Salome

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

Part 1: The moonlit terrace

The play opens on a terrace above a feast in Herod’s palace, under a pale and strange moon. A young Syrian, captain of the guard, cannot stop looking at Princess Salome, and a page who serves Herodias keeps warning him not to. The page senses that something bad is coming. Nearby, soldiers talk about a prophet named Jokanaan, whom Herod has locked in a cistern, and about the religious quarrels that trouble the court. Herod has forbidden anyone to bring the prophet out. The guards are uneasy, and the scene sets up a palace where even looking at the wrong person feels dangerous.

Part 2: Salome comes out

Salome slips away from the banquet and steps out onto the terrace. She is drawn by a voice rising from the cistern, the voice of the prophet, and she orders that he be brought out so that she can see him. The young captain, already infatuated with her, obeys even though Herod has forbidden it. The prophet is raised from his cistern. The scene shows how one request from a princess can override a ruler’s command, and how easily a guard puts a woman’s wish above his duty. From here on, Salome’s fascination with the prophet drives the play.

Part 3: The prophet and the princess

Jokanaan first denounces Herodias and the marriage that binds her to Herod. He then speaks of a coming figure whom he calls the Son of Man, and he tells Salome to seek that figure by the Sea of Galilee. Salome is not moved by his message. Instead she praises his body, his hair and his mouth, and begs to kiss him. He refuses every time and curses her. This is the play’s most intense exchange: the more he refuses, the more fixed her desire becomes, until the refusal itself seems to demand an answer.

Part 4: The captain’s despair

Overwhelmed by his hopeless love for Salome, who now looks only at the prophet, the young Syrian takes his own life and falls between Salome and the prophet. The prophet is returned to his cistern. The page mourns his friend and recalls the perfume and silver earrings he once gave the captain. He also admits that he had seen this misfortune coming. The death marks a turning point: the court’s desire has now cost a life, yet the palace carries on with its noise.

Part 5: The feast resumes

Herod, Herodias and the court return to the terrace, and the mood is edgy. Herod is restless. He keeps looking at the moon, says he slipped in blood, and hears sounds that may be wings beating above him. When the soldiers report the captain’s death, Salome refuses food and wine. Meanwhile religious groups argue over prophets, miracles and whether the Messiah has come, and Herod and Herodias quarrel about their marriage. The scene shows a ruler who cannot silence the noise around him, and whose fear grows with every omen.

Part 6: The dance of the seven veils

Herod asks Salome to dance for him. She performs the dance of the seven veils, and he is delighted. He swears to give her whatever she asks, even up to half his kingdom, and offers jewels, a rare emerald, fifty peacocks and the high priest’s mantle. Salome turns all of it down and names one thing: the head of Jokanaan on a silver platter. Herod is horrified and begs her to choose something else, but Herodias backs her daughter. Herod’s public oath now binds him, and the play moves steadily towards its final demand.

Part 7: The silver shield and the final order

The executioner, Naaman, goes down to the cistern and returns with the prophet’s head on a silver shield. Salome takes it, speaks to the dead prophet and kisses his mouth. Herod, appalled, turns on her and orders the soldiers to kill her. They obey and crush her beneath their shields. Wilde closes every exit: Herod’s oath, Herodias’s grudge and the court’s silence leave no way out for anyone, and the play ends on a dance that has become a death sentence.

Salome characters

• Salome: Herodias’s daughter and a young princess at Herod’s court. Her wish to kiss the prophet and, later, her demand for his head drive the plot. Wilde treats her less as a child than as a person who discovers that a single spoken request can command a ruler.
• Herod Antipas: The tetrarch of Judaea, powerful but unsteady. He is haunted by omens and by his own guilt, and he is reluctant to harm the prophet. Yet the public promise he makes to his guests binds him, and he cannot withdraw from it.
• Herodias: Herod’s wife and Salome’s mother. Jokanaan has publicly denounced their marriage, so she has reason to resent him. She backs her daughter’s request for the prophet’s head and presses Herod to keep his word.
• Jokanaan: A prophet held in a cistern, whose voice reaches the terrace before he does. He denounces Herodias and the marriage, speaks of the Son of Man, and refuses every attempt by Salome to draw close. His few words carry the play’s most steady moral voice.
• The Young Syrian: The captain of Herod’s guard. He is infatuated with Salome and disobeys Herod’s order by bringing the prophet out of the cistern. His hopeless love leads to his death during the play.
• The Page of Herodias: A young attendant who keeps warning the captain not to look at Salome. He sees the trouble coming, and after the captain’s death he mourns him as a friend.
• Naaman: The executioner. He goes down to the cistern and brings the prophet’s head to the terrace, where Salome receives it.

Writing about this book

Salome is short enough to read in one sitting, so you can afford to reread the scenes that puzzle you. Three questions make good starting points. First, how does Wilde use the moon, the cistern and the blood to show Herod’s fear? Second, who holds the power in each scene, and how does it change hands? Third, does Salome act freely, or is she pushed by her mother and by Herod’s promise? You do not need one right answer. Support your view with a specific line or stage moment, and explain why it changes what you think about the play.

The play also sets religious argument against a single voice. Ask whether the noisy debates in the court make the prophet’s message stronger or weaker, and whether Wilde is commenting on a court that talks more than it listens.