The poet Prunier in The Swallow describes his ideal woman: "refined, elegant and perverse" and cites as models Galatea, Bérénice, Francesca and Salome. Who were these woman and what were they like?

Note: Local productions sometimes change these name to some more familiar to the audiences.

Galatea
The original Galatea was a Nereid (a sea nymph) who was mentioned by Homer. In a later story told by Athenaeus, she was in love with the shepherd Acis. When the Cyclops Polyphemus killed Acis, she persuaded the gods to turn his blood into the Acis River in Sicily.

However, the name is most familiar today in association with the Greek myth about the sculptor Pygmalion who created a statue of a beautiful woman. He fell in love with it, and Aphrodite made it come to life. The myth was retold in Ovid's Metamophoses, but the name Galatea was not given to the statue until later.

There have been many adaptations of this story, most notably Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw in which the slum girl Eliza Doolittle is transformed into a lady by Professor Henry Higgins. This play is best known today as the basis for the musical My Fair Lady.

Bérénice
Her story is very complicated and very involved with the politics of first century Rome. Briefly, as told by the Roman historian Suetonius, Julia Bérénice of Cilicia, was the wealthy sister of Herod Agrippa. In AD 66 she tried unsuccessfully to prevent a revolt of the Jews. The next year, Titus, the son of the Roman emperor Vespasian, came to Judea, and they became lovers. However, he returned to Rome without her. She was invited to Rome in AD 75 and came, fully expecting to become Titus's wife. When the Romans opposed their marriage, Titus was forced to renounce her. Titus later became emperor, and Bérénice returned to Rome, but in spite of his love for her, he sent her away again. The French play-wright Jean Racine adapted their story and his tragic work would have been known to Prunier.

Francesca
The real-life Francesca da Rimini (1255-1285) appears in Dante's Inferno Canto V, Verses 88-142 which tells part of her story. According to history, a marriage was arranged between her and Giovanni Malatesta, a brave man but, unfortunately, a cripple. To keep her from learning this before she met him during the wedding, his handsome younger brother Paolo served as a proxy at the ceremony. They fell in love, seduced by reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. Giovanni, discovering them together, murdered them. The subject of many paintings, they would have been well known to the characters in The Swallow.

Salome
Her story is found in Matthew 14: 6-11:
"But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and pleased Herod, so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother she said , 'Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.'... [Herod] sent and had John beheaded in the prison and the head was brought on a platter and given to the girl. ..."

Note she is not named in the Bible, but from history we know Herodias had a daughter named Salome. No blame is attached to her by Matthew; the villainess is her mother. The dance has no seven veils; it might have been perfectly chaste. The character of the dance was added later by later Church fathers. Today the Salome of history, who married and had several children, has been forgotten; and the Salome of legends has become the epitome of the temptress, "known" through dozens of paintings, plays and musical works such as the operas Hérodiade by Massenet, based on Flaubert's1877 Hérodias, and Salome by Richard Strauss, based on Oscar Wilde's Salomé. In the former opera, the story is quite different; Salome is in love with John and does not dance herself but tries to save him. While Prunier would not have known any of these later works he would have been familiar with earlier versions of the story and the many paintings.

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Revised October 2007
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