Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends
Then Solomon was driven, at her cry, from the palace, and every one
treated him as a fool or rogue. He begged from door to door, saying, “I,
Solomon, was king in Jerusalem!” but the people mocked him. For three
years he was an outcast, because he had transgressed three precepts of
the Law—“The king set over thee ... shall not multiply horses to himself
... neither shall he multiply wives to himself; neither shall he greatly
multiply to himself silver and gold.”[679] And this is what befell him
in that time. He went into the land of the Ammonites, and there he fell
into great want; but the master cook of the king’s house took him to
serve as scullion in the kitchen. After he had served for some time, he
one day cooked some meats for the king; and when the king tasted the
meats Solomon had baked, he was well pleased, and sent for Solomon and
asked him if he would be his head cook.
Then Solomon consented, and the king of the Ammonites dismissed the
master cook, and placed Solomon in his room, and Solomon excelled
greatly in cooking, and pleased the king more and more with the variety
and excellence of his dishes every day.
Now it fell out that Naama, daughter of the king, saw Solomon from day
to day, and she conceived an ardent passion for him, and she went to her
mother and said, “I shall die of love, unless I am given the head cook
to husband.”
The queen was astonished and ashamed, and said, “There are kings and
princes and nobles in Ammon; take to you which you will.” But Naama
answered, “I will have none save the head cook.”
Then the queen went and told the king, and he was exceeding wrath, and
would have slain both Solomon and Naama; but when the first fury of his
anger was cooled down, he bade one of his servants take them, both
Solomon and Naama, and conduct them into the desert, and there leave
them to perish.[680] The command of the king was executed, and Solomon
and Naama were left in the wilderness without food. Then they wandered
on till they came to the borders of the sea, and Solomon found some
fishers, and he laboured for them, and every day they gave him, in
payment for his services, two fish.
Thus passed the time, till one day Solomon’s wife, Naama, on cleaning
one of the fishes, found in its belly a ring, and she brought it to her
husband; and, behold! it was his signet which he had put in the hands of
Djarada, and which had been taken from her by subtlety by the evil
spirit. And this was how he recovered it: on the ring was engraved the
Incommunicable Name, and this the Jinn could not endure; therefore he
could not wear the signet, and he had cast it into the sea, where the
fish had swallowed it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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