8 - Vice (The Wiles Of The Harlot)

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Introduction

This ingenious little sermon (composed in verse and based largely on the seventh chapter of the Biblical Book of Proverbs) is obviously to be understood allegorically, for there would be no point in warning desert ascetics against the ploys of real live urban streetwalkers. The harlot is evidently Apostasy or the like, in line with the Biblical characterization of it as 'whoredom'.

The subtle artistry of the poem should not be missed. Almost every statement is couched in terms of double-entendre, the actual characteristics of a prostitute (as frequently portrayed in classical literature) being interpreted in a metaphorical sense. Thus, the raucous banter, coarse jests, and wheedling flattery with which she customarily accosts passers-by become the worthless, blasphemous, and seductive mouthings of apostasy; the earnings which she stashes in the folds or bosom of her dress become the multitude of transgressions which impiety carries with it Similarly, the bright (usually yellow) garments which ladies of easy virtue commonly affected in ancient times are the shades of night and gloom in which sin is enveloped; the little patches of gold foil with which, in Roman times, loose women concealed defects of complexion are caustically identified as the scabs and blotches of corruption.

The harlot's bed is the bed of worms spread in the netherworld; the darkened chamber in which she receives her clients is darkling Hell; the furtiveness which pervades it is the silence of the grave; and the heat of lust is the 'everlasting fire'. The alleys which she frequents are the gates of the netherworld; her smooth blandishments are slippery morasses. And in almost every case the point is made by a application of Scriptural phrases or clichés.

Nor is it only the content, but also the structure of the poem that is cunningly contrived. The poet passes successively from the whore's demeanor and talk (her mouth, tongue, lips, wiles, blandishments, and badinage) to her physical traits (the characteristics of her heart, reins, hands, and feet); then to her dress and ornaments (cloak, skirts, spangles); then to her abode (bed, darkened chamber, 'pavilion', 'tent', and doorway); and finally to her behavior on her 'beat'.

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The Wiles Of The Harlot

[Out of] her [mouth] she brings forth emptiness,
and on [her tongue lie] devious wiles. (1)
Ever importuning, (2) [she] gives sharp edge to [her] words; (3)
with reprobate [lips] (4) she plies her blandishments (5)—
[banter] (6) and badinage and mocking jests. (7)
Her heart contrives wantonness,
and her reins are a well[spring of filth]. (8)
Her hands are stained with wrongdoing, (9)
her feet are close to a pit; (10)
they run (11) to do wickedness,
and to go about amid transgressions; (12)
[her steps] are grounded in darkness. (13)
(Stored) in the lappet of her garments
are a million transgressions. (14)
[Her skirts] (15) are the shades (16) of night,
and her vestments [the shadow of death]. (17)
{5} Her raiment is the murk of twilight, (18)
and her spangles are squalid blotches. (19)
Her couch is the mattress of Corruption; (20)
[her bed] the depths of the Pit. (21)
To pass the night with her
is to lie in darkness, (22)
and her [ ] (23) is the blackness of night. (24)

She sets her pavilion (25) in the darkling realm, (26)
and dwells in the tents of Silence, (27)
amid the eternal burnings; (28)
she does not partake at all
of the lights of the dayspring. (29)

From her start all ways of wrongdoing. (30)
Alas, she has ever brought ruin
on all who possessed her,
and destruction on all who laid hold on her;
for her ways are the ways of Death, (31)
and her roads are the paths of Sin;
{10} her trails are the twists and turns of wrongdoing,
and [her] byways are lawless transgression. (32)

Her gates are the gates of Death; (33)
beside her doorway she strides, (34)
<luring men> to Hell. (35)
All that go into her never come back, (36)
and all that possess her go down to Corruption. (37)
[. . .] She lies in wait in hidden places (38)
[to catch] (39) all who [pass by]. (40)

She goes muffled up (41) through the city squares
takes her stand at the gates of towns. (42)
There is no cal[ming her] cla[mor] (?). (43)
Her eyes peer (44) hither and yon,
and wantonly lifts she her lids,
to see [if perchance there be] (45)
a righteous man to turn back in his course, (46)
or a [blame]less man to tnp up,
turning the upright from their path, (47)

God's honest and true elect (48)
{15} from keeping the commandments; (49)
converting soothfast men (50) to wantonness (?) (51)
and causing those that walk straight
to alter [their course]; (52)
inciting the meek to rebel against God,
and turning their steps from the paths of righteousness; (53)
bringing intemperance (54) [into their hearts] (55)
so that they keep not their stance
on straightforward paths; (56)
leading men astray
on pit-ridden ways. (57)
and seducing the sons of men
into morasses. (58)

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Notes

1. In a literal sense, the Heb. word to'oth here means 'fatuities', being taken as the equivalent of tu^tittm, which is similarly juxtaposed with 'emptiness' (hebel) in Jer. 10.15; 51.18. It thus characterizes the chatter of whores. Metaphorically, however, it means 'errors', i.e., the false and blasphemous doctrines fostered by apostasy and irreligion. Nicholas Breton (1626) similarly describes the reprobate: 'His breath is the fume of blasphemy, and his tongue a firebrand of hell'.

2. Cp. Prov. 7.15.

3. For the Heb. expression, cp. Palestinian Talmud, Ber. iii.6 (though there used in a different sense).

4. Cp. Job 27.4; cp. also Mal. 2.6. The expression recurs in Hymns v.24.

5. Cp. Prov. 2.16; 7.5.

6. Restoring [la'ag] wa-qeles, after Pss. 44.14; 79.4. The expression recurs in War, ii.10. In the literal sense, it refers to the banter and persiflage in which streetwalkers customarily indulge; metaphorically, to the taunts which apostasy habitually flings at faith.

7. The Heb. word (hells) means both 'jest' and 'scoff. In the literal sense it refers to the ribaldries hurled by more brazen harlots at passers-by. In Greek literature, such gay talk is regarded as a hallmark of loose women: see Headlam-Knox, Herodas (1922), pp. 34f. Metaphorically, it refers to the mocking tone of apostasy.

8. I restore: me[qor niddah], after Hymns i 22; xii.25. The expression derives from Zech. 13.1 (though there used in a different sense). Literally, this refers to the physical uncleanliness of streetwalkers—possibly ever to venereal disease; metaphorically, to moral turpitude and base doctrine.

9. Modelled on Isa. 59.3. Cp. also Ezek. 23.37, 45.

10. Cp. Ps. 17.5.

11. The manuscript is here indistinct. I read yarusu, after the similar (though not identical) expression in Isa, 59.7; Prov. 1.16.

12. Cp. Ps. 68.21.

13. 'Darkness' is here a popular term for the netherworld cp. Ps. 143.3; Job 10.21; 17.13; Lam. 3.6. Comparable are the Akkadian expressions, 'Dark House' (bitu etu) and 'House of Gloom' (bit ekleti); see M. Held, in The Gaster Festschrift (1973), p. 179, n. 53.

14. In the literal sense, this refers to the practise of stashing money, etc. in the lappet (Latin, lacinia; Akkadian, qannu) of the robe; it is there that the harlot would carry her earnings. Metaphorically, what wanton apostasy carries around is a load of transgressions. ('A million' is simply a rendering ad sensum of the Heb. 'a multitude'.)

15. Restoring [shulehah]. Cp. the familiar English 'trailing garments of the night'.

16. The Heb. word to'afoth, which occurs, in quite a different sense, in Num. 23.22; 24.8, and in Ps. 95.4; Job 22.25, is here equated with te'ufah, 'darkness', in Job 11.17; cp. also ib. 10.22.

17. Restoring [salmoaweth]—a word (properly, salmuth) which really means 'darkness', but was popularly inter preted in antiquity as 'shadow of death' (i.e., sel maweth); cp. Job 10.22.

18. The harlot walks her beat at twilight; cp. Prov. 7.9. On the literal level, these words are a pointed gibe at the bright colors (especially yellow) affected by loose women; see Kirby Smith, on Tibullus, i.7.46; T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testa-ment (1969), §266(b).

19. For the ornaments (spangles) worn by harlots, cp. Ezek. 23.40. On the literal level, this phrase satirizes the gold patches (Latin, splenia; cp. Martial, ii.29, 9) which, in Roman times, women wore to conceal bodily blemishes.

20 I e., the bed of worms spread in the netherworld, cp. Isa. 14.11. ('Corruption' may here be a pure synonym for Sheol; for the sentiment, cp. Ps. 139.8.)

21. For the sentiment, cp. Prov. 7.27; 9.18.

22. Literally, 'her lodgings are darkness', see above, n. 13.

23. The manuscript is here indistinct Allegro reads [me]mshelotehah, 'her realm, bailiwick', but what is required is a closer parallel to 'her lodgements', in the preceding line.

24. Cp. Prov. 7.9—here again a popular term for the netherworld.

25. The Heb. expression is based on Isa. 40.22. Cp. also Gen. 13.18.

26. Cp. Prov. 7.9.

27. I.e., in the netherworld; cp. Pss. 94.17; 115.17.

28. Cp. Isa. 33.14, but here denoting the fires of hell; cp. Manual, ii.8; iv.13; Hymns xviii.13.

29. Heb. Me'ore nogah. I interpret the latter word from the specific sense which it bears in Syriac (cp. also Isa. 60.3), because the poet seems to intend a pointed contrast to 'the murk of twilight' previously mentioned. But the expression could mean simply 'bright lights' in general.

30. Modelled on Prov. 8.22.

31. Cp. Prov. 14.12; 16.25; II Esdras 7.48; 8.31. 'Death' here means the netherworld, as in Is?. 26.15; 38.18; Job 28.22. Comparable is the Akkadian 'House of Death' (bit muti). For the notion of the road to Death, see T. H. Gaster, in Iraq 6 (1939), 130, n. 70; M. Held, in Th. Gaster Festschrift (1973), p. 180, n. 56.

32. This expression recurs in Manual, ix.4. Cp. also ib., i.23.

33. Cp. Isa. 38.10; Ps. 9.14; Job 38.17; Hymns vi.24.

34. Cp. Prov. 9.14. Lurking in doorways is often mentioned in Greek literature as a sign of loose morals, e.g., Theophrastus, Characters, xxviii.3; Aristophanes, Peace, 978-86; Thesm., 792; Xenophon, Oec., viii.30; Menander, fr. 546 Koch.

35. Cp. Prov. 5.5. Meter and sense alike suggest that two lines have here been accidentally run together.

36. Prov. 2.19; cp. also Job 10.21; 16.22. Comparable is the Akkadian 'Land of No Return' (erset Id tari) as a term for the netherworld. Not impossibly, this line is also to be understood sensu obscoeno, with a kind of double-entendre.

37. Cp. Ps. 30.10; Job 33.24; Ezek. 28.8.

38. Cp. Ps. 10.9; Lam. 3.10.

39. I restore: [la-hetof], after Ps. 10.9. For such 'snatch-ing' of wayfarers by lurking harlots, cp. Theophrastus, Characters, xxviii.3; Athenaeus, xiii.569C, where an exactly equivalent term (harpazem) is used.

40. Restoring, with Allegro: ['obere derek], after Prov. 9.15; but ['ober ba-shuq], 'who passes in the street', after Prov. 7.8, would also be possible.

41. Cp. Gen. 38.14 and the traditional (though probably incorrect) interpretation of Song of Songs, 1.7, as read in the Masoretic text.

42. Cp. Prov. 8.3.

43. The text is damaged. Allegro restores: We-en le-harg['iah] me-ha[tto]t [temimim], 'and there is no stirring (i.e., interrupting) her from leading innocent men astray'. This is certainly possible, but in view of the fact that in Prov. 7.11 and 9.13 the harlot is described expressly as 'boisterous' (homiyah), the verb may mean 'calm, quieten' (from r-g- II) rather than 'stir' (from r-g-' I). An alternative restoration of the follow-ing me-h[ ] might then be me'[hemyat. .. (cp Isa. 14.11)], 'from (her) boisterous [clamor]', the voice contrasting with the eyes.

44. Heb. yaskilu is here used in the post-Biblical sense of 'peer' (histakel).

45. I restore: li-re[th ha-yesh]; cp. Ps. 14.2.

46. The verb tsghu must here be vocalized tesigehu from s-w-g (=s-w-g), 'fall back', rather than tessigehu, from n-s-g, 'overtake', in view of the fact that the former is similarly juxtaposed with k-sh-l, 'trip, stumble', in Manual, ii.12.

47. Cp. Ps. 37.14; Prov. 28.10; 29.27

48. Literally, 'the elect of righteousness', cp. Hymns ii.13.

49. Cp. Pss. 78-7: 119.115; Prov. 6.20.

50. I restore semuke [yeser}, after the expression, yeser samuk (taken from Isa. 26.3) in Manual, iv.5; viii.3; Hymns i.35; ii.9.

51 The manuscript is indistinct. If Allegro's le-h-b-y-l is correct, the only possible explanation would be to vocalize le-habbil, from n-b-l, 'be impious, coarse', but the causative (hif'il) form of this root occurs nowhere else, so that this reading is suspect. For the sentiment, cp. Hymns ii.36.

52. The text is again damaged. Allegro restores: [hoq], 'the ordinance', but a plausible alternative would be simply dar[kam] or der[ek], '(their) way'.

53. Cp. Prov. 16.31. The expression recurs in Manual, iv.2.

54. Heb. zadon is usually rendered 'presumption', but it comes from a root which means primarily 'seethe', and 'seething passion, lust, intemperance' seems to be the nuance here intended.

55. Indistinct.

56. Cp. Prov. 4.11.

57. Literally, this means simply 'potholed roads' (cp. analogously Jer. 2.6, 'a land of pits/holes'), but the expression is intended to convey also the notion of 'roads leading to the Pit', i.e., the netherworld.

58. There is here a subtle double-entendre, the Heb. halaqot meaning both 'smooth talk' and 'slippery places' (cp. Ps. 73.18). Hence the meaning is at once that the harlot seduces men by her blandishments and into a morass!

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