Dance of the Seven Veils

• The Bible does not say that the name of Herodias' daughter was Salomé. That notion came from other sources.
• The Bible does not specify what kind of dance she did. It does not claim that her dance involved veils, or the removal of clothing, or seduction. Those interpretations of the story came from other sources.

So Where Did The Seven Veils Come From?

So if the Bible didn't link the death of John the Baptist to someone named Salomé and a striptease involving seven veils, where did these notions come from? And how did they become linked to Oriental dance?

In the late 1890's and the first part of the 20th century, the writers and painters of the European art movement known as Orientalism became fascinated with the Middle East. These individuals seized on the story of John the Baptist as having all the elements that make for good public interest: sexual overtones (the dance, which they chose to interpret as being seductive), murder, politics, adultery, and the Biblical tie-in that made it somehow acceptable to tell this story in their sexually repressed society.

Oscar Wilde's Play

In the fall of 1891, the British playwright Oscar Wilde penned his play titled Salomé while living in France. In 1892, he showed it to Sarah Bernhardt, who immediately wanted to stage it and play the title role. They went into rehearsal, but were forced to drop the project when the British government denied it a license. The reason: it violated an old law from the Puritan era that prohibited public portrayal of Biblical characters.

Eventually, in 1896 the play was produced in France which had no such laws. In 1902 it was produced in Berlin, with great success.

Wilde's play portrays Salomé as a bizaare and somewhat evil character who becomes obsessed with John the Baptist.

Here is the dance scene as it appears in the play:

  HERODIAS. Let us go within. The voice of that man (John the Baptist) maddens me. I will not have my daughter dance while he is constantly crying out. I will not have her dance while you look at her in this fashion. In a word, I will not have her dance.
  HEROD. Do not rise, my wife, my queen, it will avail thee nothing. I will not go within till she hath danced. Dance, Salomé, dance for me.
  HERODIAS. Do not dance, my daughter.
  SALOME. I am ready Tetrarch. (Salomé dances the dance of the seven veils.)

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