8
JOKANAAN: Back! Daughter of Babylon! By woman came evil into
the world. Speak not to me. I will not listen to thee. I listen
but to the voice of the Lord God.
SALOMÉ: Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of
a leper. It is like a plastered wall where vipers have crawled;
like a plastered wall where the scorpions have made their nest.
It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things. It
is horrible, thy body is horrible. It is of thy hair that I am
enamored, Jokanaan. Thy hair is like a cluster of grapes, like
the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of
Edom in the land of the Edomites. Thy hair is like the cedars
of Lebanon, like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their
shade to the lions and to the robbers who would hide themselves
by day. The long black nights, when the moon hides her face,
when the stars are afraid, are not so black. The silence that
dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the
world so black as thy hair .... Let me touch thy hair.
JOKANAAN: Back, daughter of Sodom! Touch me not. Profane not
the temple of the Lord God.
SALOMÉ: Thy hair is horrible. It is covered with mire
and dust. It is like a crown of thorns which they have placed
on thy forehead. It is like a knot of black serpents writhing
round thy neck. I love not thy hair .... It is thy mouth that
I desire, Jokanaan. 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 garden of
Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red. The red blasts
of trumpets, that herald the approach of kings, and make afraid
the enemy, are not so red. Thy mouth is redder than the feet
of those who tread the wine in the wine-press. Thy mouth is redder
than the feet of the doves who haunt the temples and are fed
by the priests. It is redder than the feet of him who cometh
from a forest where he hath slain a lion, and seen gilded tigers.
Thy mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in
the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for kings ...!
It is like the vermilion that the Moabites find in the mines
of Moab, the vermilion that the kings take from them. It is like
the bow of the King of Persians, that is painted with vermilion,
and is tipped with coral. There is nothing in the world so red
as thy mouth .... Let me kiss thy mouth.
JOKANAAN: Never, daughter of Babylon! Daughter of Sodom! Never.
SALOMÉ: I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. I will kiss
thy mouth.
THE YOUNG SYRIAN: Princess, Princess, thou art like a garden
of myrrh, thou who art the dove of all doves, look not at this
man, look not at him! Do not speak such words to him. I cannot
suffer them .... Princess, Princess, do not speak these things.
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