~l 'jl ". Entre mtos & conocmento Between Myths & Knowledge Entre mythes & connasance Edton LSA BLOCK DE BEHAR MONTEVDEO 2003.
The transformaton of bblcal Samson or The heroc falure to escape myth Davd Fshelov n ths paper shall dscuss some unsuccessful attempts to suppress the mythcal dmensons n the story of Samson, frst n the orgnal bblcal story tself (Judges 13-16), and then n two modern versons that re-wrte t: the novel Samson by Vladmr (Ze'ev) Jabotnsky, wrtten n the late twentes of our century, and the flm Samson and Dellah by the Hollywood drector Cecl B. DeMlle, produced n the late fortes. Any readng of the bblcal Samson story easly reveals two conflctng facts. Frst, that Samson has some trats that make hm superor to any ordnary human beng. A very strong and resourceful person could perhaps knock down thrty people and steal ther garments; powerful and skllful man may fght a sck old lon. But who could sngle-handedly slay a thousand warrors, usng only the jawbone of an ass, or carry the ctygates of Gaza or brng down a huge temple n whch more than three thousand people were gathered? Such deeds seem ft for a mythcal fgure, endowed wth super-human forces, perhaps a half-human halfgodly creature. The second fact, equally conspcuous, s that the Bble makes every effort to conceal and suppress these mythcal dmensons of the story and the fgure. Anythng that "smells" of super-human strength, of magcal power, s subjected to a strct relgous nterpretaton. Let us consder, for example, Samson's orgns: the frst thought that comes to mnd s that Samson s the son of the sun god (couplng wth Samson's mother n the form of a,heavenly vst). The reason for makng that connecton s almost
48 Davd Fshelo'v 49 unavodable for anybody who speaks Hebrew (as some of the early rabbs observed n ther nterpretatons). Sun n Hebrew s shemesh and Samson's name n Hebrew s Shmshon. The Bble tres to counter such thoughts by ncludng a long annuncaton scene (Judges 13) n whch Samson's brth s foretold by an angel. Does the pous bblcal verson block the mythcal assocaton? Not necessarly, and n fact these attempts to suppress the mythcal dmensons seem only to enhance speculaton about the real source of Samson as a character and of the Samson story. The mythcal aspects of the story are evdent despte the Bble's (heroc) attempts to suppress them. We're not dealrgwth a sngle, solated detal that can be assocated wth a myth, but wth a large and nterconnected seres of elements. Samson's assocaton wth the sun or sun-god s based not only on phonologcal or etymologcal reasons -the resemblance n the sound of ther names- but also on detals ofsamson's appearance: hs locks of har resemble the sun's rays. What s even more mportant, the connecton s based also on certan events n the plot: Samson's major enemy n the story, the one who brngs hm down, s the woman he loves, Dellah~ And, agan, for anyone who knows Hebrew t s sgnfcant that wthn Dellah's name one can easly fnd the word 'nght': lylah. Thus, the battle between the Hebrew Samson and the Phlstne Dellah can be portrayed as another varaton on the eternal, mythcal battle between the forces of lght, represented by the son of the sun, and the forces of darkness and nght, represented by a wcked woman. And what s the source ofsamson's strength? s t located n hs locks and thus are we n a world of magc, n whch a hero's strength or weakness can be found n potons or parts of hs body (Achlles' heel comes naturally to mnd n ths context)? Agan, the Bble goes out of ts way to erase such heretcal thoughts and emphaszes that Samson's strength stems from hs vow to God as a Nazarte. When Samson breaks hs relgous vows, hs strength s taken from hm, and after he repents and prays to God, he gets t back. Note, moreover, that we are told, before the dramatc culmnaton of th'e story n the temple of Dagon -~. \. where Samson prays to God, that hs har has grown back agan: "Howbet the har of hs head began to grow agan after he was shaven" (Judges 16:22). Thus, as wth the dea about Samson beng a dem-god, so wth the queston concernng the source of hs strength, t seems that the Bble's attempts to suppress the mythcal and magcal dmensons do not succeed n blockng such deas and perhaps even only enhance them.. Thus, one can detect n the bblcal text many tensons between, on the one hand, the mythcal dmensons and sourcesof the Samson stores,! and, on the other, the attempts to suppress these stmrces and to replace them wth the new monothestc belef. When we approach modern re-wrtngs of the bblcal Samson, we may naturally expect that such mythcal dmensons wll have vanshed. After all, t s commonly assumedthat modem tmes have long abandoned mythcal ways of thnkng. n a way, ths s true. t s even more true n the sense that the two works that am gong on to dscuss portray and re-create Samson as a more plausble and more realstc fgure. Stll, desptethe generalzetgest as well as the more realstc pcture of Samson that we get n Jabotnsky's novel Samson2 and DeMlle's flm, Samson and Dellah, some mythcal dmensons stll seem to lurk n unexpected corners of the story and to resst oblteraton. Jabotnsky's novel Samson was wrtten orgnally n Russan n the late twentesand was qucklytranslatednto Hebrew,Englsh and German. The novel acheved much success, especally n the Hebrew translaton, among Jewsh readers n Palestne, notably contemporary rght-wng youth. For theseyoung people, Samson, as portrayedn the novel, became a model-hero.3 As hstorans of Zonsm tell us, Jabotnsky was the leader of the rght wngelementof the movement,the founder of the ZonstRevsonst party and ts youth movement, Betar. n addton to hs poltcal and deologcal actvtes, Jabotnsky was also a very talented wrter and a gfted translator of poetry nto Hebrew (hs verson of Edgar Alen Poe's "'he Raven" s stll consdered a translator's masterpece). n some of hs fcton he tred to express hs deologcal atttudes, and Samson s
50 Davd Fshelov 51 perhaps hs most poltcal pece. Apart from the poltcal ramfcatons of the novel, perhaps the most strkng thng about t s the radcally seclllar perspectve on the story. Jabotnskyactually gave every event a realstc, materalstc explanaton, based on socal, ethnc, psychologcal and economc factors. Thus, Samson's brth s descrbed as,the result of adultery -the man who came to see Samson's mother n the feld (as descrbed n Judges 13) was no angel of God, but the mother's lover, and Samson's real father. Samson's strength was not super-human; he was smply an extremely resourceful warror. And some of the so-called facts that come to us from the Bble about hs deeds are n fact legendary embellbhments or urban folktales. A small but representatve example: The foxes wth fery tals that Samson loosed nto the Phls.tnes' crops were n fact a bunch of young fghters, led by hm durng some guerlla war aganst the Phlstnesand helpnghm keep controloverhs fellowsraeltes.another representatve example: after Samson's locks were shaved by Dellah, he lost hs mght and stamna not because of any super-human factors but because he was rdculed by the Phlstnes for beng a bald-head. Ths sem-mythcal event s thus explaned on very smple psychologcal grounds. At face value, t would seem that Jabotnsky's Samson not only lost hs locks but also all hs mythcal dmensons, leavng us wth a straghtforward "realstc" tale. To a certan degree that may be the case, but hstory has ts ronc twsts. Hayn Nachman Balk, the promnent Hebrew poet of the turn of ths century, made an nterestng comment on the novel. He sad that Jabotnsky successfully created not only a credble lterary fgure, but also a myth (see Bstrtzky). Why dd Balk make such a statement, when he knew, as any reader knows, that Jabotnsky's Samson has no super-human forces and that most of the events n the story are gvenrealstc explanatons?to understand Balk's comment we should take "myth" and "mythcal" n a wder, looser sense than the one that refers to Greco-Roman or other ancent cultures. n ths wder sense, a fgure would gan mythcal dmensons f he or she -' becomes "larger than lfe"; uprooted from the concrete hstorcal crcumstances n whch he or she lved; and turns nto a symbol capable of explanng hstory. n the tradtonal sense of the term 'myth' we have, n addton to the above meanngs, also the assumpton that the myth (the story) and the mythcal way of thnkng are detached from and even contrasted to logcal ways of thnkng and nvolve some supernatural forces or agents. n the broad, lpose, modem sel1se of the term that 'm usng here, we may talk of the mythcal dmensons that certan hstorcal fgures have acqured. John Ftzgerald Kennedy, for nstance, would come to mnd n modem, almost contemporary Amercan hstory. John Ftzgerald Kennedy has ganed a mythcal aura such as no other modem Amercan presdent can lay clam to. t s very dffcult, for nstance, to magne someone lke Bll Clnton sproutng such aura, despte the fact that prma face, these two have the same poltcal and deologcal agenda. t takes somethng beyond specfc poltcal atttudes to wn the mythcal aura. n a smlar sense we can also talk of certan lterary characters who have acqured the symbolc-mythcal dmenson (n the broad sense) -lke Don Quxote or even Katka's Joseph K. n ths context, thnk one can understand, and accept Balk's comment. Ja:botnsky's Samson ndeed became, at least among Jewsh readers of the thrtes and fortes, 'e'5pecally n Palestne, a hero-model, a symbol, a myth to be emulated n the poltcal and the socal arena. Accordng to Balk, the character took on mythcal dmensons because he represented a coherent, f complex, model for actng n hstory and for explanng hstory. Jabotnsky thought that the most mportant factors determnng a naton's fate are ts ablty to gather ts vtal forces, organze them and translate them nto mltary mght and poltcal strength under the leadershp of one ruler. f ths sounds a bt repellent to our ears, remndng us of some fascst values, ths s no accdent. t seems that durng the twentes Jabotnsky was ndeed mpressed by the growng power of fascst taly. However, we should modfy our crtcsm, because at that tme the horrors of the fascst regme were not yet known or fully
52 Davd Fshelov 53 -~ developed, Besdes, Jabotnsky was not satsfed wth mltary strength and poltcal unty. He also had strong belefs about the mportance of cultural lfe based on lberal values. Thus, when Samson announces hs solemn wll to the people of srael before the dramatc end of hs story, he enumerates three vtal thngs that hs people should learn: Tell them three thngs n my name, and not two: they must get ron [.e., weapons - D.E]; they must choose a kng; and they must learn to laugh. (Jabotnsky,p. 331). The frst two caught the attenton of Jabotnskyls rght-wng followers, but the thrd, mtgatng factor that puts an emphass on culture, laughter and rony seemed less mportant to them. Thanks to memorable formulatons, lke the one n hs testament, Jabotnsky's Samson became a model hero, and ganed the mythcal dmenson that Balk talks about. An ndrect echo of the mpact that the novel and Samson's mpressve fgure had on the Jewsh communty n Palestne from the thrtes onward can be seen n My Mchael, the wellknown novel by Amos Oz, the wdely tran~lated and hghly regarded contemporary srael novelst. The scene takes. place n 1956, durng the Sna war (perhaps better known n thewest as the Suez Canal operaton). Chana Gonen, the herone of the novel, s vsted by two elderly rghtwng neghbors who try to cheer her up when her husband, Mchael, s 'lalled up to hs reserve army unt. One of them, Mr. Kadshman, delvers ths patrotc speech: srael s no longer "as scattered sheep"; we are no longer a ewe among seventy wolves, or a lamb beng led to the slaughter, We have had enough. "Among wolves, be a wolf." t has all happened as Jabotnsky foretold n hs prophetc novel, Prelude to Dellah. Have you read Jabotnsky's Prelude to Dellah, Mrs. Gonen? t s well worth readng. And especally now that our army s pursung the routed forces of Pharaoh and the sea s not dvded for the fleeng Egyptans, (Oz, p. 168) For these two elderly Revsonsts, Jabotnsky' s Samson functoned not as a smple lterary character, but as a model hero, a symbol, an explanatory prncple that may gude one's footsteps n hstory -n other
54 Davd Fshelov 55 1, 11!!' '!j.1 11 11 11 1 [ tl, f w words, as a modern myth. Now let us turn to another modern work of art that has re-created the Samson story, and see where andhow one can fnd mythcal dmensons n t: DeMlle's Samson and Dellah. As wth Jabotnsky's novel, so wth DeM11e's flm, a superfcal look w11not reveal my mythcal dmenson. t s nstructve to note that DeMlle partly based hs screenplay on Jabotnsky' s novel (probably one of the researchers came across the Englsh translaton). He took from Jabotnsky, for nstance, the br11antdea of makng Dellah the younger andjealous sster of Samson's frst love, the Tmnath woman. But unlke Jabotnsky, DeM11ewas not partcularly nterestednpoltcs,let alonethe mltaryandpoltcalbuld-up of modern Jews. n fact, the flm s focused on the dramatc love story between Samson and Dellah, whch was one of the reasons that made t a great box offce success when t came out n 1949. n order to make the relatonshp between Samson and Dellah more movng and melodramatc, DeMlle dd not hestate to alter certan detals of the bblcal story (as well as of Jabotnsky's novel) -but wthout tamperng wth the basc plot. Frst, he followed Jabotnsky by makng Dellah the younger sster of the frst Phlstne woman, Semadar, thus addng sblng rvalry over the attractve Hebrew strong man. Secondly, he adds further romantc nterest to the story: n addton to Ser~dar, a young and vrtuous Hebrew youj)gwoman also fghts for Samson's lo~e aganst Dellah. We also have a rval to Samson n the contest for Dellah herself -the Phlstne leader, Saran of Gaza. Dellah s hs concubne, but fnally he loses her to Samson: Dellah's body may belong to hm for some tme, but her heart always belongs to Samson. But the most sgnfcant change that DeM11e made to the bblcal story (and here he was also very dfferent from Jabotnsky) was to turn Dellah nto a pentent. Thanks to her true repentance, Samson forgves her and 'towards the end they become a lovng couple, notably durng the memorable and tragc endng, where Dellah helps Samson execute hs sucdal plan. t s Dellah who leads the blnded Samson to the p11ars upon whch the temple rests, and who decdes to stay wth hm n the -~. '\. shattered temple, knowng that death wl come to her. Thus, f DeMlle made the Samson story nto a sem-sweet melodrama oflove, ddn't he kll every mythcal dmenson? would lke to argue that not necessarly. There are two aspects whch st11show how the Samson story ganed a mythcal dmenson n the cnematc re-creaton. Frst, DeM11e attached a prologue to the story. Pctures of the earth, dols and the boots of conquerng legons are accompaned by the followng text (n voce over): Before the dawn of hstory, ever snce the frst man dscovered hs soul, he has struggled aganst the forces that sought to enslave hm. He saw the awful power of nature rad aganst hm: the evl eye of the lghtenng, the terrfyng voce of the thunder, the shrnkng wnd flled darkness -enslavng hs mnd n shackles of fear. Fear breeds superstton, blndng hs reason. He was rdden by a host of devl-gods; human dgnty pershed on the altar of dolatry.and tyranny rules, grndng the human sprt beneath the conqueror's heels. But deep n. man's heart stl1 burns the unquenchable wl1for freedom. When ths dvne spark flames n the soul of some mortal, whether prest of solder,artst or patrot, lover or statesman, hs deeds have changed the course of human events and hs name survves the ages. n the v11ageofzorea n the land ofdan, one thousand years before the brth of Chrst lved such a man. n hm the elements had fused greatness and weakness, strength and folly. But wth these was a bold dream: lberty for hs naton.the man's name was Samson.For forty years the Phlstnes had held hs people n Bondage. (DeM1le) n ths prologue we get a bref account of human hstory. Accordng to ths narratve, there s a constant battle between the forces of evl and the forces of good. DeM1le packs together superstton, dolatry and tyranny on the one hand, and human dgnty, belef n one God and freedom and democracy on the other. Needless to say, ths bref course n human hstory had contemporary poltcal resonance. t was only composed four years after the end of World War 2 and the begnnng of the Cold War, and there s no doubt that DeMlle sees a lne runnng from the ancent Hebrews to ther Chrstan hers and from there to modern democraces, notably the Unted States of Amerca. By the same token he dentfes a lne connectng ancent tyrants wth the Sovet Unon..1 ".1
56 Davd Fshelov 57 11:1, 1 1 n addton to the specfc poltcal stands emboded n ths prologue, from my perspectve the mportant pont s that DeMlle ddn't want us to forget the mythcal dmensons of the story. True, he focused on the love of Samson and Dellah, but he also wanted us to watch that story as an emblem of the eternal battle between good and evl. There s yet another mythcal dmenson that DeMlle dd not want us to mss, whle he was embellshng a melodramatc love story: strange dmenson that can be called mythco-relgous. Durng the concludng scene, where Samson stands between the two pllars of Dagon's temple, just before he topples t down on everybody, DeMlle undoubtedly assocates the fgure of Samson -wth ts poston, ts wounds, ts sufferng expresson- wth the fgure of Chrst on the t:;ross (see the llustraton). Needless to say, there s a very rch tradton n lterature and art that portrays Samson as a precursor of Chrst (especally n medeval art),4 and n a way DeMlle jons ths tradton. Thus the fgure of Samson s elevated from the "earthly'" love story to more heavenly plans. The corporeal, earthly personage acqures sprtual and mythcal qualtes. To conclude: f a lterary fgure launched ts career as a hero wth mythcal dmensons, as Samson dd, t wll probably be very dffcult, almost mpossble, for t to shed these dmen~onsn future re-wrtngs, re-creatngs and transformatons. t would take great effort to erase these. mythcal dmen'sons-perhaps a heroc effort befttng someone lke Samson hmself. -' Notes 1.These sources n ancent cultures are dscussed at length n S.A. Palmer, Samson's Saga and ts Place n Comparatve Relgon. See also Zakovtz, especally pp. 236-239. 2,The same Englsh translaton of the novel was publshed also under the ttles of Prelude to Dellah and Judge and Fool. 3, dscuss ths nfluence n my artcle (1997) and n the second chapter of my forthcomng book. 4, For a survey of ths tradton, see Krouse,and the fourth chapter of my forthcomng book. References Bstrtzky,Nathan,"Targumkyetzramekort-al targumshmshonme' et Ze' ev Jabotnskybde YtzhakOren", [Translatonas orgnalwork on the translaton of Shmshon by Ze'ev Jabotnsky] Ma'arv (23.9.1977) (n Hebrew) DeMlle, Cecl B. Samson and Dellah, Paramount Pctures, 1949. Fshelov, Davd. "Hne shavm shmshonay" [Behold My Samsons Return] Et Radat 1(1997),pp. 82-93.(nHebrew) -Machlefot Shmshon:Glgule Shmshon hamkra' ee [Samson's Locks: The Transformatons of Bblcal Samson], Te1Avv, Hafa Unversty Press and Zemora Btan (forthcomng).(n Hebrew) Jabotnsky, Zeev (V1admr). Samson, translated from the German by Cyrus, ", '." Brooks, New Yorkand Mam, Judaea Publshng Company, 1986[1930]. Krause, Mchel. Mlton's Samson and the Chrstan Tradton, Prnceton Unversty Press, Prnceton, N.J., 1949. Oz, Amos. My Mchael, translated by Ncholas de Lange n collaboraton wth the author, London, Vntage, 1972. Palmer, Smyth A. The Samson Saga and ts Place n Comparatve Relgon, London, Ptman, 1913. Zakovtz, Yar.RayeShmshon [Samson's Lfe], Jerusalem,Magnes Press, 1982. (n Hebrew) [! ~ ~