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 148 JUDAISM AND

people, but a woman rales over them ; she is called the Queen of Sheba. If it please thee now, my lord King, I will go to that town and bind the Qneen with chains and its nobles with iron fetters and bring them all here/ And it pleased the King, and Scribes were called who wrote letters and bound them to the wings of the partridge. When the bird came to the Queen she saw the letter tied on to its wing, she opened it, and these were the contents : f Prom me, Solomon the King, greeting to thee and to thy princes ! Thou knowest well that Grod hath appointed me King over the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, and over the demons, spirits and spectres of the night, and that the kings of all the countries under heaven approach me in submission. If thou also wilt do this, great honour will be shewn thee ; if not, then I will send against thee kings and legions and horsemen. The kings are the beasts of the field; the horsemen, the birds of the air; the armies, demons and spirits; while the legions are nightmares, which will strangle you in your beds.' When the Queen had read this, she rent her clothes and sent for the elders and lords and said : ' Do you know what King Solomon has sent me ? ' They said : ' We neither know him, nor heed him.' But the Queen did not trust them, but called for ships and sent presents to the king, and after three years she went herself. When the king heard that she had come, he seated himself in a glass room.. She thought the king was sitting in the water, and bared herself to go through it. When she saw his magnificence, she 'said : l ' Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne ......

to do judgment and justice.' " We must forgive Muhammad the two slight changes he makes in the story, viz., that he turns the matter from one of government into one of

1 Kings, x. 9.