Queen of Sheba


*The queen of Sheba and Solomon*

Portraits of Mekada, the Queen of Sheba appear in the Bible and the Kebra Negast. According to Ethiopian legend, she was born in 1020 B.C. in Ophir, and educated in Ethiopia. Her mother was Queen Ismenie; her father, chief minister to Za Sebado, succeeded him as King.

One story describes that as a child Sheba (called Makeda) was to be sacrificed to a serpent god, but was rescued by the stranger 'Angaboo. Later, her pet jackal bit her badly on one foot and leg, leaving lasting scars and deformity. When her father died in 1005 B.C., Sheba became Queen at the age of fifteen. Contradictory legends refer to her as ruling for forty years, and reigning as a virgin queen for six years. In most accounts, she never married.

Sheba was known to be beautiful (despite her ankle and leg), intelligent, understanding, resourceful, and adventurous. A gracious queen, she had a melodious voice and was an eloquent speaker. Excelling in public relations and international diplomacy, she was a also competent ruler. The historian Josephus said of her, "she was inquisitive into philosophy and on that and on other accounts also was to be admired."

Power and riches could not satisfy Sheba's soul, for she possessed an ardent hunger for truth and wisdom. Before her visit to Solomon, she says to her people:

"I desire wisdom and my heart seeketh to find understanding. I am smitten with the love of wisdom.... for wisdom is far better than treasure of gold and silver... It is sweeter than honey, and it maketh one to rejoice more than wine, and it illumineth more than the sun.... It is a source of joy for the heart, and a bright and shining light for the eyes, and a giver of speed to the feet, and a shield for the breast, and a helmet for the head... It makes the ears to hear and hearts to understand."

"...And as for a kingdom, it cannot stand without wisdom, and riches cannot be preserved without wisdom.... He who heapeth up gold and silver doeth so to no profit without wisdom, but he who heapeth up wisdom - no man can filch it from his heart... I will follow the footprints of wisdom and she shall protect me forever. I will seek asylum with her, and she shall be unto me power and strength."
"Let us seek her, and we shall find her; let us love her, and she will not withdraw herself from us, let us pursue her, and we shall overtake her; let us ask, and we shall receive; and let us turn our hearts to her so that we may never forget her."

(Budge, Sir Ernest A. Wallis, translator, THE QUEEN OF SHEBA AND HER ONLY SUN MENYELEK, (THE KEBRA NEGAST), Oxford University Press, London, 1932, chapter 24.)


*Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba by PIERO della FRANCESCA*

Although an Ethiopian tale portrays Sheba and her prime minister dressed in man's clothes as they meet Solomon, most accounts describe her arriving bejewelled and draped in dazzling robes. Immediately, Solomon gave her a luxurious apartment in a palace next to his, and provided her with fruits, rose trees, silks, linens, tapestries, and 11 bewitching garments for each day of her visit. Daily, he sent her (and her 350 servants) 45 sacks of flour, 10 oxen, 5 bulls, 50 sheep (in addition to goats, deer, cows, gazelles, and chicken), wine, honey, fried locusts, rich sweets, and 25 singing men and women.

A gracious host, Solomon showed Sheba his gardens of rare flowers ornamented with pools and fountains, and the architectural splendors of his government buildings, temple and palace. She was awed by his work on the temple, by his great lion-throne and sandalwood staircase, and by his enormous brass basin carried by the twelve brass bulls which symbolized the twelve months of the year. She sought astronomical knowledge, for which he was known; Solomon had developed a new calendar which added an extra month every nineteen years.

Although impressed by Solomon's wealth, Sheba was more interested in his wisdom. Not only did Sheba ask Solomon philosophical questions; she also tested him with riddles. The Targum Sheni, Midrash Mischle, and Midrash Hachefez describe twenty two of her riddles:

"What is it? An enclosure with ten doors; when one is open, nine are shut, and when nine are open, one is shut," Sheba asked Solomon.

Solomon answered, "The enclosure is the womb, and the ten doors are the ten orifices of man, namely his eyes, his ears, his nostrils, his mouth, the apertures for discharge of excreta and urine, and the navel. When the child is still in its mother's womb, the navel is open, but all the other apertures are shut, but when the child issues from the womb the navel is closed and the other orifices are open."

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In another riddle pertaining to the body, Sheba posed to Solomon, "Seven leave and nine enter; two pour out the draught and only one drinks."
How did Solomon respond? "Seven are the days of woman's menstruation, nine the months of her pregnancy; her two breasts nourish the child, and one drinks."


*Mekada visiting Solomon*

Solomon also challenged Sheba. Yet existing legends describe only a few of the artful strategies he used to outwit her. Determined to discover if the stories of her deformed foot were true, he arranged for a stream of water to flow onto the glass beside his throne (in the Qu'ran, he had running water with fish swimming about it under clear glass), so that Sheba would lift her skirts as she approached him. When she did so, he noted the hair on her legs, and told her, "Thy beauty is the beauty of a woman, but they hair is masculine; hair is an ornament to a man, but it disfigures a woman." He then invented a depilatory in order to acquaint her with his conceptions of womanhood.

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I Kings tells us:
"And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built, and the food of his table, and the attendance of his ministers...she said to the King `It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it; thou hast wisdom and prosperity exceeding the fame which I heard. Happy are thy men...that stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom.'"

Ethiopian and Arabian accounts explicitly refer to sexual relations between Solomon and Sheba. The Kebra Negast describes that "he pondered in his heart, `A woman of such splendid beauty hath come to me from the ends of the earth! What do I know? Will God give me seed in her?'" He desired her, and she likewise may have desired him, but because she sought to retain her virginity in order to reign as queen, she refused him. After six months together, when Sheba contemplated leaving, he begged her to stay, and asked her to marry him. But she declined, most likely because she was committed to her own people, and was also unwilling to be a wife to a polygamous man, in a society where women had few rights, but before she left,according to some accounts, she willingly gave in and became pregnant with his son.

Sheba may have been Solomon's lover, but she did not become his wife or remain with him much longer. After she had visited him for six months, she chose to return to her own country. Before she left, she gave Solomon 120 talents of gold (10 million dollars), precious stones and spices in great abundance, and highly prized sandalwood for his temple.


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Legendary Ladies:The Mortal Women of Mythology and History

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