I, and three hundred
concubines, and virgins without number have I known; but thou, my timid
one, art my only one,--thou fairest among women. I have found thee like
as a diver in the Gulf of Persia, that filleth a great number of baskets
with barren shells and pearls of little price, ere he get from the bed
of the sea a pearl worthy a king's crown. My child, a man may love
thousands of times, yet he loveth but once. People without number think
they love, yet only to two of them doth God send love. And when thou
didst yield thyself up to me among the cypresses, under the rafters of
cedars, upon the bed of green, I did with all my soul render thanks to
God, so gracious to me."

Sulamith also asked once:

"I know that they all loved thee, for not to love thee is impossible.
The Queen of Sheba did come to thee from her domain. They say, that she
was the wisest and fairest of all women that had ever been on earth. As
in a dream, I recall her caravans. I know not why, but since my earliest
childhood I have been drawn to the chariots of the great. I was then
perhaps seven, perhaps eight. I remember the camels in golden harness,
covered with caparisons of purple, laden with heavy burthens; I remember
the mules with the little bells of gold between their ears; I remember
the droll monkeys in silvern cages; and the wondrous peacocks. There was
a multitude of servants in garments of white and blue, marching; they
led tame tigers and panthers upon ribbands of red. I was but eight
then."

"O child, thou wert but eight then," said Solomon with sadness.

"Didst thou love her more than me, Solomon? Wilt tell me something of
her?"

And the king told her all pertaining to this amazing woman. Having heard
much of the wisdom and beauty of the King of Israel, she had come to him
from her domain with rich gifts, desiring to prove his wisdom and subdue
his heart. This was a magnificent woman of forty, who was already
beginning to fade. But through secret, magic means she contrived to make
her body, that was growing flabby, seem graceful and supple, like a
girl's, while her face bore an impress of an awesome, inhuman beauty.
But her wisdom was ordinary wisdom, and the petty wisdom of a woman to
boot.

Desiring to test the king with riddles, she at first sent to him fifty
youths of tenderest age, and fifty maidens. They were all so cunningly
dressed that the keenest eye could not have discerned their sex. "I
shall call thee wise, O King