I wonder if it would resonate with us now, satiated with good times and luxuries?
This poem is based on Richard Strauss' opera Salome, particularly its ravishing final aria.
The Wisdom of Salome
How wise she was to refuse
ivory pillars laced with red,
the muscles and thews
of that young soldier
stretching and sighing for her
as the moon began its ghastly
ascent,
washing out the veils of colour
over the naked flesh.
What morsel could tempt her
after dormice stewed in honey,
grapes sprinkled with crushed pearls
and nectarines baked in peacocks’ wings?
and nectarines baked in peacocks’ wings?
She sips the wine that does not
refresh
and longs for silence in her head.
Then she is burdened, overwhelmed
by thoughts of jewelled toys doing
ridiculous things,
palaces, slaves, fleet horses,
a white elephant woven in with
golden threads
shaking its sacred head,
half a kingdom.
In this dizziness she longs for
peace.
Bred in satiation she understands none of this is peace
and turns on an ankle in her dance.
From marble floors laid with
tapestries
past calves, thighs, breasts,
crazed faces running in this mad
heat
she raises her eyes
to deep sky and stars
and is ravished by the cool
disinterest of the moon.
Out of this stillness she asks
for
the head,
at last she sees her way,
‘The head,
I will have
his head.’
Ian MacNeill
We went occasionally to Makawir (various spellings), the site of Herod's summer palace, where the Baptist supposedly lost his head. Little remains but a bit of flagged floor, some broken columns, some clumsily undertaken reconstruction and a boarded up cistern. The walk to the palace is steep and winding; it is situated on a hill with a view down to the Dead Sea. The winter palace is almost directly below - or at least where it used to be. 'Maddening heat'is exactly right. There, in that shimmering landscape, it's easy to imagine all kinds of madness - matted-haired prophets, raging second wives, demented lustful bored girls. There are caves all around which must once have housed hermits and madmen. Nowadays herds of goats are stowed in them overnight.
ReplyDeleteI always wished to take a recording of Strauss's opera and play it there.
On one of my last days, the headmaster took us on a picnic - not quite to Makawir, but we stopped on a lower hill some distance away, from where we could view the palace through the haze. There was no shade or place to sit. From the back of the car he produced quantites of food and red wine. On the way back, we sang some hymns and songs from the musicals in the car.I got a little sunstroke, and was dreadfully sick. That night, we had to visit a woman who made her own wine, which I had to pour secretly into the pots on her balcony.
Anyway, great poem!
Oh I want to go there.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have experienced the overpowering atmosphere of Herod's palace, Sandra.
I should have said Strauss' opera is based on Wilde's play, banned in England for forty years.
I wonder if the boarded-up cistern is the very one from which the voice of John the Baptist tolled?
Thank you Sandra.
I M