night privily, and took my son from the side of me thy servant and laid him by her, and her son that was dead she laid by me.  When I arose in the morning for to give milk to my son it appeared dead, whom I took beholding him diligently in the clear light, understood well anon that it was not my son that I had borne.  The other woman answered and said:  It was not so as thou sayest, but my son liveth and thine is dead.  And contrary that other said:  Thou liest:  my son liveth and thine is dead.  Thus in this wise they strove tofore the king.  Then the king said:  This woman saith my son liveth and thine is dead, and this answereth Nay, but thy son is dead, and mine liveth.  Then the king said:  Bring to me here a sword.  When they had brought forth a sword the king said:  Divide ye, said he, the living child in two parts, and give that one half to that one, and that other half to that other.  Then said the woman that was mother of the living child to the king, for all her members and bowels were moved upon her son:  I beseech and pray thee, my lord, give to her the child alive, and slay him not, and contrary said that other woman:  Let it not be given to me ne to thee, but let it be divided.  The king then answered and said:  Give the living child to this woman, and let it not be slain; this is verily the mother.  All Israel heard how wisely the king had given this sentence and dreaded him, seeing that the wisdom of God was in him in deeming of rightful dooms.

After this Solomon sent his messengers to divers kings for cedar trees and for workmen, for to make and build a temple unto our Lord.  Solomon was rich and glorious, and all the realms from the river of the ends of the Philistines unto the end of Egypt were accorded with him, and offered to him gifts and to serve him all the days of his life.  Solomon had daily for the meat of his household thirty measures, named chores, of corn, and sixty of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen of pasture and an hundred wethers, without venison that was taken, as harts, goats, bubals, and other flying fowls and birds.  He obtained all the region that was from Tiphsa unto Azza, and had peace with all the kings of all the realms that were in every part round about him.  In that time Israel and Judah dwelled without fear and dread, every each under his vine and fig tree from Dan unto Beersheba.

Solomon had forty thousand racks for the horses of his carts, chariots and cars, and twelve thousand for horses to ride on, by which prefects brought necessary things for the table of King Solomon, with great diligence in their time.  God gave to Solomon much wisdom and prudence in his heart, like to the gravel that is in the sea-side, and the sapience and wisdom of Solomon passed and went tofore the sapience of all them of the Orient and of Egypt, and he was the wisest of all men, and so he was named.  He spake three thousand parables, and five thousand songs, and disputed upon all manner trees and virtue of them, from the cedar that is in Lebanon unto the hissop that groweth on the wall, and discerned the properties of beasts, fowls, reptiles and fishes, and there came people from all regions of the world for to hear the wisdom of Solomon,