ABSTRACT
Mark and Matthew, in explaining Herod Antipas superstitious fears when he heard of Jesus miracles, tell how he had John the Baptist put to death. Germanic tales dating from the high Middle Ages feature Salome taking part in the 'wild chase' on the night of St John, when sinners who have to expiate their crimes for ever are dragged off into outer space. The obscuring of the figure of Salome or the watering down of the story may also have been due to considerations of artistic propriety: the German drama Der Tod Johannes des Taufers, Hudemann 1770, cut out the dance, presenting Salome as the loving fiancee of Prince Philip. A phallic woman and a castrator, she became a focus for all the phantasms of a misogyny that was reactivated by the feminist movements. Women painters has evoked Salome, and some women poets has celebrated her, but without really departing from the traditional male, misogynous interpretation.
