Potiphar's wife

“ The snake-charmers ply their trade, and the jugglers and traveling dancers divert the servants, and as the women rearrange the clothes-presses, jewel-caskets, chests for the garments of state, they indulge freely in idle gossip about their mistress, who is returning prematurely from the court, having feigned an illness. There is a soft light from latticed windows through which are heard the sounds of the outer world, while at the sound of the trumpets announcing the approach of the wife of Potiphar, the players and dancers retire hurriedly, being ordered out of the room by a servant. ”

“ If morals are to be called into question, xi can it be disputed that, as compared with Woman, Man is the moral creature, and has ever been, from the time of Potiphar’s wife, up to the present?
Woman is the irresponsible creature who cannot reason nor follow an argument to its just conclusion—who cannot control her own emotions, nor rid herself of superstition. What question more pertinent, then, to ask than this: If mankind is to be led by the New Woman, is she, first of all, sure of the path? ”

“ I would be thine, reveal my very self, Would risk mine all, to lift thee, captive, up To newer honors, yea, to great delights Thou hast not dreamed, ineffable. For race is naught, and rank falls with the belt; Encouched, thou rulest as the King.
(Joseph outraged in feeling throws up both hands as if in tragic command, and he was looking straight at his mistress, who for the moment recoils on the divan, but as if for a spring, says:)
JOSEPH.—Halt thee, woman; stay thy maddened words! O wife of Potiphar, what thoughts are thine! What boldness stirs thy mind! Thou art distraught. ”

“ But Potiphar's wife, womanlike, scorned a love that would make her an angel instead of a victim, and by a succession of plausible, neat little lies, gained her husband's ear, had Joseph cast into prison, and teaches us that, indeed, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." ”

“ THE WIFE OF POTIPHAR.—Art thou granite then, A being limned upon the templed walls; Some graven image, squat of trunk, in wood? No, no, my love, entice! Am I not fair? No sleek attendant with her gauzy robe Can e'en compare with these revealed charms. Many the years ere yet my beauty fades, And dried as Ramses in the tombs, men pass Nor turn to see the parchment of these breasts, The stiffened limbs, the glassy stare of eyes. ”

“ In early life, she had been married without sympathy, and had fixed her affections on one whose heart was totally insensible. As her health was daily yielding to despair, she undertook a bas-relief of the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, which she lived just long enough to finish, and died young in 1530. ”

“ I must no longer check desire Nor hold my burning love in self-made bounds. Ho, Nefert! 'tis my urgent will That Joseph—he who came in humble guise, But now, by grace of Potiphar, is free And raised to high estate—await me here. Our household duties need his special care. Then, to the temple, where the people crowd. Haste thee! Away! No, no, forgetful! (Claps her hand and calls to a slave:) Attend me here and find the jasper bowl In which I placed a wreath this early morn And fetch it me. ”

“ A neglected wife whose charms attract the admiring eyes of men may not depart one step from the straight and narrow path, but her husband's honor stands ever within the pale of danger. Let that husband whose courtship ceased at Hymen's shrine, who is a gallant abroad and a boor at home, keep watch and ward, for homage is sweet even to wedded women.
While Potiphar played the petty tyrant and exacted of his wife a blind obedience, Joseph sang to her songs she loved—plaintive tales of tender passion, of enchanted monarchs and maids of matchless beauty. ”

“ One moment, woman is supposed to be possessed of all possible wiles, the next moment, one laughs at him whom she deceived, which surely is a contradiction. Even such a case as that of Potiphar's wife does not preclude the possibility of her having really been seduced. Thus has woman an enormous possibility, such as no man has — an enormous possibility; but her reality is in proportion. And most terrible of all is the magic of illusion in which she feels herself happy. Let Plato then thank the gods for having been born a contemporary of Socrates: I envy him ”

“ The fete holds Potiphar, whose duties press And keep him captive till the set of sun; Whilst I, a-faint, the privilege of my sex, Await thee here, knowing thy daily round Had naught to stay it in the priestly show. For what, to thee, the mummified Gods of On? Art thou not servant to a mightier lord? Nor thyself art seen, nor offerings from thee grace The inner shrines. ”

“ All are Beautiful somehow! All Women Demand Home and Homage. No one can Seduce a Loving Woman. Why? Potiphar's Wife. How to Conquer by Stooping. Why a Coarse Person can Resist Temptation better than a Fine one. ”

“ Doctor Peutinger eagerly retorted. "Besides, who would not desire to know how the free, hot-blooded daughter of the highway settled the account with you, friend Lienhard? Love disdained is said to be the mother of hatred, and from the days of Potiphar's wife has often caused cruel vengeance. ”

“ Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife.
The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, as related in the Book of Genesis, finds parallels in the popular tales and legends of many countries: the vengeance of “woman whose love is scorned,” says a Hindú writer, “is worse than poison”! ”

“ Indeed, one young man (the episode escaped me at the dress rehearsal, but I have it in the guide-book) —one young man, "sobbing, buries his head in his hands, upsetting thereby a dish of fruit." As for Potiphar, it failed to sir the sombre depths of his abysmal boredom, but his wife, whose ennui had hitherto been of the most profound, began to sit up and take notice, and at the end of the dance she sent for Joseph and supplemented his rather exiguous costume with a gross necklace of jewels, letting her hand linger awhile on his bare nexk. ”

“ POTIPHAR; an middle-aged royal Egyptian official of high rank. (Out of action.) THE WIFE OF POTIPHAR; A very beautiful younger-looking Egyptian noblewoman in the full bloom of her youthful wifehood. SARDIS; an Assyrian, lover to the wife of Potiphar. JOSEPH; the chief of the household of POTIPHAR, a handsome young and muscular Hebrew boy. NEFERT; the chief tiring-woman to the wife of POTIPHAR, and a loyal confidante. In scene.—Eunuchs; Tiring-women; Slaves; Snake-charmers; Dancing girls ”

“ Potiphar is a rarity; the man takes the initiative in sin, he goes in quest of it, and commits it with concentrated purpose and premeditation, with energy and in spite of the resistance offered to him. India is the scene of the utmost extension of this power of the sheer egotism of the husband. In that country he considers his possession of his wife as so absolute, he carries his exaction of fidelity to such an horrible extreme, as to compel the widow, and even the betrothed, to take her place beside her dead husband or fiancé upon the funeral pyre ”

“ Young America sniffs and shakes its little head, and says disapprovingly, ‘Strong-minded woman!’ But you fail, you know, notwithstanding. You couldn’t bring old Potiphar to his knees when he first came home from China, and he must needs plunge in love with Miss Polly, whom you despised, but who has certainly profited by her intimacy with Mrs. ”

“ The perfection of civilization has not yet mounted the stairs. It is confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that strain from the Favorita, Miss Minerva, tum, tum, ti ti, tum tum, tee tee,” and the delightful Sennaar ambassador, seeing Mrs. Potiphar in the parlor, danced humming away.
There are few pleasanter men in society. I should think with his experience he would be hard upon us, but he is not. The air of courts does not seem to have spoiled him.
“My dear madam,” he said one evening to Mrs. Potiphar, “if you laugh at anything, your laughing is laughed at next day. Life is short. ”

“ People are much better than you think, but they are also much worse. I might have been king of Sennaar, but I am only his ambassador. You might have been only a chambermaid, but you are the brilliant and accomplished Miss Tattle. Tum, tum, tum, ti, ti, ti,—what a pretty waltz! Here come Daisy and Timon Croesus, and now Mrs. Potiphar and Gauche Boosey, and now again Caroline Pettitoes and De Famille. She is smiling again, you see. She darts through the dance like a sunbeam as she is. Caroline is a philosopher. ”

“ Why should I decline to have a good time at the Queen’s drawing-room, because English women have no je ne sais quoi, or at the grand opera, because French women lack aplomb? Take things smoothly. Life is a merry-go-round. Look at your own grandfather, dear Mrs. Potiphar,—fine old gentleman, I am told,—rather kept in what the artists call the middle-distance, at present,—a capital shoemaker, who did his work well—Alexander and John Howard did no more:—well here you are, you see, with liveries and a pew in the right church, and altogether a front seat in the universe—merry-go-round, you know ”

“ We have been here only a few weeks, and we already know all the fashionable shops, and a little more French, and we go to the confectioners, and eat savarins every morning at 12, and we drive in the Bois de Boulogne in the afternoon, and we dine splendidly, and in the evening we go to the opera or a theatre. To be sure, we don’t have much society beside our own party. But then the shop-girls point out the distinguished women to Mrs. Potiphar, so that she can point them out when we drive ”

“ I am preaching to you in your baby-waist, here in a Newport ball-room at midnight. I humbly beg your pardon. There are more potent preachers here than I. Besides, I’m engaged to Mrs. Potiphar’s supper at 12. Take things more gently, dear Miss Minerva. Don’t make faces at Mrs. Vite, nor growl at your darling Polly. Women as smart as you are, will say precisely as smart thing of you as you say of them. We shall all laugh, first with you, and then at you. But don’t deny yourself the pleasure of saying the smart things in hope that they will also refrain. ”

“ Too much light, and eating, and drinking, and dancing, and flirting, and dressing, and feigning, and smirking, and much too many people. Good taste insists first upon fitness. But why had Mrs. Potiphar given this ball? We inquired industriously, and learned it was because she did not give one last year. Is it then essential to do this thing biennially? inquired we with some trepidation. “Certainly,” was the bland reply, “or society will forget you.” Everybody was unhappy at Mrs. Potiphar’s, save a few girls and boys, who danced violently all the evening. ”

“ Potiphar’s is, in some ways, better than going shopping. You see more new and costly things in a shorter time. People say, “What a love of a chair!” “What a darling table!” “What a heavenly sofa!” and they all go and tease their husbands to get things precisely like them. When Kurz Pacha the Sennaar Minister, came to a dinner at my house, he said:
“Bless my soul! Mr. Potiphar, your house is just like your neighbor’s.”
I know it. I am perfectly aware that there is no more difference between my house and Croesus’s, than there is in two ten dollar bills of the same bank. ”

“ If it is true that she fell in love with you and you jilted her, she would be the offended one and not you; yet she doesn't hesitate to call. Joseph, did you tag around after Mrs. Potiphar and get thrown over by her before you proposed to me? Answer me truthfully, for I don't propose to have any woman putting on airs over me! ”

“ How it would sparkle upon the gentlemen’s black coats! (“Yes,” says Mr. P., “and how finely Gauche Boosey, and Timon Croesus, and young Downe will look in silk tights and small clothes!”) They say it’s genuine gold ground up. I have already sent for a white velvet and lace—the Empress’s bridal dress, you know. That foolish old P. asked me if I had sent for the Emperor and the Bank of France too.
“Men ask such absurd questions,” said I. — “Mrs. Potiphar, I never asked but one utterly absurd question in my life,” said he, and marched out of the house. ”

“ Potiphar left many daughters, and Joseph certainly had but few sons. How do we know that it was not the husband's fault? She may for years have shivered in the winter of his neglect. She may have borne his cruelties of word and deed until her love w'as dead and buried side by side with hope. Another man comes into her life. He pities her. She looks and loves. He lifts her from the grave. Again she really lives, and her poor heart is rich with love's red blood. Ought this man to be killed? He has robbed no husband, wronged no man. ”

“ Potiphar’s to refresh our faith in men and women. Generosity, amiability, a catholic charity, simplicity, taste, sense, high cultivation, and intelligence, distinguish our parties. The statesman seeks their stimulating influence; the literary man, after the day’s labour, desires the repose of their elegant conversation; the professional man and the merchant hurry up from down town to shuffle off the coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life in the agreeable picture of its amenities and graces presented by Mrs. Potiphar’s ball. ”

“ There is naturally a good deal of risk in this; but as women are so entirely secluded in the East, as they are shut out from their legitimate place in society, such an arrangement becomes necessary, and so husband and wife are married without having looked into one another's face." But when once a Copt has chosen a wife, she is his forever. No divorce is permissible. They are one till death. ”