THE TEXT

Oscar Wilde had long been fascinated by the Biblical story of Salomé, princess of Judea, who danced for King Herod and asked the head of St John the Baptist in return. During his stay in Paris, in 1891, he decided to write down his own version of the tale, thereby following the example of, among others, Gustave Flaubert and Stéphane Mallarmé. Wilde's Salomé turned out to be something quite special; and not just because it was written in French.

The Gospel according to Mark and Matthew
According to the gospels, St John is beheaded on instigation of Herodias, Queen of Judea, who is fed up with the prophet's comments on her incestuous marriage with her brother-in-law, King Herod. Herodias tells her dancing daughter (who is not given a name) to ask for the head of the prophet as a reward for her skill, and the girl dutifully obeys.
While creating his own version of the story, Wilde was constantly changing his mind about the character of Salomé, whether he would make her chaste or lustful. But one thing he knew for sure: she would not just be her mother's tool - she would have a strong will of her own.

The Gospel according to Wilde
The play is all about the sudden consuming passion of Salome, daughter of Queen Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, for the ascetic prophet Jokanaan, and his fierce rejection of her love. Hurt and humiliated, Salome swears she will kiss Jokanaan's lips. When Herod, lusting after his stepdaughter, urges her to dance, she does so, only after he has promised to give her whatever she may ask of him. She then asks for the head of Jokanaan on a silver platter. Very reluctantly, but forced to be true to his word, Herod grants her wish. At the climax of the play, Salome finally kisses the lips of Jokanaan's severed head with such passion that Herod, horrified (and jealous?), orders his soldiers to kill her.

Textual Notes
Regardez la lune. La lune a l'air très étrange. (le Page d'Hérodias)
The moon plays a very important role in the play. Wilde once said she was the main character! That may be a Wildean exaggeration, but it is true that the moon dominates the persons of the play. She reflects the moods of the characters and even predicts their fate.

Il ne faut pas regarder les gens de cette façon… (le Page d'Hérodias)
The act of looking at others is particularly prominent in the text. Beautiful looks make people fall in love, and desire is expressed through the eyes. Wilde's preoccupation with outward beauty is apparent in Herod's regret about the Young Syrian's death: "Oui, je le regrette beaucoup. Car il était beau." Moreover, Herod and the Young Syrian, both in love with Salome, never leave off gazing at her; Jokanaan refuses to look at her. At the end of the play, Salome sighs: "Si tu m'avais vue, tu m'aurais aimée. Moi, je t'ai vu, Iokanaan, et je t'ai aimé."

Arrière, fille de Babylone! (Iokanaan)
The conversation between Salome and Jokanaan is a fine example of unrequited love. Salome simply adores the prophet, describing him in the language of the Song of Songs, and longs to touch him. Jokanaan, however, is disgusted by her passion and rejects her in an utterly violent way.
Critics have suggested that Jokanaan can be seen as a kind of alter ego of Wilde, expressing homosexual loathing of women. But did Wilde actually identify with John the Baptist? It is true that he felt particularly attracted to sainthood, but then again he preferred to be a sinner in the first place, canonizing himself as 'the infamous Saint Oscar of Oxford'. It is rather improbable that he would have felt akin to the radical, almost freakishly religious Jokanaan, who forsakes the world, and life as a whole actually, for his God. If we are to pick out a 'double', why not take Herod? Read this description of the Tetrarch, spoken by Jokanaan: "Où est celui dont la coupe d'abominations est déjà pleine? Où est celui qui en robe d'argent mourra un jour devant tout le peuple?".
Maybe the safest thing is to assume that, in a Wildean play, every one of the characters is an emanation of one of the masks (or real faces?) of their maker…

Il s'est tué, celui qui était mon ami. (le Page d'Hérodias)
Are we to see Jokanaan as a gay martyr? We cannot be sure. But there is certainly more than a hint of homosexuality in the relationship of the Page of Herodias and the Young Syrian: "Il était mon frère, et plus proche qu'un frère. Je lui ai donné une petite boîte qui contenait des parfums, et une bague d'agate qu'il portait toujours à la main. Le soir nous nous promenions au bord de la rivière et parmi les amandiers et il me racontait des choses de son pays. Il parlait toujours très bas. Le son de sa voix ressemblait au son de la flûte d'un joueur de flûte. Aussi il aimait beaucoup à se regarder dans la rivière. Je lui ai fait des reproches pour cela." But the poor loving Page is left alone as his friend kills himself for love of Salome.

J'étais une Princesse, tu m'as dédaignée. J'étais une vierge, tu m'as déflorée. (Salomé)
Salome is judged incredibly perverse and cruel because she demands the head of Jokanaan, the man who rejected her love. But what to say of Jokanaan himself? The cruelty in his treatment of the young Princess is considerable. We must not forget that Salome is, contrary to her mother Herodias, not a wanton, and she is not at all experienced in the ways of the world. She tries to escape Herod's 'male gazing' because she feels threatened by it, and in a speech she admires the moon for being chaste. It is only when she sees Jokanaan that passions she had never known before come into existence. Jokanaan insults her by treating her as a harlot, though she is none. He despizes her love. Now if that isn't cruel.

NOTES

The Censor
Wilde finished the play in January 1892, and in the same year Sarah Bernhardt, the great French actress, accepted to play the title role. Rehearsals started, costumes and scenery were designed, and Wilde was extremely happy and proud. But then someone spoiled the fun. Mr Pigott, the licenser of plays, had dug up an old law which stated that Biblical characters should not be represented on the stage. The play was banned. Sarah Bernhardt was disappointed, and Wilde positively furious. He even threatened to leave England for France, and to ask for naturalization there. That in the end he did not fulfill his threat may have had something to do with the fact that naturalization would have forced him into military service…

The English Edition
In 1893, the original French edition of Salomé was published, despite the fact that the play could not be performed. But Wilde also wanted an English edition, and entrusted the translation of Salomé to his lover, Bosie. Unfortunately, he seemed to have somewhat overestimated Bosie's knowledge of the French language, and the translation was not at all satisfactory. A fierce quarrel resulted. Aubrey Beardsley, appointed to do the illustrations for the English edition, proposed his own translation, but that did not satisfy Wilde either. Eventually he took care of the English text himself, using Bosie's work as a basis.
In the end, it was not the text, but rather Beardsley's illustrations that attracted most attention. They were very daring - TOO daring and naughty to the taste of the editor, who withdrew three of the most shocking ones - , and mostly had little to do with the actual text. Wilde was none too happy about them, because his Salomé was 'Byzantine', whereas Beardsley's drawings were 'Japanese' in style. In addition, he was probably displeased with the caricatures of himself as the Woman in the Moon, Herod or Herodias' Fool… Nevertheless, he had to admit that the illustrations had great artistic value.

The First Performance
Salomé could not be performed in England, but it could be in France. The first production took place at the Parisian Théâtre de l' Oeuvre in 1896, and was an initiative of Lugné-Poë. Sadly enough, Wilde was in prison at that time.

Ich habe deinen Mund geküßt, Jochanaan
A few years after Wilde's death, a German composer watched a production of Salomé and was gripped by its wonderfully strange atmosphere, its passion and its mesmerizing language. He decided that the text was made for music, and he immediately got to work. His name was Richard Strauss, and the result of his writing was Salome, an opera in one act that brought him great fame.
It may be that Salomé, as a play, is not one of Wilde's most popular works and is therefore not that frequently performed; but Wilde's text has, in combination with Strauss' powerful and often chilling music, enchanted opera audiences all over the world and still continues to do so.