Salome

Love only should one consider.

Put out the torches! Hide the moon! Hide the stars!

Wherefore didst thou not look at me, Jokanaan? If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death

But thou, thou wert beautiful! Thy body was a column of ivory set on a silver socket. It was a garden full of doves and of silver lilies. It was a tower of silver decked with shields of ivory. There was nothing in the world so white as thy body. There was nothing in the world so black as thy hair. In the whole world
there was nothing so red as thy mouth.

Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.

HEROD
The moon has a strange look to-night. Has she not a strange look? She is like a mad woman, a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers. She is naked too. She is quite naked. The clouds are seeking to clothe her nakedness, but she will not let them. She shows herself naked in the sky. She reels through the clouds like a drunken woman.... I am sure she is looking for lovers. Does she not reel like a drunken woman? She is like a mad woman, is she not?

The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body.

Thy mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for the kings!...

long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world so black as thy hair.... Let me touch thy hair.

God is terrible; He breaketh the strong and the weak as a man brays corn in a mortar.