The Fall of the House of Jesse
(Tamar, Amnon, David)
Tamar
I said not to reject me after
Because with men that is what happens
Guilt of what was done
Scorn for the receiver of the sinner’s sin
In a royal house,
This can happen
Maybe more so
The sense of privilege that each one bears
The privilege to call a sibling in for help with
Sickness,
A pretense for rape
Amnon
I must have her
Own her, keep her
As a prize
I love her body
The way she looks in courtyards
And the rooms of the palace
We are family
We are royals
There is no shame
We make the laws to follow
God made it so through Saul
And now our father David
I feigned illness, though it was close enough
To truth
I was sick with love for her
I made her come to me, send all others
Away
When she came near to treat me, I gripped
Her clothing, and she knew
She must approve
I am the king’s son
I matter more
And now that I’ve been inside her,
I feel no madness and no illness
What had I been thinking?
What we did was awful
She is awful
I pushed her off, her clothing followed
She was a covered heap on the polished floor
The servants will clean that
I’m done
David
I am the king
I could do nothing
My own sin forbade me
How can I chastise my own
About a crime of passion
When I have committed mine?
Crimes of
Adultery and murder
Are my legacies
Not the conquests or the
Ark or my children
The child to rule born out of
Sin—
What shall be visited upon him?
And so in nearly every way
I stood and sat silent
Would not, could not rule in her favor
As virtue and the law would say
(does say)
I should have
Now there will be more violence
I have engendered it
Absalom must have his way
There will be rebellion
The nation will be split
There will be war
The judgment on my sin
Brought down upon this generation
How many more children of children?
Where is justice?
Not with me, upon my throne
Or in my house
I have wounded my realm
Hurt all my people
I will rule
I am called
I am God’s favorite
But all attributes and actions
Are hollow
C L Couch
2 Samuel 13
Electromagnetic Crown
clcouch123 
March 4, 2020 at 3:49 pm
How strange. I didn’t know this bible story, but it’s very like an Irish story, except you find a different notion of morality at work, and of women’s place in society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tochmarc_%C3%89ta%C3%ADne
March 4, 2020 at 4:35 pm
David’s refusal to judge Amnon incites Absalom to civil war. Absalom is killed, and David’s heart is broken. Everything is loss from the start.
I admire the Irish story for Etain;s part (reading TE 1). She endures. She has enemies and advocates and goes on.
March 4, 2020 at 4:42 pm
The bible stories tend to be solidly patriarchal, but with a moral background we can understand, having drawn our moral code from it, I suppose. The Irish stories have a moral background which is much more obscure to us. It’s easy to see that the Christian monks had problems with the old ideas. They seem to leave a lot of scope for judging each case on its own merits, forgiving and forgetting (if the price is right) and making concessions and compromises. I don’t think the Judeans (if that’s the right name for Davis’s outfit) were any less bellicose than the Ancient Irish either.
March 4, 2020 at 9:49 pm
True about patriarchal. Even Tamar doesn’t get to be hero of her own story. The story of Deborah is better. Even better is the book of Judith, kept out of the Protestant Bible. I think you’re right about the problems Christian monks or other leaders had with ancient Irish legends and the like. For a time, Christians enjoyed both kinds of lore and traditions. Then a party was sent from Rome up north to indicate the Holy Roman way was better and should be followed exclusively. And technically that became the law–the doctrine, I suppose. Now the other lores are back and improving everything regarding the primacy of nature, life in the world not over it, even a reimagining of heroes.