CHAPTER VI

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

1

One of the greatest controversies arising from the many perplexities bequeathed to posterity by the reign of Balkis has raged for centuries over the question of the real motive for her visit to Solomon, aside from her natural curiosity to see with her own eyes the most talked of man in Asia Minor. A controversy which has engaged the attention not only of scholars and historians, but of men in all walks of life in every period of the world's subsequent history; and has precipitated by far the larger portion of the world's bitterest disputes-if one is to accept the verdict of one of the most erudite investigators of all time.

Gossoon, to whom reference is of course made, in his Underlying Causes of History,' has given to society the fruit of his exhaustive, and, as he himself admits in his preface, exhausting researches into the actual wellsprings of the great schisms which have rent mankind at various times. And it is his unshakable conviction that the endless and acrimonious speculation concerning the Queen's voy

1A monumental work in twenty-four volumes now unfortunately out of print but obtainable in the more important libraries.

age is to be found at the roots of all these successive evils.

According to Gossoon 1".

"... one may attribute to this one factor, to cite only a few cases at random, the merciless enmity of Rome against Carthage, the murder of Julius Cæsar, the advance of Attila upon Western Europe, the invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror, the age-long strife between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the massacre of the Huguenots, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the departure of the Puritans from England, the American Revolution, the Reign of Terror, Napoleon's divorce of Josephine, and the downfall of at least nine French ministries.2

For generations the human race has fought, burned and slaughtered to settle this atrabilious dispute, and the end is not yet.

Three disinct schools of opinion had sprung into being at so early a period even as the First Crusade, and did much to disrupt the harmony of effort of those ventures, until finally in more modern times the irreconcilable differences between these groups became crystallized into definite phrontisteries of thought which demand a brief analysis.

1 Ch. 1, p. 2.

* This is denied by French authorities.

2

The first group, known as the Necessitarian School, whose greatest exponent is unquestionably Hornblower, hold to the theory that Balkis did not undertake the journey of her own accord, but was sent for by Solomon and coerced into convening with him; a belief expressed in their motto, Necessity is the mother of conventions. Among the really important partisans of this theory one finds Pontius Pilate, Ivan the Terrible, Martin Luther, Mary de Medici, Napoleon, Wagner, Lord Gladstone, Adelina Patti and George Washing

ton.

The second category, often spoken of as the Heroics, has numbered among its disciples such personalities as Confucius, Julius Caesar, Brian Boru, Lucrecia Borgia, Queen Elizabeth, Cardinal Richelieu, Frederick the Great, the Duke of Wellington, Bismarck, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron and Florence Nightingale.

They, on their side, profess to find in the famous journey a startling proof of statesmanship on the part of Balkis and her advisers. To their minds Balkis was a heroine and Shenanikin a paragon of diplomacy.

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The third class, usually referred to as the Abolitionists, a smaller clique of which, as might be expected, Heimweh is the acknowledged master, flatly deny that the visit to Solomon ever took place; or, if they grudgingly admit it in the face of scriptural testimony, it is only to assert that the visiting Queen was not Balkis but another. the more outstanding adherents to this view one may cite Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Abelard, Dante, Christopher Columbus, Montezuma, William Tell, Charlotte Corday, Lord Tennyson, Tolstoi and Queen Victoria.

3

Of

One need have no hesitation whatever in stating once and for all that all three of these schools are hopelessly in error.

One has only to go to Gaston Poteau for the explanation. What, as he himself points out, Diogenes really spent his life searching for and Archimedes actually discovered when he sprang from his bath shouting "Eureka," Poteau in turn unraveled. Without for a moment detracting from Gossoon's work, the truth of which he regretfully admits, the Frenchman utterly refutes Hornblower, Transom, Heimweh and the rest of them,

and all their tenets, and proves the correctness of his deductions beyond peradventure.1

Poteau rests his case on the testimony of Talmud, Shenanikin and Balkis herself.

In Talmud's diaries of the period under consideration he finds the following instructive passage :2

"Verily, the Queen suffers exceedingly from loss of sleep, pondering throughout the night over the questions which do so vex her mind. It is her wish to visit Solomon, to lay these perplexing matters before him, and while I do not believe that any lasting good will come of it I do encourage her in this determination, deeming the journey may be beneficial to her."

This would seem to dispose of the Necessitarian theory, and, if anything, supports the Heroic point of view. Poteau, however, immediately quotes the following significant extract from Shenanikin:

"Lay late this morning, thinking of this and of that, and in particular of the Queen's dilemna, and as troublesome a problem as ever I did see.

That the results of his enquiry have not hitherto been more widely accepted is merely an indication of the fact that the public mind is always more inclined to believe obscurely complicated rumors than simple, unadorned verities.

Diaries of a Court Physician, tablet 372.