Delilah

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For other uses, see Delilah (disambiguation).

Samson and Delilah by Tintoretto (1518–1594)

Delilah or (דְּלִילָה, Standard Hebrew meaning "[One who] weakened or uprooted or impoverished" from the root dal meaning "weak or poor". Also: Dəlila, Tiberian Hebrew Dəlîlāh; Arabic Dalilah), was the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and who was his downfall, in the Hebrew Bible Book of Judges (Chapter 16). "Samson loved Delilah, she betrayed him, and, what is worse, she did it for money", Madlyn Kahr began her study of the Delilah motif in European painting.^[1]

Delilah was approached by the Philistines, the enemies of Israel, to discover the secret of Samson's strength. Three times she asked Samson for the secret of his strength, and three times he gave her a false answer. On the fourth occasion he gave her the true reason: that he did not cut his hair in fulfillment of a vow to God; and Delilah betrayed him to his enemies.

Some consider that one of the false secrets given by Samson, that his strength would leave him if his hair was woven into a cloth, is reminiscent of arcane woman's magic of the art of weaving that is also inherent in the myths of Penelope, Circe, Arachne.^[2] "Sorek" or "soreq" is only specifically identified as being a place in the Samson story. Jerome mentions a "Capharsorec" that was near Saraa. Modern Israel has a Soreq Valley and even a Sorek Vineyard (since 1994/5) producing Merlot. Soreq, however, is the grapevine itself in Genesis 49:11, Isaiah 5:2, and Jeremiah 2:21. Samson had been dedicated as a Nazarite, "from the womb to the day of his death"; thus he was forbidden to touch wine or cut his hair.^[3] Delilah may be a "vine-woman" (compare the mythic Greek name Oenone), personifying the womanly temptations of the vine that would betray his Nazarite dedication.

For Christians the story of Samson and Delilah is an example of Paul's dictum, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." (I Corinthians 7:1) and the Christian portrayal of woman as a snare for man: this warning is usually the uppermost theme in Western representations, where Delila is the natural embodiment of the Deadly Sin of Luxuria.^[4]. Petrarch instanced Samson and Delilah in his Trionfi, as a victim in his allegorical depiction of the Triumph of Love. Somewhat inappropriately it would seem to a modern eye, the theme was depicted on more than one fifteenth-century Tuscan painted marriage tray. In the North, the Late Gothic theme of Weibermacht, of the dangerous strength of women, included in the series a conventional scene of a seated Delilah, with Samson asleep in her lap, shearing the "seven locks" from his head: the woodcut by Master E.S. might be a scene of courtly love, Madlyn Kahr has remarked, save for the ominous scissors in Delilah's hand.

Samson and Delilah, by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641)

A small grisaille panel by Andrea Mantegna^[5] in the National Gallery, London places the duo beneath a dead tree wound about with a luxurious vine (the debilitating power of the fruitful woman) and a fountain that overflows and seeps away into the ground, with undertones of unbridled sexual appetite. In Northern Europe the Delilah theme was more prominent among painters like Lucas van Leiden and Maerten van Heemskerck, who made a large woodcut of the subject after Titian. Tintoretto followed Titian in introducing a female accomplice of Delilah's; Rubens added further females, with a suggestion of a brothel, and came back to the subject several times. No major seventeenth-century artist approached the subject more often than Rembrandt.^[6]

John Milton personified her as the misguided and foolish but sympathetic temptress, much like his view of Eve, in his 1671 work Samson Agonistes^{[citation needed]}. By the time of Camille Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila (1877) Delilah has become the eponym of a "Delilah", a treacherous and cunning femme fatale.

[edit] Notes

^ The survey of the uses made of Delilah in painting, undertaken by Madlyn Kahr, "Delilah" The Art Bulletin 54.3 (September 1972), pp. 282-299, has provided examples for this article.
^ See Weaving (mythology).
^ As a Nazirite, he was also not permitted to come into contact with the dead, but this does not feature in the Samson narrative.
^ Kahr 1972.
^ It themes are examined on-line by Patrick Hunt.
^ Madlyn Kahr, "Rembrandt and Delilah' The Art Bulletin 55.2 (June 1973), pp. 240-259.

1 Notes
2 Film, Television and Music
3 External links

[edit] Film, Television and Music

Delilah has been portrayed on film and television by among others Hedy Lamarr, Rosalba Neri, Elizabeth Hurley and Belinda Bauer. She was also mentioned in a song in The Phantom of the Opera and in the song Someday We'll Know by the New Radicals.

The fact that Delilah did not do the actual cutting of Samson's hair is an issue in a scene in Delbert Mann's film, Fitzwilly (1967).

In The Dresden Dolls song called "Delilah", she's referred to as 'a sucker for the ones who use her'.

Neil Sedaka wrote a song titled "Run, Samson, Run", a short and upbeat re-telling of his story, and in the end he warns all men "there's a little of Delilah in each and every gal."

In The HBO series Carnivale, Delilah is the bearded-woman of the sideshow. She often shown butting heads with the carivan's leader Samson.

The song Hair by PJ Harvey is about the story of Samson and Delilah.

Fields of the Nephilim refer to Delilah within the song "At The Gates Of Silent Memory" from the Elizium album

Regina Spektor's song "Samson" tells his story and directly refers to the cutting of his hair

Bob Dylan's song, Tombstone Blues, on his Highway 61 Revisited album, makes reference to Delilah, ('The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone/ Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown/ At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone/ But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter').