January 2024
Bio Note: My new poetry collection, Steady, is just out from Dos Madres Press, and it includes my prize-winning poems, “Lady Bird” and “Being Ruth Asawa.” My Ethel Zine chapbooks—Surrealist Muse, Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, and Being Ruth Asawa—are for sale in the gift shop of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Herod’s Curse
The morning sun blazed on the white marble and yellow limestone of Herod’s Temple, and when its rays struck the golden roof, Mount Moriah, on which it was built, gleamed and sparkled as if in flames. Tormented by fears of rivals, Herod had his former High Priest put to death at the age of eighty and murdered two of his sons. He loved his second wife Mariamme, a beautiful Hasmonean princess, but he feared her powerful family. He had her attractive, popular brother drowned after appointing him High Priest when he was still a teenager. Herod commanded Mariamme to be put to death, were he to die. Herod’s administrator Joseph revealed to her this secret order as evidence of her husband’s love: So death will not separate the two of you. But Mariamme didn’t see it that way. Herod’s instructions were proof to her that her husband was wicked and deranged. The chronicler Josephus accused her of arrogance and disobedience: Being constantly courted by him because of his love and expecting no harsh treatment from him, she maintained an excessive freedom of speech. And since she was also distressed by what had happened to her relatives, she saw fit to speak to Herod of all her feelings. He was the one person from whom she had mistakenly expected not to suffer any harm. When Herod ordered her to his bed, she refused his caresses. Taking revenge, he accused her of adultery with his administrator. Summarily, Joseph was put to death. Herod’s sister, who hated Mariamme, joined in her condemnation. To spare her own life, Mariamme’s mother denounced her. Mariamme was twenty-eight years old when she was executed. She had borne Herod five children. Mariamme went to her death with a calm demeanor and no change of color, and so even in her last moments, she revealed her nobility of descent to those who were looking on. After her death, Mariamme haunted Herod. He went mad hearing her voice. The Talmudic rabbis claimed he preserved her body in honey so he could gaze upon her every day. Some said he had intercourse with her corpse. In the desert, Herod grew ill. As he lay dying from intestinal cancer, daring Pharisees stole the royal eagle from his Temple. In retribution, he massacred 3,000 of them side by side with the Temple offering. He stole along to the throne like a fox, ruled like a tiger, and died like a dog.
©2024 Anne Whitehouse
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