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.

Before the altar in the temple, just as Assad is about to pronounce the
words which are to bind him to Sulamith, she confronts him again, on
the specious pretext that she brings gifts for the bride. Assad again
addresses her. Again he is denied. Delirium seizes upon his brain; he
loudly proclaims the Queen as the goddess of his devotion. The people
are panic-stricken at the sacrilege and rush from the temple; the
priests cry anathema; Sulamith bemoans her fate; Solomon essays words
of comfort; the High Priest intercedes with heaven; the soldiery, led
by Baal-Hanan, overseer of the palace, enter to lead the profaner to
death. Now Solomon claims the right to fix his punishment. The Queen,
fearful that her prey may escape her, begs his life as a boon, but
Solomon rejects her appeal; Assad must work out his salvation by
overcoming temptation and mastering his wicked passion. Sulamith
approaches amid the wailings of her companions. She is about to enter a
retreat on the edge of the Syrian desert, but she, too, prays for the
life of Assad. Solomon, in a prophetic ecstasy, foretells Assad's
deliverance from sin and in a vision sees a meeting between him and his
pure love under a palm tree in the desert. Assad is banished to the
sandy waste; there a simoom sweeps down upon him; he falls at the foot
of a lonely palm to die, after calling on Sul