. Some of them resemble in colour corn-flowers among wheat; others, an autumn sky; others still, the sea in fine weather. This is the stone of virginity,--chill and pure. During far and difficult voyages it is placed in the mouth to allay thirst. It also cureth leprosy and all malignant growths. It bestoweth clarity to thoughts. The priests of Jupiter in Rome wear it upon the index finger.

“The king of all stones is the stone Shamir. The Greeks name it Adamas,--which signifieth, the invincible. It is the hardest of all substances on earth and remains uninjured in the fiercest of fires. It is the light of the sun, concentrated in the ground and cooled by time. Admire it, Sulamith,--it playeth with all colours, but in itself remaineth translucent, like a drop of water. It shineth in the darkness of night; but loseth its radiance, even in the daytime, upon the hand of a murderer. The Shamir is tied to the hand of a woman tortured in heavy travail with child; and it is also put upon the left hand by warriors setting out for battle. He that weareth the Shamir findeth favour with kings and hath no dread of evil spirits. The Shamir driveth the mottled colour off the face, purifieth the breath, giveth quiet slumber to lunaticks, and induceth a sweat curative of near proximity to poison. The Shamir stones are male and female; buried deep in the ground they are capable of multiplying.

“The moonstone, pale and mild, like the shining of the moon,--it is the stone of the Chaldæan and Babylonian magi. Before divination it is placed under the tongue, and it imparts to them the gift of seeing the future. It hath a strange tie with the moon, for during a new moon it groweth chill and shineth more brightly. It is beneficial to woman during that year when from a child she is becoming a woman.

“Wear thou this ring with a smaragd constantly, my beloved, for the smaragd is the favourite stone of Solomon, King of Israel. It is green, pure, gay, tender, like grass in the spring of the year, and when one gazeth at it for long the heart waxeth radiant; if thou wilt look upon it in the morning, all the day shall hold no hardship of thee. I shall hang a smaragd over thy night couch, my comely one; let it drive evil dreams away from thee; let it lull the beating of thy heart, and divert black thoughts. Serpents and scorpions come not nigh him that weareth a smaragd; but if a smaragd be held before the eyes of a serpent, water shall flow from them, and continue flowing, till it go blind. Pounded smaragd, together with camel’s milk, is given an empoisoned man, that the poison may go off in transpiration; mixed with attar of roses, smaragd cureth the bites of venomous reptiles; while ground with saffron and applied to ailing eyes it eradicates night blindness. It also helps in dysentery and the black cough that is incurable by any human means.”

The king also bestowed upon his beloved Lybian amethysts, whose colour resembled early violets, that put forth in forests at the foot of the Lybian mountains,--amethysts, possessed of the wondrous property of curbing wind, mollifying wrath, preserving from intoxication, and helping at the trapping of wild beasts; turquoise of Persepolis, that bringeth happiness in love, endeth connubial quarrels, turneth away the wrath of kings, and is propitious in the breaking and selling of horses; and cat’s-eye,--that guardeth the property, reason, and health of its possessor; and the pale beryllion, blue-green, like sea-water near shore,--a good travelling companion for pilgrims and a remedy against cataract and leprosy; and the vari-coloured agate: he that weareth it hath no dread of the evil machinations of enemies, and avoideth the danger of being crushed in an earthquake; and the apple-green, turbidly-pellucid onychion,--its master’s guardian from fire and madness; and iaspis, that maketh beasts to tremble; and the black swallow-stone, that endoweth with eloquence; and the eagle-stone, esteemed of pregnant women,--eagles put it in their nests when the time comes for their young to break out of their shells; and zaberzate out of Ophir, shining like little suns; and yellow-aureate chrysolite,--the friend of merchants and thieves; and sardonyx, beloved of kings and queens; and the crimson ligurion: it is found, as all know, in the stomach of the lynx, whose sight is so keen that it can see through walls,--and for that reason he that weareth a ligurion is also noted for keen sight, and besides this it stoppeth bleeding of the nose, and healeth all wounds, save wounds inflicted by stone or iron.