the earth and the things which are of heaven--between a gross,
sensual passion and a pure, exalting love. He is betrothed to
Sulamith, the daughter of the High Priest of the temple, who awaits
his return from Solomon's palace and leads her companions in songs
of gladness. Assad meets the Queen at Gath, performs his mission,
and sets out to return, but, exhausted by the heat of the day,
enters the forest on Mount Lebanon and lies down on a bank of moss
to rest. There the sound of plashing waters arrests his ear. He
seeks the cause of the grateful noise and comes upon a
transportingly beautiful woman bathing. The nymph, finding herself
observed, does not, like another Diana, cause the death of her
admirer, but discloses herself to be a veritable Wagnerian Venus.
She clips him in her arms and he falls at her feet; but a reed
rustles and the charmer flees. These incidents we do not see. They
precede the opening of the opera, and we learn of them from Assad's
narration. Assad returns to Jerusalem, where, conscience stricken,
he seeks to avoid his chaste bride. To Solomon, however, he
confesses his adventure, and the king sets the morrow as his
wedding day with Sulamith.

The Queen of Sheba arrives, and when she raises her veil,
ostensibly to show unto Solomon the first view of her features that
mortal man has ever had vouchsafed him, Assad recognizes the
heroine of his adventure in the woods on Lebanon. His mind is in a
maze; bewilderingly he addresses her, and haughtily he is repulsed.
But the woman has felt the dart no less than Assad; she seeks him
at night in the palace garden; whither she had gone to brood over
her love and the loss which threatens her on the morrow, and the
luring song of her slave draws him again into her arms.