Traditions of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon
The many traditions concerning the Queen of Sheba and Solomon—together and alone—are important underpinnings of the midrashic story. A talmudic passage of earlier composition than the midrash states: “Whoever says that the Queen of [malkat] Sheba was a woman is in error; the word malkat here means the kingdom of [malkhut] Sheba.”33 Later, Kabbalah and seventeenth-century German Jewish folklore associate her with Lilith (a demon said to have been Adam’s first wife).34 The two traditions seem quite different. The first depersonalizes the biblical encounter, transforming the foreign queen to a (de-feminized) political entity. The second transforms the biblical queen to a prototypical she-demon.35 Both, however, may be rooted in or may be addressing postbiblical traditions in which the Queen of Sheba was perceived as a demon or as possessing demonic qualities.36 Thus, the Talmud’s curious erasure of the queen may be responding to this very tradition—which surfaces later—and its possible negative ramifications regarding Solomon.
The Targum sheni describes the queen’s meeting with Solomon. It tells us how Solomon, famous throughout the world for his wealth and great wisdom, holds a banquet for the kings of the East and of the West. He also invites all the beasts, the spirits, and the demons, who dance before him. The wild cock of the woods does not attend. To atone for his rude absence, he tells the king about the place that he has just visited: a wonderful country with silver-paved streets and gardens watered from paradise, ruled by a woman. The cock suggests that Solomon summon the exotic queen. The king sends the wild cock to summon her, supplying him with an escort of birds who darken the skies of Qitor, the queen’s kingdom. Solomon also supplies the cock with a threatening letter, in which he informs her, among other things, that since his army is composed of spirits and demons, he can inflict upon her and her kingdom a grave disaster if she refuses his invitation. After sending a preliminary expedition of six thousand boys and girls who look alike and who are dressed uniformly (as in the third riddle in Midrash Mishle), she arrives in Jerusalem, where she finds Solomon sitting in a glass house. Since she mistakenly believes him to be sitting in water, she rolls up her dress. It is then that her hairy legs are revealed to Solomon. Addressing her, he says: “Thy beauty is that of women and your hair is that of men; hair is becoming of a man and disgraceful for a woman” (chapter 3). Ignoring his last comment, she presents him with three riddles, all of which he solves. She is taken to his palace, where she witnesses his wealth, hands him gifts, and receives what she asks for.37
The queen’s hirsute legs are significant. They allude to her demonic nature—hairiness is a common attribute of witches in folklore.38 Arabic traditions state explicitly that the Queen of Sheba is a daughter of demons. According to these traditions, the king’s advisers oppose his marrying the queen, since they know that she is a demon. Knowing this, they realize that she must have hairy legs. For Solomon, the queen’s hairy legs signal a reprehensible gender-crossing; in other traditions, she is explicitly demonic. Whether labeled “manlike” or a demon, she is clearly perceived as defying set categories.
The Quran (Sura 27, “The Ants”) places the Queen of Sheba’s visit in the context of Solomon’s summoning sun worshipers to his palace. They are brought there to meet the king, who is a prophet of Allah, so that they will come to believe in the true God. In this version, Solomon also receives the queen in a glass palace, which she mistakes for water. She tucks up her skirts, but there is no mention of her hairy legs. But Solomon’s ruse and the queen’s misapprehension display his superiority over her. Commentators on the Quranic story elaborate on this meeting of sovereigns, drawing on the biblical narrative, oral Jewish or Christian traditions, or, it seems likely, folk materials that circulated in Arab culture. Al-Tabari (839–923) adds to the Quran’s version that the djinns, fearing that Solomon intended to marry the Queen of Sheba, tell him about her hairy legs. After devising the glass-house trick and seeing that the accusation was valid, he orders the djinns to prepare a special depilatory ointment.39 A later commentator, al-Thalabi (first half of the eleventh century), offers a different tale, according to which the Queen of Sheba is the only daughter of a king. When the king dies, there is strong opposition to her accession to the throne. She then marries the rival claimant. But on their wedding night, she cuts off his head and takes his place as ruler.40
The Tales of Ben Sira presents one episode from the tale of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba: Solomon’s sitting in “water,” the rolling up of the dress, the exposure of the hairy legs, and the depilatory ointment (the last serving as the link to the subsequent episode in the Tales of Ben Sira).41 This version adds that Nebuchadnezzar is a descendant of Solomon, exemplifying the idea expressed in the verse: “Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee” (Isa. 49:17).42
The Queen of Sheba is also well known in Christian traditions. Here, it is important to point out that even the allegorical interpretation of the story (that is, the meeting of the rulers) is based on another familiar allegorical model: the meeting is a unification of bride and groom. In this view, the king and queen may be perceived as analogous to Christ and the Church.43 Christian traditions are perhaps less relevant to our study, since we are focusing on Midrash Mishle, which was probably redacted in a Muslim environment.
The Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon captured the imagination of many storytellers. The examples given here underline a few aspects shared by the different traditions that may have been circulating at the time of our text. The Queen of Sheba stands out as a demonic power embodying an erotic threat; the riddles are part of her arsenal. All the different traditions (excluding the Quran) have a strong erotic charge—whether explicit or implicit.
It is difficult to trace the origins of these stories. We have seen that the biblical text, too, conceals great tensions; in this sense, it could be a censored version of bawdier traditions, as well as an inspiring basis for later developments. The Targum sheni seems to disclose Arabic or Muslim influences, which may have been initially inspired by Jewish sources. However, the issue of source and influence is not essential to our discussion. The point to be made is that these traditions existed in the period of Midrash Mishle’s composition and that they perceived the Queen of Sheba to be a threatening force: erotic, chaotic, and possibly demonic. To this should be added that all the traditions include stories about the queen being an infidel whose meeting with Solomon underlines the superiority of the true religion that he represents.
Solomon is, of course, a prominent figure in Jewish and Arabic traditions. The Jewish tradition praises his wisdom (including esoteric knowledge), which excelled that of all the inhabitants of the East. Some rabbinic traditions, unlike the Bible, do not mention his esoteric wisdom and even provide a rational explanation for it by emphasizing his wisdom as a judge, which finds its expression in a series of trials (Tanḥuma Buber, Ḥuqqat 15). Similarly, his rabbinical wisdom is stressed, and he is credited with being the author of three books: Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. In addition to being the wisest of men, he is also the richest king, and his dominion stretches far. Unfortunately, his later days are very different from his bright promising beginning: “At first, Solomon reigned over the higher beings…. Afterward, he reigned over the lower…. And still later, he reigned only over his couch…. And finally, he reigned over his cane” (bSanhedrin 20b). Solomon is accused of having committed three sins: having too many wives, too many horses, and too much gold and silver. His attraction to women is stressed as the main reason for his downfall and for the future destruction of the Temple.44 Solomon’s penchant for marrying foreign women is an issue over which three of the rabbis in the Palestinian Talmud disagree.45 The lengthy debate indicates that this point in Solomon’s biography was considered by the rabbis to be highly problematic.
An additional theme—one central to the legends that surround Solomon’s figure—is his connections