Salome

Salome is mentioned by name only once in The Bible: in Mark. However, this is not the same Salome as came to be known as the woman who asked Herod for the head of John the Baptist; this one in Mark's book is a faithful follower of Christ who visits the cave where Christ has been incarcerated only to find that the rock has been removed and Christ has gone. That she is with Mary Magdalene may signify something but nothing is specified.
The Salome of legend comes in a story in Matthew but her name is never mentioned, only that the young woman is the daughter of Herodias by her first husband, Herod's brother. The story was made a play in one act by Oscar Wilde and produced in Paris in the 1890's.
This play was used soon after as the basis for an opera by Richard Strauss. It caused a sensation. The composer could not get it performed in Vienna and had it produced in a smaller city to which many of the musical giants of the day, like Puccini, flocked.
I have just seen the opera in Cardiff performed by The Welsh National Opera Company. Musically it is a wonderful work; dramatically it still thrills but there is no doubt that, even now, these days that are as un-Victorian as could be, it is still a shocker. In the final scene when the head of John the Baptist is brought to Salome and she desires to kiss the head's lips, someone behind me actually gasped in sudden shock. It is a most distasteful scene - even now!
There is one scene in the play in which "The Young Syrian" commits suicide that is just not credible dramatically: it comes as it were, out of the blue, no one seems to care that the man has taken his life; not only that but there seems no great reason that he should have. He is carried off at Herod's orders. Yet it has a dramatic link to the later actions for they all are the acts of exceedingly disturbed people consumed, in one way or another, by lust. Even John the Baptist is consumed by a kind of lust, a religious lust, one that is almost maniacal. "All the world's evil has come from woman" he says. And Salome's acts and behaviour from then on seem to prove this to be true.
There is a wonderful recording of the opera with Solti conducting and Bridget Neilson in the role of Salome.
And there are magnificent set of ink drawings by Aubrey Beardsley of scenes from the play which can be seen here and there on the internet.