I am approaching Yeats’s collection (Michael Robartes and the Dancer) to be evocative of deeper, anti-feministic sentiments. “Solomon and the Witch” is one such poem that seems to reinforce this idea, as its contrast between the male voice and the female voice is noticeably divergent. The reader is immediately introduced to the queen of Sheba as a dreamy, whimsical lover: “last night, where under a wild moon/ on a grassy mattress I had laid me.” She speaks in images, bewitched to do so by the power Solomon has over her. What’s intriguing me here is the contrast, and eventual merging of CHOICE and CHANCE. It is paradoxical to view these two principles in one, but Solomon says, “Chance [is] at one with Choice at last.” It’s interesting to note that both “chance” and “choice” are capitalized, as if they are sacred or divine concepts—and their union is suggestive (perhaps) of the complexities of the modern world dissolving in the throws of sexual union.
Beside this is Yeats’s ever-common diminishment of the female counterpart of the otherwise victorious male figure. It seems to me that Yeats purposely positions Solomon as the “holder of ancient wisdom,” in the sense that he is able to regard passion and love in a “truthful” vein. For example, Solomon is able to look cynically upon the ancient tradition of love: he says, “love has a spider’s eye[…]/ And when at last the murder’s over/ maybe the bride-bed brings despair.” In these lines, Solomon is positioned as the “wise” figure in the poem—in contrast to the queen of Sheba, who speaks in images, and by the end of the poem is so blinded by the moon that she cannot see any objective reality beyond her perceived pleasure. The “witch’s” actions suggest to the reader that she has naïvely succumbed to the folly of love when she passionately ends the poem, proclaiming “O! Solomon! Let us try again.” Once again in a Yeats poem, the reader is left to conclude that women grow so full of unscrupulous and blind passion that all they can ultimately do is “mindlessly” beg for more.
I would like to acknowledge a hole in my argument that conflicts me: if the reader is intended to view the queen of Sheba (“the witch”) as a vessel of senseless passion, why is she gifted such an independent and declarative line like “not his, not mine”? It seems to me that Yeats is playing with two conflicting ideas of his own: perhaps the idea of women as both agents of constriction and (in “rare” moments) agents of liberation. This could potentially tie into the play between choice and chance: conflicting principles that can occasionally defy their natural, staunch opposition? I like this piece because there is a lot of room for interpretation. Ultimately, I think it’s key to admit that Yeats seems to posit women as senseless and naïve in comparison to the “ever-powerful” male dignitary (oy vey), who assumes the role of the “enlightened, clever, and learned” figure.
.