Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, “Salome Receiving the Head of John the Baptist”
Spiritual Sunday
The salacious story of Salomé (a.k.a. Herod and Herodias’s daughter) is today’s Gospel reading so here’s a strange and unsettling poem written by Anne Killigrew in the late 17th century. I can’t decide whether it is a feminist revenge fantasy or a drama of sexual frustration. If John the Baptist has been admonishing Salomé, maybe Killigrew is letting men know women can push back. Maybe the poet is fantasizing the way that Bronte does in Jane Eyre, playing out a revenge fantasy against Rochester and then, when he has been brought low by alter ego Bertha Mason, nursing him in her arms .
Here’s Mark’s account:
For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.
And now for Killigrew:
Behold, dear Mother, who was late our dear,
Disarmed and harmless, I present you here;
The tongue tied up, that made all Jury [Jewry] quake,
And which so often did our greatness shake;
No terror sits upon his awful brow,
Where fierceness reigned, there calmness triumphs now;
As lovers use, he gazes on my face,
With eyes that languish, as they sued for grace;
Wholly subdued by my victorious charms,
See how his head reposes in my arms.
Come, join then with me in my just transport,
Who thus have brought the hermit to the Court.
Interpreted religiously, the poem shifts from inner turmoil to the peace that Jesus promised, and it even ends with an apparent reference to the pieta (Mary cradling the body of Jesus). It just does so through sadistic imagery. The poem is a puzzle.
