Solomon the leg man: and she (pulled up her dress,) exposing her legs

we know that solomon had a special connection with birds. they were his interlocutors
and he ran a tight ship of aviary fleets, who kept his most trusted secrets,
flew in formation alongside his flying pavilion which conveyed him to the end of the earth,

Anddddd -- his birds helped him get his chicks.

Solomon has been known throughout tradition as a wise man and a womans man womens man, actually.


from bible to brecht -- and don't forget kurt weill the liturgist


This nexus has come down by tradition hailing from the biblical Song of Solomon (aka Song of Songs)
all the way down to the liturgy of Kurt Weill (with scripture of bert brecht), Salomons Song.

! give below one first an amateur homespun performance:

http:ffwww.youtube.comfwatch?v=fzRaFeAGOac

[[digression: i spare you a homespun amateur performance by yours truly,
due to a shoulder injury of my in-house accompanyist, and, even i have my red lines of propriety.
Ute Lemper does a good spiel, but shes not a populist, and its not on youtube.

varia Lectio for all elitists, is THE version by Lotte Lenya:

http:ffwww.youtube.comfwatch?v=nRythd6SNkU8playnext=18list=PL8E1+6+8776F903BD

now, for all you lyric junkies like myself:

!hr saht den weisen Salomo,
ihr wit, was aus ihm wurd!
Dem Nann war alles Sonnenklar.
Er verfluchte die Stunde seiner Geburt
und sah, da alles eitel war.

Wie gro und weis war Salomon!
Und seht, da war es noch nicht Nacht,
da sah die Welt die Folgen schon:
die Weisheit hatte ihn so weit gebracht -
Beneidenswert, wer frei davon!

(in english, the marianne faithfull version:

You saw the wise man Salomon,
You know what 'came of him.
To him the world seemed clear as day,
He cursed the sad hour that he saw the sign,
He knew that everything was dust.
How great and wise was Salomon!
Watch out the world is spinning fast
The night will fall, the price we'll pay
Such wisdom's not all it's cracked up to be,
So let us praise such clarity.)

End of digression ||

to recap: solomons profile: leg man, womens man, wise man, and into smart chicks
(weve been threading about this recently on fb), resourceful inventive man

Solomons most well-known paramour was the Queen of Sheba, aka Bilqis.
Her story is told from many angles, a narratological minefield for some, a goldmine for others.

We will be taking a peek at the upward angle, from the perspective of popular culture,
starting as we did with WeillfBrechts cabaret, and including the Tales of the Prophets genre (qisas al-
anbiya ),
the AlexanderRomance, and a quickie visit to 1001 nites.

the qur'anic allusion
But lets start with a respectable source also a highly poetic, allusive, and elegantly elliptic one:
the Quranic version, which eclectically skips around the materials of the fabula,
and frames its narrative of the love story within the format of a moral exemplum.
The key verses are 27 (naml) 16-17:

16.
[27:16| Solomon was David's heir. He said, "O people, we have been endowed with understanding the
language of the birds, and all kinds of things have been bestowed upon us. This is indeed a real blessing."
_,.oI _sI I i _. _ _o l.,. ,LI _L.o l.oIc l.I l, l, l lo,I.

17.
[27:17| Nobilized in the service of Solomon were his obedient soldiers of jinns and humans, as well as the
birds; all at his disposal.
.> lo,I.I .> c, , ,LI _.\ _>I _o e

And

44.
[27:++| She was told, "Go inside the palace." When she saw its interior, she thought it was a pool of water,
and she (pulled up her dress,) exposing her legs. He said, "This interior is now paved with crystal." She said,
"Ny Lord, ! have wronged my soul. ! now submit with Solomon to GOD, Lord of the universe."
.oIL _. .Il , _o oo . l l,l. _c .s. >I ...> . loI I _I> lI _,
lo,I. o .oI. _.s. _,oIlaI

(taken from this file, which has the full sura: http:ffwww.submission.orgfefarsifarabicfsura27.html


And for those who want the uncut version performed live, here goes:


http:ffwww.youtube.comfwatch?v=JmOna-LkQYQ

! am not a professional reciter (qari), so those pedants among you, as well as those with a musical ear will
prefer, as ! do, the following, performed by the qari al-afsy (however the captioned translation is more than
the lyrics it includes exegetical additions):
http:ffwww.youtube.comfwatch?v=-SwEORf!UOQ8feature=related

the plot summary
To cut a long story even shorter than the quranic version did, sulayman woos bilqis
(aka Queen of Sheba) in a flirtatious exchange of letters (hey fb users, sound familiar? :PPP ),
which he sends to her through his most trusted bird in the flock, the hoopoe (aka hudhud).

Like any byzantine court, this one is rife with intrigue, and the djinn, also part of Solomons retinue,
feel threatened by Bilqis, fearing she would take over, and they would never gain their freedom.

They scheme for Solomon to be repelled by her. How does a jinn manoeuvre?
Just like a jealous or insecure woman would do, to get her guy to go off another woman:
Bring to his attention any and all offputting details, knowing what his pet peeves are.
So the jinn grind into solomons head the nagging doubt about bilqis legs,
in some versions they suggest her feet are cloven; in others that her legs are hairy.
!n any case, all this proves that sulayman is your garden variety leg man.

None of this is in the quranic scripture; all we have is the tip of the iceberg, a footnote as it were,
to the narrative of how the prophet sulayman seduces bilqis the heathen queen
(who prostrate before the sun _o.II i>., aya 2+) into the fold of islam:
She was told, "Go inside the palace." When she saw its interior, she thought it was a pool of water,

and she (pulled up her dress,) exposing her legs. He said, "This interior is now paved with crystal."

She said, "Ny Lord, ! have wronged my soul. ! now submit with Solomon to GOD, Lord of the universe."

the popular lore; 'stories of the prophets' (qisas al-anbiya')
The more popular source, tales of the prophets, (aka qisas al-anbiya) gives us the lowdown,
what narratologists would call zooming in of this whole leg affair.
! quote from the version of Thalabi (conveniently tr. !nto English by William Brinner)
now the episode called about the tale of bilqis, queen of sheba, the hoopoe,
and everything related to it [including the thief, his wife and her lover j.k. DS|
is 18 pages long in brinners translation.

Thalabis narrative is held together by the quranic verses. !t is a sort of anecdotal exegesis.
verse ++ is quoted, the request that bilqis go inside the palace. And then the traditional explanation:


that was because solomon, when bilqis drew near, had issued orders to the devils, and they had built for him
a palatial pavilion of glass, clear as water, and had made water flow beneath it, and had placed fish in the
water. Then he placed his throne above it, and sat upon it, and the birds, the jinn, and the human beings
crowded around him. He had ordered his pavilion to be built only because the devils had said to one another:
God has given Solomon certain things in servitude and should Solomon marry Bilqis the queen of Sheba, and
she give birth to a boy, then we sill never be set free from slavery and servitude. So they wanted to make
her loathsome to him, and said: Her foot is an asss foot, and she has hairy legs, because her mother was a
jinni. Solomon wanted to know the truth, and to see her feet and her legs so he built the pavilion.
when she saw it, she thought it was a deep sea a large body of waterso she uncovered her legs to
wade through it to solomon. And solomon looked, and lo, she had the most beautiful legs and feet, except
that her legs were hairy. When solomon saw that, he turned his eyes away, and called out to her that it was
only a pavilioin paved with glassand not water.


The intellectual challenge
What comes next in the qisas in the plot is about solomon the wise, not solomon the leg man,
and is in fact more interesting: a scene of bilqis quizzing, riddling, and challenging solomon and his wits,
capping it with a question about how his lord exists.


The first inventor (awwal man)

After solomon seduces bilqis to islam, and solomon wished to marry her, but when he considered it, he was
repelled by the abundance of hair solomon consulted with all his subjects. The humans suggested the razor,
and the devils lied saying they have no advice.
however, when he pressed them, they said we shall change it for you so that her legs shall be like white
silver.
Then they prepared for her a depilatory paste and a bath. !bn abbas has said that that was the first day when
depilatory paste was seen. Then solomon married her. !bn Naymunah informed me with his chain of
transmission from Abu Nusa, reaching back to the prophet, who said: The first one to use a bath-house was
Solomon

!t is not surprising that such a cultural hero as solomon would be credited with a civilizing invention;
such firsts (awail) are attributed to cultural v!Ps,
and conversely having an invention in his cv upgrades a prophet or other figure to the status of cultural hero;
ibrahim is credited with most inventions to do with hygeine and toiletry
(e.g. the toothpick, circumscision, manicure, etc.).

!n fact in the invention literature (e.g. thaalibis lataif al-maarif de jong ed. 1907, p.6),
solomon is credited as the introducer of four things: the millstone, the bath, depilatories, and soap
( L,Ic a. _,sI. l. _Ic ..l .I i>. _o ,c _. lo,I. lo>I l>I i>. _o
_.>... _.s... ... .lI i>. _o ,c )

All erotic roads lead to gamos, especially in myths

(aka khurft wa-ikyt al-adth, aka bubbeh maises):

According to thalabis qissa, solomon and bilqis lived happily ever after
in a long-distance commuter relationship:

they say that when he married her, solomon loved her deeply, and reestablished her in her realm.
solomon would visit her once every month, and would stay with her for three days..
-- in an alternate version, when bilqis converted to islam solomon became her yenta and told her to get
married. she thought a woman ruling over a realm cannot marry a man, yet solomon insisted, and found her
a consort.

Bilqis & solomon :: Candace & Alexander the Great
Now, this popular lore which is read between the lines of the quranic verses,
as for example in the qisas al-anbiya literature, is common currency
for describing other comparable mythical heroes. Or so one would think.
!n fact what ! would like to emphasize here is the appearance
of beautiful literary influences in the narratives and anecdotes in the quran itself,
which, miraculous as it is, does not receive enough attention as a work of belles lettres,
and of wondrous stories (..c ..l>c),
which is a more flattering term for myths than .,i>I l,l> l>.

!t is a well established and much studied argument

that the portrayal of alexander (dhu l-qarnain) in the quran is traceable

to his portrayal in the alexander romance genre.
my esteemed mantiq e tayr teacher yulia and i have been independently thinking
about the alexfsol connections, she in the persian literary tradition, in the context of her research on
alexander,
and i with regard to the persona of solomon and ekphrastic descriptions of his throne,
and models in the greek romance genre.

i offer a fascinating parallel to the scene of bilqis walk on the mirrored floor
verse +3 of sura 27 (recorded in the 7th century AD)
with alexanders walk on the mirrored floor of the palace of Kandake, queen of Neroe,
in one unusual variant of the lambda recension of the Alexander Romance
(dated by Stoneman to you got it! 7th century AD):

! saw the floor of the palace like waves of water. ! stood and gazed at such brightness.
! went in with the eunuchs to the queen and ! lifted up my robes, thinking that ! was walking over water.
As ! later realized, water was running below and paving and dripping down from above:
for the paving was of alabaster. When Candace sawme lifting my robes she smiled.
She recognized me from my appearance (transl. richard stoneman).

Alexander encounters smart women (like candace who outwits him),
and strong women (like the amazons in the very next episode in the alexander romance).
Candace, though still beautiful, is portrayed as an older woman, old enough to be alexanders mother.

!n fact in stark contrast to the all the action in the ancient greek novel,
the alexander romance is characterized by a jarring absence of sex.
! dont think alexander can be analogously labelled a leg man.

And this brings me to the final station of this little trek, with sore legs from all the footwork:
playfulness aside, its not just about being a leg man; its about being into smart women.

Solomon into smart women:
!n passages we didnt dwell on in the tradition,
both alexander and solomon are quizzed and riddled and challenged by sharpminded women.
!n the passage from the alexander romance, alex is outwitted when he tries to trick candace by visiting her in
disguise, but gets discovered because of a picture she has of him, and in general loses in the contest of wits.

!t involves lifting his robes. !n the romance of sulayman and bilqis,

towards the climax, before bilqis is symbolically outwitted,

(actually solomon is outwitted by his jinns, who cause him to see her hairy legs), she pulls up her dress.


The symbolism of taking off an article of clothing in a war of wits: the case of tawaddud
!n these analogous (even if reversed) narratives, the outwitted contestant is described as lifting hisfher robe.
This is not a cheap detail of indecent exposure;
rather, a ritual act by which a loser in a debating match or a contest of knowledge exposes his loss,
his submission to the winner, by taking off his robe.
!t is repeatedly elaborated, in each of the 6 victories of the 1+ year old geisha tawaddud,
the description of whose beauty takes up a whole night more or less (i won't tell you guys which one)

in a public spectacle of a 6-ring debating act (a mega-munazara)

who in the court of harun al-rashid vanquishes one by one
(from nights +38-+57 or thereabouts in the 1001 nights)
(1) a theologian, (2) a law expert, (3) a quran expert, (+) a physician, (5) an astologer, and
(6) the illustrious philosopher al-nazzam.


Here is the translation of Burton

(a leg man of sorts himself, who was the canonical translator of the kama sutra from sanskrit into victorian
english):
http:ffwww.wollamshram.caf1001fvol_5ftale113.htm

Each debate begins with the contestant vaunting his expertise
(and tawaddud vaunting hers as well as her confidence that she will come out on top).
Each humiliating defeat is described including some combination of
a profession of defeat, taking off a robe, and scurrying off in shame.

life is a cabaret old chum,
Nay the smartest woman win.