[311] For David, they say, divided his time regularly, setting apart one day for the service of God, another day for rendering justice to his people, another day for preaching to them, and another day for his own affairs.—S. (B.)
[312] They say that he had a carpet of green silk, on which his throne was placed, being of a prodigious length and breadth, and sufficient for all his forces to stand on, the men placing themselves on his right hand, and the spirits [or jinn] on his left; and that when all were in order the wind at his command took up the carpet and transported it with all that were upon it wherever he pleased; the army of birds at the same time flying over their heads and forming a kind of canopy to shade them from the sun.—S.
[313] Whither the wind brought back Solomon’s throne in the evening, after having carried it to a distant country in the morning.—S.
[314] After the space of forty days, which was the time the image had been worshipped in his house, the devil [or jinnee] flew away, and threw the signet into the sea: the signet was immediately swallowed by a fish, which being taken and given to Solomon, he found the ring in its belly, and, having by this means recovered the kingdom, took Ṣakhr, and, tying a great stone to his neck, threw him into the Lake of Tiberias.—S. (B., A.F.)
[315] See note 30 to the Introduction of my translation of the ‘Thousand and One Nights.’
[316] The Arab historians tell us that Solomon, having finished the Temple of Jerusalem, went in pilgrimage to Mekkeh, where having stayed as long as he pleased, he proceeded towards El-Yemen; and leaving Mekkeh in the morning he arrived by noon at Ṣan´a, and being extremely delighted with the country rested there; but wanting water to make the ablution, he looked among the birds for the lapwing which found it for him.—S. (B.)
[317] Some add that Bilḳees, to try whether Solomon was a prophet or not, drest the boys like girls and the girls like boys, and sent him in a casket a pearl not drilled and an onyx drilled with a crooked hole; and that Solomon distinguished the boys from the girls by the different manner of their taking water, and ordered one worm to bore the pearl, and another to pass a thread through the onyx.—S. (B.)