The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #103975 Message #2127542
Posted By: Azizi
16-Aug-07 - 09:14 PM
Thread Name: Arabic & African names in English songs & stories
Subject: RE: Arabic & African names in English songs & stories
Since time keeps on ticking away, and having waited long enough for a correct response {Ha! any response to my question about Yeats, I've decided to post the answers to that question.
William Butler Yeats wrote about a queen whose name is often connected with someone who is said to have been very wise.
What are the names of these two people?
The answer is:
The Queen of Sheba {also known as Makeda and Bilqis} and Solomon.
["Bilqis" is an Arabic name].
Here's one of Yeats' poems that mention Sheba & Soloman:
SOLOMON AND SHEBA by William Butler Yeats.
Sang Solomon to Sheba, And kissed her dusky face, "All day long from mid-day We have talked in the one place, All day long from shadowless noon We have gone round and round In the narrow theme of love Like a old horse in a pound.- To Solomon sang Sheba, Plated on his knees, "If you had broached a matter That might the learned please, You had before the sun had thrown Our shadows on the ground Discovered that my thoughts, not it, Are but a narrow pound.' Said Solomon to Sheba, And kissed her Arab eyes, "There's not a man or woman Born under the skies Dare match in learning with us two, And all day long we have found There's not a thing but love can make The world a narrow pound.'
And thus declared the Arab lady: "Last night where under the wild moon On grassy mattress I had lain me, Within my arms great Solomon, I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue Not his, not mine." And he that knew All sounds by bird or angel sung Answered: "A crested cockerel crew Upon a blossoming apple bough Three hundred years before the Fall, And never crew again till now, And would not now but that he thought, Chance being at one with Choice at last, All that the brigand apple brought And this foul world were dead at last. He that crowed out eternity Thought to have crowed it in again. A lover with a spider's eye Will found out some appropriate pain, Aye, though all passion's in the glance, For every nerve: lover tests lover With cruelties of Choice and Chance; And when at last the murder's over Maybe the bride-bed brings despair, For each an imagined image brings And finds a real image there; Yet the world ends when these two things, Though several, are a single light, When oil and wick are burned in one; Therefore a blessed moon last night Gave Sheba to her Solomon." "Yet the world stays": "If that be so, Your cockerel found us in the wrong Although it thought it worth a crow. Maybe an image is too strong Or maybe is not strong enough"
"The night has fallen; not a sound In the forbidden sacred grove, Unless a petal hit the ground, Nor any human sight within it But the crushed grass where we have lain; And the moon is wilder every minute. Oh, Solomon! Let us try again."