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 Sulamith with his fleeting breath.

She comes with her wailing maidens, sees the fulfilment of Solomon's prophecy, and Assad dies in her arms.

"Thy beloved is thine, in love's eternal realm," sing the maidens, while a mirage shows the wicked Queen, with her caravan of camels and elephants, returning to her home.
The parallel between this story and the immeasurably more poetical and beautiful one of "Tannhauser" is apparent to half an eye.

Sulamith is Elizabeth, the Queen is Venus, Assad is Tannhauser, Solomon is Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The ethical force of the drama--it has some, though very little--was weakened at the performances at the Metropolitan Opera House [footnote: Goldmark's opera was presented for the first time in America at the Metropolitan Opera House on December 2, 1885.