person
Herodias
Wife of Herod Antipas in the Gospels, remembered for orchestrating the beheading of John the Baptist through her daughter Salome's dance; her name became a byword for a scheming, hard-hearted woman.
Reading notes
- The Guard Under Guard §19 Herodias
Wife of Herod Antipas in the Gospels, who through her daughter Salome engineered the execution of John the Baptist; a byword for a cruel, scheming wife, here flung at Nastasya Lvovna in mock-tragic register.
- The Vaudeville §17 Herodias
Invoked here purely as a stock insult for a hard, unfeeling woman -- the vaudeville-husband's overblown abuse of his weeping wife.