Hello, everyone. I haven't told you a story for a while now, so here is one that is apparently told in both the Jewish and Arab traditions known as "The True Flower" . . .

When Salomon, with whom she rivaled in wisdom, paid her a visit, the Queen of Saba set him a sort of enigma. She led him to a place in her palace where extraordinary craftsmen had filled an entire room with magnificent artificial flowers. Dear friends, had you been there to see it, you would have thought it was a miraculous garden with many perfumed flowers of every colour imaginable that moved slightly in a breeze coming from no determined direction.

"Here is my enigma", said the Queen, smiling. "Only one of these flowers is a true blossom; can you tell me which one?"

Salomon looked around him carefully. He called on all his powers of concentration and his sensitivity, but could not say which flower was the true one. As he had begun perspiring heavily, he turned and said to the Queen of Saba, "It is surprisingly hot in this room. May I ask you to please order one of your servants to open a window?"

The Queen clapped her hands and ordered that a window be opened.

A moment later, Salomon said, "Here is the true flower." Impossible to be mistaken . . . a honeybee that had flown into the room by the open window, alighted on the one real flower.

It is said that, if it is always difficult to be Salomon, it is even more so to be the honeybee. However, the most difficult, at any time, is to be the flower.

(Translated from French; from the collection of stories "Le Circle des Menteurs", Plon 1998, ISBN 2-266-08787-8)

cheers,

Aux