once pristine

name, iohannis : 'ich will den kopf johannes' rings out in singularly destructive potency : why is her shrill call so potent : why does one suddenly feel a chord of empathy with the unsympathetic herod when she makes her uncompromising claim : her demand is incomprehensible, even given the back story provided by herodias' circumstance : why does herodias care what john thinks about her marriage when john is imprisoned and presumably helpless against her : salome's call is baffling and gruesome, a finality and humiliation in the act increases the dramatic import : augustine: john's father, zacharias, is struck dumb in disbelief of john's birth, then 'finally, he is born, he receives a name and his father's tongue is loosed' : john declares: 'i am the voice of one crying in the wilderness' : ... 'john is the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word' [logos] : st john's gospel characterizes the word which had been 'with God from the beginning' : 'he receives a name and his father's tongue is loosed' : iohannis, the person name, is woven into the word, plan, language [logos] : the name is an interwoven prologue (john the baptist) and epilogue (st john) to the fundament of the logos, the sound before the sound and after the sound : john's father zachary loses his voice until john is named, salome terminates john's voice, in cutting his throat, she attacks exactly the anatomy of his voice