Epigrams on Works of Art 195Judith killed Holophernes is compared to the sword of Christ, who, born of a
woman, died on the cross and by His death on the cross (his sword) annihilated
the power of Satan. The point of comparison, femininity, is rather far-fetched:
Israel was saved by a “female sword” and mankind was saved by the cross of
Him who “came forth from a woman”^105. As Christianity looks upon women as
feeble creatures, the potentially dangerous concept of female courage is neu-
tralized by presenting Judith merely as an instrument of God – a female sword
of which He makes use. Likewise, the Holy Virgin’s contribution to the salva-
tion of man is reduced to the act of giving birth to Christ. Christ is one hundred
percent male, of course, but in the epigram He appears in “feminine” form as
the Wisdom of God (Qeo ̄ Soó5a). The poet hereby implicitly suggests, I would
say, that in the story of Judith it is the feminine side of masculinity that
liberates and brings salvation. As Judith’s female strength is merely a reflec-
tion of the masculine might of God, the epigram reads as a playful, but hardly
subversive inversion of traditional gender roles. She is he.
The epigram on Judith is not directly related to the actual physical appear-
ance of the miniature, which shows her leaving her home town, going to the
camp of the enemy and killing drunken Holophernes in his tent, and which also
depicts the final stage of this biblical historiette: the victory of the Israelites.
Only verses 2 and 3 to some extent correspond to the image: q‰ly x5óoß refers
to the representation of Judith clutching Holophernes by the hair and swaying
a bloodstained sword, and the szthr5a of Israel alludes to the combat scene in
which the Israelites are clearly winning. With the word szthr5a, however, the
poet already moves away from pure description and introduces an element of
interpretation. The Israelites do not simply win a crushing victory over their
enemies, but obtain spiritual salvation. In the first verse the viewer is already
exhorted to interpret the image as a t7poß and to read it as a story of redemp-
tion (l7tron). Through this symbolic reading of the visual message, spelt out in
great detail in the epigram, the poet guides the viewer through the maze of
biblical exegesis and instructs him how he is to look at the image. The sword is
the cross of Christ, Judith resembles the Holy Virgin, the victory in combat
amounts to spiritual salvation, and the enemy is the panoply of Satan.
Thus the epigram presents a symbolic interpretation of the image. It can
hardly be said to describe the actual miniature. The words of the epigram do
not have any bearing on what the image expresses in its composition, forms,
lines and palette. But then again, why should the poet have to be so obtuse as
to try and convey in words what the painter so admirably expressed in paint?
(^105) Cf. Luke 2: 25–35, the prophetical speech of Symeon when he sees the Child in the
Temple. In verse 35 he tells Mary: kaò so ̄ aJt‰ß tën vycën diele7setai ½omóa5a – which
probably refers to the grief she will feel when her Son dies on the cross.