Solomon and Solomonic LiteratureConway, Moncure Daniel
History
Solomon and Solomonic Literature
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Hebrew literature -- History and criticism; Solomon, King of Israel
And it is further said, "Each (leaf) will subdue devils." In a
profounder vein Solomon says: "All Evil is from Fate; yet a wise-minded
man may moderate every fate with self-help, help of friends, and the
divine spirit."
In Prospero burying his Book, Shakespeare seems to have followed
the rabbinical legend that after Solomon by his written formulas had
made the devils serve him, in building the temple and other works,
he resolved to practice magic no more, and buried his book. But the
devils said to the people, "he only ruled you by his book," and pointed
out where it was hidden; so they left the prophets and followed magic.
At what time the notion arose that Solomon had demonic familiars does
not appear, but the story in 1 Kings iii. of the gift of wisdom has
some appearance of a reclamation for the deity of a credit that was
popularly ascribed to a rival power. However this may be, there is
a popular habit of tracing unusual human performances to Satan. As I
write this paragraph (in Paris) I note a theatrical placard announcing
"les sataniques devins" of Williany de Torre, a man who cries out the
name and address you secretly select in the Paris Directory. Why not
advertise the divinations as "angelic" instead of satanic? The heavenly
beings have somehow no great reputation for cleverness. Probably
this is due to the long association of intellectuality and science
with heresy.
The late Lord Lytton ("Owen Meredith") wrote a brief poem on a
version given him by Robert Browning of the story in my Preface,
of Solomon leaning on his staff long after he was dead: a worm gnaws
the end of the staff and Solomon falls, crumbled to dust, and nothing
left visible but his crown. A poem by Leigh Hunt, "The Inevitable"
(in some editions, "The Angel of Death"), tells of a man who, in
terror of Death, entreats Solomon to transport him to the remotest
mountain of Cathay. Solomon does so.
"Solomon wished and the man vanished straight;
Up comes the Terror, with his orbs of fate:
'Solomon,' with a lofty voice said he,
'How came that man here, wasting time with thee?
I was to fetch him ere the close of day,
From the remotest mountain of Cathay.'
Solomon said, bowing him to the ground,
'Angel of death, there will the man be found.'"
The story of the Fall of Man, in Genesis, so fascinated Schopenhauer
that he was ready to forgive the Bible all its blunders. The whole
world, said the great pessimist, looks like a vast accumulation of
evil developed from some absurdly small misstep. And this misstep
was precisely in accord with the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who says
that the great mistake of the universe is "consciousness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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