From the Chester play of Noah’s Flood. Noah’s Wife was a popular character in medieval B
From the Chester play of Noah’s Flood. Noah’s Wife was a popular character in medieval Biblical plays, and was often portrayed as a shrewish, violent, stubborn woman whose disobedience to Noah (and his corresponding exasperation) was played for laughs. But the Chester version of this story includes a magnificent moment that I think must be one of my favorite passages in all of literature– Noah’s Wife refuses to board the ark because she can’t bear to leave her friends behind to drown, and they face down the terror of certain death by sharing a drink like they used to.The Les Mis fandom might find something of that familiar. If anything, I think this has a place even closer to my heart; gossip (god-sibling) is technically a gender-neutral term, but a woman’s closest social circle most often consisted of other women in similar circumstances. Noah’s Wife throws away married life to stand beside her community of women. She rejects her sons, ignores her husband, defies God himself. In the end she is dragged into the ark by her sons and the Biblical narrative marches inexorably onto the next story, but for the span of this drinking song, Noah’s Wife makes it very clear that Noah’s Wife is the last thing she thinks she is.Maybe we ought to read it as an indictment, Noah’s Wife and her sinful friends drowning themselves in liquor before they get the flood that’s coming to them. Maybe we’re meant to point our fingers at the rowdy women who don’t know any better. But– well, I don’t know any better than to love the rowdy women, their pottle of Malmsey, good and strong. That’s the meaning I want to make in this space. -- source link
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