Just so stories
Suleiman-bin-Daoud I don’t mind putting things right.’
So he stamped once more, and that instant the Djinns let down the Palace
and the gardens, without even a bump. The sun shone on the dark-green
orange leaves; the fountains played among the pink Egyptian lilies; the
birds went on singing, and the Butterfly’s Wife lay on her side under
the camphor-tree waggling her wings and panting, ‘Oh, I’ll be good! I’ll
be good!’
Suleiman-bin-Daolld could hardly speak for laughing. He leaned back all
weak and hiccoughy, and shook his finger at the Butterfly and said, ‘O
great wizard, what is the sense of returning to me my Palace if at the
same time you slay me with mirth!’
Then came a terrible noise, for all the nine hundred and ninety-nine
Queens ran out of the Palace shrieking and shouting and calling for
their babies. They hurried down the great marble steps below the
fountain, one hundred abreast, and the Most Wise Balkis went statelily
forward to meet them and said, ‘What is your trouble, O Queens?’
They stood on the marble steps one hundred abreast and shouted, ‘What is
our trouble? We were living peacefully in our golden palace, as is our
custom, when upon a sudden the Palace disappeared, and we were left
sitting in a thick and noisome darkness; and it thundered, and Djinns
and Afrits moved about in the darkness! That is our trouble, O Head
Queen, and we are most extremely troubled on account of that trouble,
for it was a troublesome trouble, unlike any trouble we have known.’
Then Balkis the Most Beautiful Queen--Suleiman-bin-Daoud’s Very Best
Beloved--Queen that was of Sheba and Sable and the Rivers of the Gold
of the South--from the Desert of Zinn to the Towers of Zimbabwe--Balkis,
almost as wise as the Most Wise Suleiman-bin-Daoud himself, said, ‘It
is nothing, O Queens! A Butterfly has made complaint against his
wife because she quarrelled with him, and it has pleased our Lord
Suleiman-bin-Daoud to teach her a lesson in low-speaking and humbleness,
for that is counted a virtue among the wives of the butterflies.’
Then up and spoke an Egyptian Queen--the daughter of a Pharoah--and she
said, ‘Our Palace cannot be plucked up by the roots like a leek for the
sake of a little insect. No! Suleiman-bin-Daoud must be dead, and what
we heard and saw was the earth thundering and darkening at the news.’
Then Balkis beckoned that bold Queen without looking at her, and said to
her and to the others, ‘Come and see.’
They came down the marble steps, one hundred abreast, and beneath his
camphor-tree, still weak with laughing, they saw the Most Wise King
Suleiman-bin-Daoud rocking back and forth with a Butterfly on either
hand, and they heard him say, ‘O wife of my brother in the air, remember
after this, to please your husband in all things, lest he be provoked to
stamp his foot yet again; for he has said that he is used to this magic,
and he is most eminently a great magician--one who steals away the very
Palace of Suleirnan-bin-Daoud himself. Go in peace, little folk!’ And he
kissed them on the wings, and they flew away.
Then all the Queens except Balkis--the Most Beautiful and Splendid
Balkis, who stood apart smiling--fell flat on their faces, for they
said, ‘If these things are done when a Butterfly is displeased with
his wife, what shall be done to us who have vexed our King with our
loud-speaking and open quarrelling through many days?’
Then they put their veils over their heads, and they put their hands
over their mouths, and they tiptoed back to the Palace most mousy-quiet.
Then Balkis--The Most Beautiful and Excellent Balkis--went forward
through the red lilies into the shade of the camphor-tree and laid
her hand upon Suleiman-bin-Daoud’s shoulder and said, ‘O my Lord and
Treasure of my Soul, rejoice, for we have taught the Queens of Egypt and
Ethiopia and Abyssinia and Persia and India and China with a great and a
memorable teaching.’
And Suleiman-bin-Daoud, still looking after the Butterflies where they
played in the sunlight, said, ‘O my Lady and Jewel of my Felicity, when
did this happen? For I have been jesting with a Butterfly ever since I
came into the garden.’ And he told Balkis what he had done.
Balkis--The tender and Most Lovely Balkis--said, ‘O my Lord and Regent
of my Existence, I hid behind the camphor-tree and saw it all. It was I
who told the Butterfly’s Wife to ask the Butterfly to stamp, because I
hoped that for the sake of the jest my Lord would make some great magic
and that the Queens would see it and be frightened.’ And she told him
what the Queens had said and seen and thought.
Then Suleiman-bin-Daoud rose up from his seat under the camphor-tree,
and stretched his arms and rejoiced and said, ‘O my Lady and Sweetener
of my Days, know that if I had made a magic against my Queens for the
sake of pride or anger, as I made that feast for all the animals, I
should certainly have been put to shame. But by means of your wisdom
I made the magic for the sake of a jest and for the sake of a little
Butterfly, and--behold--it has also delivered me from the vexations of
my vexatious wives! Tell me, therefore, O my Lady and Heart of my Heart,
how did you come to be so wise?’ And Balkis the Queen, beautiful and
tall, looked up into Suleiman-bin-Daoud’s eyes and put her head a little
on one side, just like the Butterfly, and said, ‘First, O my Lord,
because I loved you; and secondly, O my Lord, because I know what
women-folk are.’
Then they went up to the Palace and lived happily ever afterwards.
But wasn’t it clever of Balkis?
THERE was never a Queen like Balkis,
From here to the wide world’s end;
But Balkis talked to a butterfly
As you would talk to a friend.
There was never a King like Solomon,
Not since the world began;
But Solomon talked to a butterfly
As a man would talk to a man.
She was Queen of Sabaea--
And he was Asia’s Lord--
But they both of ‘em talked to butterflies
When they took their walks abroad!