Note 201 — THE LINGUIST-DAME, THE DUENNA AND THE KING’S SON.

Arab. “Kaml.” The Koranic legend of the Ant has, I repeat, been charmingly commented upon by Edwin Arnold in “Solomon and the Ant” (p. i., Pearls of the Faith). It seems to be a Talmudic exaggeration of the implied praise in Prov. vi. 6 and xxx. 25, “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer”—which, by the by, proves that the Wise King could be caught tripping in his natural history, and that they did not know everything down Judee.