But when Herod's birthday was kept, the
daughter of Herodias danced before them, and
pleased Herod.

Whereupon he promised with an oath to give
her whatsoever she would ask.

And she, being before instructed of her
mother, said: Give me here John Baptist's
head in a charger.

And the king was sorry: nevertheless, for
the oath's sake, and them which sat with him
at meat, he commanded it to be given her.

And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison.

And his head was brought in a charger, and
given to the damsel: and she brought it to
her mother.

But neither Saint Matthew, nor Saint Mark, nor Saint Luke, nor the
other Evangelists had emphasized the maddening charms and depravities
of the dancer. She remained vague and hidden, mysterious and swooning
in the far-off mist of the centuries, not to be grasped by vulgar and
materialistic minds, accessible only to disordered and volcanic
intellects made visionaries by their neuroticism; rebellious to
painters of the flesh, to Rubens who disguised her as a butcher's wife
of Flanders; a mystery to all the writers who had never succeeded in