Salome

“How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver.”

The dialogue employs repetition, having characters restate the same terms with different word order, creating an unnatural emphasis upon particular symbolic traits. Here, Salomé’s paleness is both the natural result of her anxiety at the banquet, but also a symbolic connection to the moon, to chastity, and to the idea of vanity which is traditionally represented by a mirror. The simile compares Salomé to various white objects that are associated with female beauty, indicating that her discomfort does not detract from her aesthetic qualities.

“Within there are Jews from Jerusalem who are tearing each other in pieces over their foolish ceremonies, and barbarians who drink and drink, and spill their wine on the pavement, and Greeks from Smyrna with painted eyes and painted cheeks, and frizzed hair curled in twisted coils, and silent, subtle Egyptians, with long nails of jade and russett cloaks, and Romans brutal and course, with their uncouth jargon.”

Salomé describes the many religious and cultural groups who are part of Herod’s court in a disparaging manner. Her speech suggests the diversity of the region in the 1st century CE under the Roman Empire, while also denoting Salomé’s dissatisfaction with her current society. She uses imagery and visual descriptions to suggest a lack of physical and rhetorical beauty. Her dismissal of the Jews, barbarians, Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians suggests why she will be drawn to Jokanaan, as she is seeking a visage not already represented within Herod’s court.

“The Lord hath come. The son of man hath come. The centaurs have hidden themselves in the rivers, and the sirens have left the rivers, and are lying beneath the leaves of the forest.”

Jokanaan’s cryptic prophecy predicts that the birth of Jesus Christ will correspond with the ending of classical paganism. The translation uses some archaic language such as “hath” instead of “has,” emphasizing the ancient biblical subject matter. Jokanaan’s description of centaurs and sirens hiding themselves in the wilderness indicates that the mythical beings of classical paganism are leaving the world, just as the Cappadocian solider claims that his people’s gods are dead now.

“Speak again, Jokanaan. Thy voice is wine to me.”

Salomé metaphorically compares Jokanaan’s preaching to wine. Although his words are harsh and admonishing, she finds them to be intoxicating. Love, like alcohol, impairs Salomé’s ability to think and perceive clearly. While Herod drinks wine throughout the play and offers it frequently to others, Salomé is able to resist the literal wine and instead becomes drunk on the voice of Jokanaan. However, her statement suggests that she does not truly understand the meaning of his words with her rational mind, only appreciates the sensory qualities of his voice.

“I hear in the palace the beating of the wings of the angel of death.”

Jokanaan predicts the impending death of the Young Syrian by invoking an auditory omen. While other members of Herod’s court dispute the existence of angels, Jokanaan’s prophecy seems to indicate that they do exist. Herod will later hear these same wingbeats, suggesting that the angel of death remains after the Young Syrian’s death by suicide. This foreshadows the ending of the play where Jokanaan is also killed.

“Touch me not. Profane not the temple of the Lord God.”

Jokanaan linguistically compares Salomé touching his body to her profaning a temple to God. The idea of his body as a temple suggests that he is not guided by the desires of his body, and instead sees his body as a house for God to inhabit that must be kept clean. Notably, Herod has profaned a temple by stealing the veil of the sanctuary, indicating the connection between his predatory sexual appetites and his lack of respect for God.

“Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate-flowers that blossom in the gardens of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red.”

Salomé uses metaphor and figurative language to describe Jokanaan’s mouth. His mouth is the only part of his body that she never finds fault with or insults, indicating its importance. Her initial interest in Jokanaan was piqued because of his voice, and his mouth represents the source of his words, which are divinely inspired. While Salomé is fixated on the physical attribute, the mouth, Wilde hints that she is close to loving Jokanaan for the correct reason: his words. The pomegranate in Christianity is a symbol of resurrection and everlasting life through Christ, implying that Jokanaan’s voice could lead her to salvation if she was able to look beyond its material, aesthetic qualities.

“He was my brother, and nearer to me than a brother. I have him a little box full of perfumes and a ring of agate that he wore always on his hand. In the evening we used to walk by the river, among the almond trees, and he would tell me of the things of his country. He spake ever very low. The sound of his voice was like the sound of the flute, of a flute player.”

The Page of Herodias mourns the death of the Young Syrian. His description of their exchange of gifts and sharing stories denotes an intimate friendship. By comparing the Young Syrian’s voice to a flute, he suggests that it also had beautiful qualities. Unlike Jokanaan, whose voice is terrible and frightening, the Young Syrian has a musical voice. This passage implies that the Page of Herodias might have been in love with the Young Syrian, which is why he sought to protect him and prevent him from fixating on Salomé.

“I thought it was only the Roman philosophers who killed themselves.”

Herod makes a quip about the death of the Young Syrian, comparing it to the famous deaths by suicide of Stoic philosophers. Cato the Younger was a stoic philosopher and Roman general who died by suicide after a military defeat at the Battle of Thapsus. His death by suicide was regarded as rational and virtuous, as his allies had been defeated and he was facing capture and dishonor by the enemy. The stoic philosopher Seneca would also die by suicide after being implicated in a political conspiracy against Emperor Nero. This example would be well-known to Wilde’s audience, although anachronistic to King Herod. Unlike these stoic philosophers, the Young Syrian has died by suicide because of unrequited love, a romantic motivation rather than a rationalist one.

“And I hear in the air something that is like the beating of wings, like the beating of vast wings. Do you not hear it?”

Herod uses repetition, calling attention to his paranoid and unstable mental condition. He repeatedly asks if anyone else hears the wings, but Herodias does not acknowledge that she hears anything. However, the audience knows that Jokanaan has previously heard the wings of the angel of death around the palace, indicating that Herod’s fear is justified, and the omen is legitimate.

“I love to see in a fruit the mark of thy little teeth. Bite but a little of this fruit and then I will eat what is left.”

Herod tries to tempt Salomé to sit beside him, using a fruit to symbolize an indirect kiss between them. Salomé has previously affiliated Jokanaan’s mouth with a fruit, and she will eventually compare kissing it to biting a fruit. Herod’s offer, wherein they will both bite the same piece of fruit, creates an indirect kiss between the two of them. Salomé is Herod’s stepdaughter, making this sexual innuendo a disturbing request that both Herodias and Salomé deny. This indicates Herod’s lechery and the sexual immortality of his court.

“You have a dreamer’s look; you must not dream. It is only sick people who dream.”

Herodias admonishes the Nazarenes for their conversation about the Messiah, demonstrating her stubbornly rationalist perspective. She considers the religious subjects that the Nazarenes are discussing to be only dreams, and she affiliates dreams with illness rather than with the normal function of the mind. By dismissing all spiritual subjects as nothing but insanity, Herodias misses the spiritual significance of Jokanaan’s prophecies and views his condemnation of her marriage as nothing but an insult. Because she refuses to look beyond material reality, she is unable to reform.

“Let the war captains pierce her with their swords, let them crush her beneath their shields.”

While Herodias interprets this utterance from Jokanaan as another insult against herself, the end of the play reveals that this is actually a prediction about the fate of Salomé. Salomé is crushed to death by shields after Herod orders her execution. This line earlier in the play suggests that Jokanaan does truly possess divine power, as his cryptic words become true and avenge his own murder.

“It may be he is drunk with the wine of God.”

When Herodias dismisses Jokanaan’s words as sounding irrational and like he is drunk, Herod responds that the prophet might be drunk on “the wine of God.” Herod believes in omens and prophets but seems to treat them as either amusements or useful warnings to help him to maintain his power. His suggestion that Jokanaan is both like a drunk and divinely inspired suggest an affiliation between spirituality and insanity, with divine inspiration mimicking the irrational state of inebriation. As Herod himself is constantly drinking wine throughout the play, his metaphor is also self-serving, equating his own habits with the wisdom of a prophet.

“I am sterile, I? You say that, you that are ever looking at my daughter, you that would have her dance for your pleasure? It is absurd to say that. I have borne a child.”

Herodias points out a logical fallacy in Herod’s accusation that she is sterile because her remarriage to him was incestuous. Herod seems to be persuaded by Jokanaan’s words against their marriage, while his desire has ironically become even more incestuous as he now lusts after his stepdaughter. Jokanaan’s words are endangering Herodias’s position of power at the court, causing her to demand that Jokanaan be killed and to interpret Salomé’s request for his head as a sign of loyalty to her mother.

“You must not find symbols in everything you see. It makes life impossible.”

Herod makes an ironic quip, claiming that a person cannot live if they believe everything to be a symbol. However, Salomé is a symbolist play and features a biblical prophet who does have the ability to interpret signs from God. The absurdity of Herod’s statement suggests that he is a comic figure, especially considering his tendency to read everything as a sign. Wilde’s other plays are typically very witty and often satirize the behavior of the upper classes, and he demonstrates a similar style here.

“The prophet, for once in his life, was right, the kings of the earth are afraid.”

Herodias mocks Herod by sarcastically pretending that she finally believes that some of Jokanaan’s words are true prophecies. While Jokanaan’s prediction is meant to signify the humbling of earthly power before the divine power of Christ, Herodias reinterprets his words to suggest that Herod is a coward for refusing to kill a man who insults his wife. She reduces the symbolic meaning of this prophecy to a literal one, with comedic effect.

“Surely, I think thou art jesting. The head of a man that is cut from his body is ill to look upon, is it not?”

After Salomé requests Jokanaan’s head, Herod points out the irrationality of her request, justifying his perspective using aesthetic logic. Because a severed head is aesthetically unpleasant, he suggests that it should not have any value to Salomé. Wilde employs a comedic understatement in this sentence, which draws attention to Herod’s unusual logic. Wilde was himself a part of the aesthetic movement, and his play pushes the boundary of what can be depicted in the arts.

“Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.”

Herod decides to reject the beauty of the rest of the world after Salomé reveals the danger of being tempted by desire for others. However, rather than rejecting materiality as Jokanaan has done, Herod instead turns his gaze entirely towards himself. His sensuality becomes vanity, as he only looks at the mirror. By claiming that “mirrors do but show us masks,” Herod implies that a mirror is not an accurate reflection of reality, but rather a tool that can create pleasant illusions. Herod has seen too much of the disturbing reality of desire, and seeks only a controlled, self-centered form of aesthetic pleasure.

“Be silent! You cry out always; you cry out like a beast of prey.”

As Herodias praises her daughter for requesting the head of Jokanaan, Herod commands her to be quiet and uses a simile to compare her voice to a predatory animal. Herodias’s voice has thus become like Jokanaan’s—constantly crying out and frightening the court at Herod’s palace. The figurative association with her voice and a “beast of prey” suggests that her cries might sound like a hawk or other raptor. This avian imagery implies that Herodias has become like the angel of death, whose wingbeats Herod has heard, denoting her role in Jokanaan’s murder.

“Who has taken my ring? There was a ring on my right hand.”

As Jokanaan is executed, Herod becomes disoriented, allowing Herodias to take his ring and give it to the executioner. While this appears to be a minor detail, the first scene of the play indicates that Herod as a ring of death that he gave to the executioner who strangled his own brother in prison. By giving the executioner this ring, Herod conveyed that he would not be punished for killing a powerful former king. Therefore, by showing Herodias take the ring, Wilde hints that she has contributed to the death of Jokanaan and bears some responsibility for the murder.

“I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit.”

When Salomé holds the head of Jokanaan, her description of a kiss combines death with sensuality. By saying she will bite his lips, previously compared to a pomegranate, she combines sexuality with the image of blood and violence. Her words also harken back to Herod’s request that she bite his fruit before he eats it, confirming the association between violent sexual desire and the symbol of a bitten fruit.

“Open thine eyes! Lift up thine eyelids, Jokanaan! Wherefore dost thou not look at me? Art thou afraid of me, Jokanaan, that thou wilt not look at me?”

Salomé commands Jokanaan’s severed head to display signs of animacy when it cannot, denoting that her love has driven her to the point of insanity. She can no longer distinguish between Jokanaan’s body and his spirit, assuming that the corpse she holds in her hands will still be able to exhibit the same abilities as the living man. Her delusion represents the extreme result of desire for aesthetics alone—the dangerous possibility of lusting after a corpse.