Part One: Queen Jezebel’s considerable influence
by
Damien F. Mackey
“Jezebel’s
character isn’t particularly analyzed in the Bible, but her actions reflect a
calloused and manipulative queen. She wielded her gender traits like a honed
sabre, twisting the desires of weaker men to suit her own lusts”.
Old Testament Queen
Jezebel’s vivid image as a scarlet woman has echoed down through the centuries,
beginning with her New Testament ‘reincarnation’ in Revelation 2:20. See my
series:
Two Jezebels are worse than one. Part One: Old and New
Testament Jezebel
Two Jezebels are worse than one. Part Two: Who was
Apocalypse’s “Jezebel”?
Two Jezebels Are Worse Than One. Part Three:
"Jezebel" mirrors the scarlet "woman"
And she has
influenced some famous literature, notably Shakespeare’s bloody Lady Macbeth.
In an article, “A Comparison of
Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and Biblical Jezebel”: https://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/a-comparison-of-shakespeares-lady-macbeth-and-biblical-jezebel-mCiZpWBT for instance,
we read:
….
Social constructs possess an oxymoronic quality in that they can be
easily shattered by a daring few. The thrill of acting beyond society’s
standards triggers the growth of revolutionaries without consideration to the
time period or subject matter. This desire for rebellion was undoubtedly forged
during mankind’s downfall in the Garden of Eden. Shakespeare utilizes such
desires in “Macbeth”, which possess a striking similarity to Biblical
characters of old. Lady Macbeth is unequivocally tied to Jezebel, and their
respective stories illustrate a combined warning to those who abuse God-given
power.
Both women possess primarily masculine character traits in time periods
where feminine standards called for meekness and subservience. Jezebel’s
character isn’t particularly analyzed in the Bible, but her actions reflect a
calloused and manipulative queen. She wielded her gender traits like a honed
sabre, twisting the desires of weaker men to suit her own lusts. Jezebel led
faithful rulers such as Ahab down tunnels of idolatry and lust; these
successful corruptions fed her ego as well as her thirst for power. Lady
Macbeth reiterates these values from the moment she surfaces in the play. Her
very first lines are devoted to plotting the murder of King Duncan.
She berates Macbeth for faltering in his moral resolve. Lady Macbeth
even goes so far as to insult Macbeth’s own integrity as a man. These evidences
display a common core of manipulation that both woman have acquired, despite
the wildly different setting and time period.
Lady Macbeth and Jezebel subscribe to harmful belief systems, which are
forced upon their spouses. ….
[End of quote]
Furthermore, it would be interesting to know just how many
queens of supposed AD history, especially queens Isabelle (or a variant of that
name), have been described as “a second Jezebel”, or something similar. I have managed
to compile a fair list of them. For example:
Queen Brunhild the 'second Jezebel'
Isabella of Bavaria 'like haughty Jezebel'
https://www.academia.edu/35177941/Isabella_of_Bavaria_like_haughty_Jezebel
Isabella of France, ‘iron virago’, ‘Jezebel’
Isabella of Angouleme ‘more Jezebel than Isabel’
such comparisons leading to my article,
querying:
Isabelle (is a belle) inevitably a Jezebel?
https://www.academia.edu/35191514/Isabelle_is_a_belle_inevitably_a_Jezebel
Part
Two:
Supposed
Roman queens considered Jezebel-like
“You start off
with this Roman history by Livy with these two strong female figures
who encourage, or
bully, their husbands to seize the throne and do so with appeals
to manhood and
masculinity”.
One has to
wonder which - if any - of the various queens down through the centuries who
has been designated a Queen Jezebel
type of character (see Part One of
this series: https://www.academia.edu/37998271/Echoes_of_Jezebel_in_Roman_queens_Tullia_and_Tanaquil._Part_One_Queen_Jezebels_considerable_influence)
was actually a true historical personage.
I would suspect
that, based on the unreliable character of textbook Roman history - see e.g. my:
Horrible Histories. Retracting Romans
queens Tullia
and Tanaquil definitely were not – {“Tullia, a 'semi-legendary' figure in Roman
history”, see below}.
Some British
East Anglia researchers think that Tullia and Tanaquil may have inspired
Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. This is fitting because we already found, in Part One, that Queen Jezebel was a
likely inspiration for Lady Macbeth.
Here follows an
account of the British researchers’ explanation: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3358177/The-two-ruthless-Roman-queens-academics-believes-REAL-inspiration-Shakespeare-s-Lady-Macbeth.html
…. Two ruthless
Roman queens may have been the real inspiration for Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth,
according to academics.
Experts at East
Anglia University in Norfolk believe the great bard may have drawn on
historical references to the queens Tanaquil and Tullia for his tragedy, which
was first performed in 1611.
One of Shakespeare's
best known plays, Macbeth tells the story of a Scottish general whose ambitious
wife urges him to commit murder to accede to the throne.
It was recently
adapted for the big screen in a film starring Michael Fassbender
and Marion Cotillard.
University lecturer
Dr John-Mark Philo has suggested that the playwright may have borrowed ideas
from Roman history as a character basis for the scheming Lady Macbeth, the Observer reports.
Shakespeare may
have learned about Tanaquil and Tullia when examining texts by the writer
William Painter.
Tanaquil was the
wife of the fifth king of Rome and Tullia who, the Observer reports, was
responsible for bringing a tyrant the … throne.
THE
SCHEMING QUEENS WHO MAY HAVE INSPIRED SHAKESPEARE
Tullia, a 'semi-legendary' figure
in Roman history was the last queen of Rome from 535 BC to 509 BC and the
younger daughter of Rome's sixth king, Servius Tullius.
She married Lucius Tarquinius
and, along with her husband, is said to have arranged the overthrow and murder
of her father, securing the throne for her husband.
Legend has it that she encouraged
her new husband to seize power - and he launched Servius Tullius into the
street where he was murdered. After hailing her husband as king, she is said to
have driven her carriage over her father's mutilated remains.
Her actions made
her an infamous figure in ancient Roman culture.
Tanaquil was the
wife of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome. She had four children. One
of her daughters became the wife to Servius Tullius.
Tanaquil is said to
have encouraged her husband to relocate to Rome and used her prophetic
abilities to install him as king.
Tarquin ruled from
616 to 579 BCE and later Tanaquil helped to install Servius Tullius as the next
king.
According to Philo Painter was
'obsessed with women who step outside what’s expected of them, what is seen as
the natural bounds for women during the period'.
'He’s obsessed with extraordinary
women,' Philo added. 'It’s not coincidence that this is the first decade of the
reign of Elizabeth I. He hones in on these two Roman queens, and I think that’s
where Shakespeare gets his Lady Macbeth.'
Philo believes Shakespeare may
have taken 'significant chunks' from Painter's translation of text from the
Roman history writer Livy.
The lecturer said: 'These women
have one foot in reality and another foot in embellishment and fiction.
'You start off with this Roman history
by Livy with these two strong female figures who encourage, or bully, their
husbands to seize the throne and do so with appeals to manhood and
masculinity.'
Livy reportedly documents how
Tanaquil once told her husband to take action 'if he is a man' while Tullia is
said to have criticised her partner by saying he had his brothers' 'effeminate
heart'.
In Shakespeare's play, Lady
Macbeth also taunts her husband when she says: 'Art thou afeard, To be the same
in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire?' ….
[End of quote]
From this we
learn that Queen Tullia allegedly drove “her carriage over her father's
mutilated remains”. But isn’t this precisely what happened to Queen Jezebel?
2 Kings 9:33: “…
they threw [Jezebel] out the window, and her blood spattered
against the wall and on the horses. And Jehu trampled her body under his
horses’ hooves”.
Helena Zlotnick,
on the other hand, interestingly attempts to make comparison of Tullia with the
very unlike Jezebel, Queen Esther (in Biblica
82, 2001, 477-495): http://prophetess.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/Zlotnick.htm
From Jezebel to Esther:
Fashioning Images of Queenship in the Hebrew Bible
....
II. The Two Faces of Queenship
Casting an Esther as a Jezebel carried,
potentially, dangerous connotations. The hostility of biblical narrators to
queens who, like Jezebel, usurp the role of kings in a manner that highlights
the limitations of kingly power and the breakdown of male authority within the
home is undisguised. It finds an amplified echo in the annals of the early
Roman monarchy (6th century BCE) which chart the career of two
queens, Tanaquil and Tullia, who bear curious similarities to the biblical
female monarchs. Because Roman authors are considerably more expansive than
biblical narrators they provide valuable insights into the process that molded
queenly images in antiquity.
In the hindsight of several centuries, the
history of early Rome emerges in the pages of the historian Livy (57-14 BCE) as
a family narrative dominated by the ambitions of its female members and
punctuated by their sense of honor and shame9. Of these, Tullia, like
Jezebel, is a daughter of a king (Servius Tullius). Her husband, Tarquinius
(Superbus), is likewise a son of a monarch (Tarquinius Priscus) who, however,
had designated another man, a non-relative, as his successor. To win the stakes
in the complicated game of succession
_____________________
483
the couple embarks on a career of crimes,
including the murder of their first respective spouses and the killing of
Tullia’s father, the reigning ruler. Although apparently a match made in
heaven, Livy shows no hesitation in casting Tullia as the moving spirit behind
the rocky ride to the throne of Rome.
Echoing what Jezebel might have said to Ahab,
had the text been recorded and transmitted in full, Tullia addresses her
husband as follows:
If you are the man I thought I was marrying,
then show yourself to be a man and a king. If not ... you have compounded a
crime with cowardice. What is the matter with you? You are not from Corinth or
from Tarquinii, like your father, nor is it necessary for you to make yourself
a king in a foreign land. The gods of your family, your ancestors, the image of
your father, the royal palace, its throne and the very name Tarquinius make and
proclaim you king. Why else, if your spirit is too mean to (undertake) this, do
you deceive the city? Why do you allow yourself to be looked upon as a prince?
Depart to Taquinii or Corinth where you can sink once more into oblivion...10.
Focusing on the interaction between the family
and the state as two social entities Livy shows how the privileging of the
family interest at the expense of public duty generates chaos11. Tullia and Tarquinius
base their claim to the kingship on kinship alone, thus reversing and
subverting the principle of merit and of inclusion on which the Roman royal
succession had been established from the start. Jezebel ‘vindicates’ the king
who is also her husband, thereby undermining the foundations of the royal
system of dispensing justice.
In Livy’s landscape of early Rome the palace is
the focus and the symbol of the couple’s unbridled ambitions. From the
seclusion of their domestic space Tullia and Tarquinius launch their criminal
activities. When Tarquinius appears in the curia (= senate house) with an armed
bodyguard, Tullia burst on the scene and hails him as king. Her action and
gesture constitute a double transgression. Not only does she violate the
physical boundaries of males’ space by intruding into male business in the
forum, but she also crosses the frontiers of male authority by being the first
to confer royalty on a man in public.
Responding to censure, not the least from her
own husband, Tullia
_____________________
484
defends herself by appealing to another queenly
model. She regards herself as a faithful imitator, if not an improved version
of Tanaquil, her mother-in-law who had been instrumental in helping her own
husband (Tarquinius Priscus) to become a king at Rome, and who had ensured the
smooth transfer of power to a successor she herself had chosen (Servius
Tullius, Tullia’s father).
Livy’s presentation of Tanaquil is ambiguous. In
his words, she is ‘a woman of the most exalted birth and not of a character
lightly to endure a humbler rank in her new [Roman] environment than the one
she had enjoyed by birth’12. To save the monarchy
Tanaquil alters the deliberative process reserved for the senate and the people
of Rome. When her husband falls victim to an assassination plot, she encourages
Servius to take the reigns into his hands:
To you, Servius, if you are a man, belongs this
kingdom, not to those who by the hands of others have committed a dastardly
crime. Arouse yourself and follow the guidance of the gods ... Now is the time
... Rise up to the occasion. We, too, although foreigners, ruled over Rome.
Consider who you are and not where you were born. If your judgement is numb in
so sudden a crisis then follow my council 13.
The fact that Livy leaves the ultimate tribute
to Tanaquil in Tullia’s hands reflects a deep-seated uneasiness with the assumption
of male power by women, laudable as their intentions and ultimate results might
have been. Although Tanaquil’s resourcefulness saves the dynasty that she had
created she also violates male norms by claiming a higher authority than the
traditional mos maiorum (custom) would have allowed any woman, queens
included. By setting herself and her late husband as models for Tullius to be
imitated, Tanaquil also paves the way to Tullia.
As the biblical narrative recreates Jewish
queenship in the scroll of Esther, the leading female character undergoes the
same kind of transformation that underlies the Tanaquil-to-Tullia process, but
in reverse. To begin with, Esther is not only Jewish but a woman with
impeccable royal (Jewish) blood in her veins. Jezebel is constantly branded a
foreigner in a manner that reflects not only her ethnicity but also her
proclivities14. In the redactional
history of the Hebrew Bible
_____________________
485
the Deuteronomist antipathy to foreigners, and
particularly to foreign queens, has been associated with a deep-seated fear of
idolatry through contamination15. The elevation of
foreigners to Rome’s throne, by contrast, reflects Rome’s greatness and her
openness to strangers, while Tullia’s urging of her husband to seize the throne
on the ground of his ‘nativeness’ is clearly misplaced.
The scroll depicts the decree of Ahasuerus-Haman
ordering the elimination of the Jews as a writ of national emergency. The clash
between Ahab and Naboth appears, at first, as carrying little import beyond the
king’s petty desire to expand to plant vegetables. Yet behind the issue of the
vineyard versus royal garden lurks the larger question of the legitimate scope
of monarchical actions vis-Ã -vis the king’s subjects16. In the Esther scroll
the queen reacts to a patriarchal call to action and only exercises her
potential royal power to save her people, as Tanaquil does to save Rome from
revolution. Jezebel, like Tullia, acts on her own initiative, subverting male
standards of royal behavior.
Just how perilously close to each other are,
nevertheless, constructs of royal women like Tanaquil and Tullia on the one
hand, and Jezebel and Esther on the other, can be further gauged from the
attitude of all the texts to the public appearance of queens. Roman and Jewish
authors are unanimous in banning women from the public eye. Jezebel and Esther
never appear in public. Tanaquil makes a single public appearance when there is
no one else who can save the dynasty. Even then she remains standing at a
window in the palace, shielded by its walls. Tullia’s venturing into the forum
invokes censure by her husband, and by the historian Livy. But Tanaquil’s
position near a top window, although emphasizing Tullia’s boldness in venturing
outdoors, also signifies the female usurpation of male authority at home.
Ultimately, both women embark on a course of action that contradicts male
expectations of female royalty. Nevertheless Tanaquil garners praise while
Tullia is condemned.
Jezebel’s sole ‘public’ appearance is made as a
spectator standing at the window of the palace that another king is about to
possess. Observing the approach of Jehu, she stands at the window as a visual
_____________________
486
reminder of the legitimacy of her royal position
and of his usurpation. Her words reinforce the image that her presence conveys:
‘Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of his master?’ (2 Kgs 9,30). Her words, like
Tanaquil’s to Tullius, are filtered through space and the conventions of
official language as she faces the successor of her dynasty and her ultimate
executioner17.
Esther is never seen or heard addressing
directly any man besides her husband and cousin/father. In fact, no biblical
narrator or redactor ventured to place either queen, Jezebel or Esther, outside
the confines of the palace itself. Both women use messengers to gather information
and agents to convey their commands and their threats. Yet, like Tanaquil and
Tullia, the two biblical queens were destined for vastly disparate
‘after-life’. In collective memory Jezebel became a stereotype of shrewish and
detestable queens18. Esther’s adventures
are still celebrated. ....
