The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek
9781465577016
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
WHEN the English translation of the "Book of the Glory of Kings" appeared in 1922 it received a generous welcome from the gentlemen of the Press, and the approval of it by the public generally was shown by the fact that within two months from the day of publication a reprint was called for. The amusing and interesting character of the book which piles up fancy tales, fables, legends, folk-lore, dogma, mysticism and pious remarks on a substratum of historical fact was frankly admitted by all the reviewers, but a few of them raised the question of the historicity of the Book of the Glory of Kings. It must be said at once that we shall never know whether the queen who visited SOLOMON was a pure-blooded ABYSSINIAN or an Arab queen from YAMAN or HADRAMAUT or some other part of the great Arabian peninsula. But the tradition that some "Queen of the South" did visit SOLOMON is so old and so widespread, that a kernel of historical fact, however small, must be hidden somewhere in it. It would not surprise me if SIDNEY SMITH or C. J. GADD one day published in the great Corpus of cuneiform texts from the tablets in the BRITISH MUSEUM a Sumerian or Babylonian inscription telling how some great queen from latter-day INDIA paid a visit to a king of one of the city states like ETANA, or MESANNIPADDA or the great SARGON of AGADE, to be instructed in the wisdom and civilization of his day. The story of such a visit would be noised abroad among the nations around by the caravan men, and the scribes of the day would incorporate it in their historical romances. It is quite possible that the story of SOLOMON and the Queen of SHEBA is based upon one which is far older. Something like this has actually happened with the history of GILGAMISH, a king of URUK, in the Ethiopic history of the exploits of ALEXANDER THE GREAT. In the latter work the scribe tells us how the Macedonian king sought for the waters of life, and how he made his way through inpenetrable forests and arrived at the sea of the waters of death, and how he tried to fly up into heaven, &c., all of which is described in the Epic of GILGAMISH, the prototype of ALEXANDER to the scribe. The meeting of GILGAMISH with SIDURI the "SÂBITU" i.e. "inn-keeper" or "ale-wife" finds its counterpart in the meeting of ALEXANDER with ḲUNDÂḲÂ (CANDACE), the queen of ETHIOPIA, which country, by the way, ALEXANDER never invaded. ALEXANDER found such favour with ḲUNDÂḲÂ that she invited him to her private apartments and shared her bed with him. The beauty of ḲUNDÂḲÂ overcame ALEXANDER just as the beauty of MÂḲĔDÂ overcame SOLOMON, and it is possible that GILGAMISH fell a victim to the "ale-wife". The object of the Ethiopian scribe, ancient or modern, was to make a "good story", and he never allowed facts, or anachronisms, or names of persons or places, or even possibility or probability to hamper him.
