Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/278

said the king: “Which are the more numerous, men or women?” “Women.” “Prove it.” “Count up all the women, and then add all the husbands who are governed by their whims,” replied the owl. At that the wise king burst out laughing, and told the owl that she might go in peace.

Whenever King Solomon went abroad, the birds of the air, by his command, hovered in flocks over his head like a vast canopy. On the occasion of his marriage, he commanded his feathered slaves to pay the like honour to his bride. All obeyed but the Hoopoe,^[1] who, rather than flatter a woman, went and hid himself.

The king, on his wedding day, missing his favourite bird, ordered the rest to go and find the hoopoe. The birds flew north, south, east, and west; and at length after many months the fugitive was discovered crouching in a hole in a rock on an island in the most distant of the seven seas. “You are many, and I but one,” said the hoopoe, “there is no escape now you've found me. I go with you against my will to Suleyman, whose folly in asking us to do homage to the most worthless of creatures exasperates and disgusts me. But before we start, let me tell you three true stories of the nature of woman, that you may judge in your minds between the king and me.

A certain man had for wife a most beautiful woman of whom he was consumedly fond; and