A Thousand & One Nighties

SHEBA VISITS SOLOMON--Helena Eliat --Viking ($2.50).

Readers who like to take their summer literary pabulum cradled in a hammock will find Authoress Eliat's Oriental tale breezy enough to keep them rocking comfortably. Perfumed with voluptuous myrrh and frankincense, it subtly insinuates a more acrid wind that whispers:-Vanity, all is vanity. "Except the next woman," wise King Solomon, ensconced in his hive of wives, says solomonly. When he hears that Balkis, Queen of Sheba. is coming to study his incomparable wisdom, he looks forward to the first lesson with extracurricular zeal. Queen Balkis, for her part, is drumming the floor of her rocking camel-litter with her heels, impatient to arrive. The purpose of her pilgrimage is both political and personal. In the land of Sheba, dynastic laws require that rulership repose exclusively in the hands of virgins. Hitherto the ruling virgins had propagated their royal race by divine miracle--a newborn babe would be discovered in the temple by the priests, and at the same time the virgin breasts of the queen would miraculously begin to give milk. But no such luck befell Balkis, even though, at the priest's request, a god once visited her disguised in human flesh. The priests, in despair, then packed her off to Solomon. Unfortunately she sends lovely Zud, her lady-in-waiting, ahead to salute Solomon. He becomes infatuated with Zud, and Balkis has to win her way by wile. It is no peaceful time in Jerusalem. The Ephraimites revolt, the Shebans attempt to steal the holy ark. Zud runs away. Balkis learns a thing or two from Solomon, more elsewhere. Zud takes up with a rural god who, besides his other attributes, owns 500 sheep and a cottage in the hills. In the end Balkis goes home, the continuance of her dynasty assured. Solomon resumes his search for something new under the sun among his regular wives.

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