Marisa Pavan credited as playing...
Abishag
- Abishag: How interesting your encampment is. Are your people always so carefree and gay?
- Sheba: We enjoy life and pleasure. Don't you?
- Abishag: Yes, we do. But we are an austere people. We tend to be more serious.
- Sheba: And your king, is he also serious?
- Abishag: King Solomon has a great responsibility. He must maintain the unity of our twelve tribes.
- Sheba: It is very important, this unity?
- Abishag: Oh, yes. Without it, there would be no Israel.
- [Abishag enters Solomon's chambers, trying to dissuade him from attending Sheba's pagan ritual]
- Solomon: My door was closed. Must you intrude upon my privacy?
- Abishag: Can you shut out your conscience by closing the door?
- Solomon: Say what you must, then please leave me alone.
- Abishag: I come seeking the man I once knew. The man who was noble, gentle and kind, the man who walked with God.
- Solomon: Those are mere words, Abishag.
- Abishag: I entreat you to listen. When I was a child, you were the world and I adored you. But time passed, and love changed even as I did. My love became that of a woman for a man. But the man became a king, and in his eyes, the woman was still a child. I know how strongly it calls to you. Listen to your people. Their love calls to you, as I call in my love. Listen to them if not to me.
- Solomon: Whether you or my people approve, I must go.
- [Solomon walks to the doors, while Abishag stands against the doors, barring his way]
- Abishag: You cannot go. Do not destroy yourself! I beg of you!
- Abishag: [praying to God in the temple after her unsuccessful attempt to prevent Solomon from attending Sheba's pagan ritual] Lord God, hear the prayer of thy servant. Mine was not the strength to save my lord Solomon from himself. But thine is the power. Let not thy wrath descend upon him. Look into his heart and pity him. But if it be thy will to punish him, visit it upon me in his stead.