No. 1294: The winners

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for a poem or a piece of prose putting the case that the Devil is female.

The Devil is a woman. How the devil do I know?

A woman's intuition — it's unarguably so!

Monica G. Ribon's couplet contained the most clinching argument of all. I have no prejudice in favour of poetry as against prose (likewise I am perfectly neutral on the subject of the Devil's gender), but the poets came out way ahead this week, the prose persons tending to get lost in ingenious pedantry, though several Screwtape-type letters were near-successes. The best of those not printed below were Ralph Sadler, 0. Banfield, Andrew McEvoy and Lionel Burman (whose cabbalistic hieroglyphs would have gravelled our compositors anyway). The winners get £8 each.

On the mere earthly level you'll find there's more devil In the girl as opposed to the boy. For dealers in death, look at Lady Macbeth, Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy.

Medea and Circe destroyed without mercy; Mata Hari lured victims with glamour; Who could be viler than Samson's Delilah? And Jael killed her guest with a hammer.

I don't fear temptation or final damnation From a gent with a goat's horns and feet, But I'd lose all control and I'd hazard my soul For a she-devil, coy and petite.

For with amorous wiles and the sweetest of smiles, With flattery, scorn or suggestion, She can wreak untold harm with her feminine charm.

Oh, the Devil's a woman, no question.

(0. Smith) Not the Devil, but his dam, Lucifer's old flame, Has held sway since Abraham: Lilith is her name.

Lovely Lilith, 'twas for her That an Angel fell. She has outdone Lucifer, She is Queen of Hell.

Neither horns nor tail has she, But a form so fair, Few would think that it could be What it is — a snare.

If she an Angel could seduce, It must be conceded Man has got a fine excuse To fall the way that he did. (A. J. Wyborn) Do I fear hell-fire? Not a jot — for love Engend'reth flames of passion more intense Than those by which dull preachers seek to prove We lovers dally at our souls' expense.

Besides, if (God forbid) I e'er should gaze Upon that subterranean place of evil, I swear the stoker of th' infernal blaze Will be a comely, consummate she-devil. .

For manly minds exude such cooling airs That quench'd would be those hellish flames; how much More scalding must it be, since naught compares In fieriness with gentle Woman's touch.

Fear not, then, libertines, that you may find Yourselves condemn'd eternally in Hades; What torment is't to be a soul confin'd For ever in the company of ladies?

(Peter Norman) Adam means 'made' or 'dust' — we'll either take — But Eve in Hebrew signifies a snake; A serpent's always been the Devil's sign, So Satan viewed as feminine's condign. Adam, frail man, was innocent as snow Till Eve, the evil one, taught him to know What's good, what's bad (less easy than it sounds: Women for bad deeds always find good grounds).

A text in Revelation spells it out: 'A sun-clothed woman, crown of stars about Her head; a moon, too, underneath her feet' (This means the Devil, says the exegete). Adam's first wife was diabolic too: Lilith (long feared by superstitious Jew). Webster's White Devil, Vittoria, as well Proves that a woman's regnant queen of Hell.

(Charles Mosley) Theological science has hitherto assumed the masculinity of God and His Adversary alike. However,' recent developments in Christian thought compel us to think again. We may still accept — heterodox opinion to the contrary that God himielf is male. The active, interventionist work of Creation expresses, after all, an unmistakably — you must pardon the expression — butch sensibility. Of this there can be no doubt, But by the very same logic the principle of Negation, of Opposition, belongs uniquely to the female gender. In the divine as in the human world, Man proposes and Woman opposes. The function of Satan is — if you will excuse a homely metaphor — to nag the Creator, to find His works unsatisfactory. Thus we are forced to conclude, not a priori but through an understanding of dialectical law, that — in the words of a highly secular film director — 'the Devil is a woman'.

(Basil Ransome-Davies)

I think the Devil is wimmin bekos my dad is orlways saying things to my mum like why the Devil did you do that? Who the Devil do you think you are? Where the Devil did you put my socks? Wot the hell is going on around here? Today he sed to me the Devil only nose — ask your mum. I dont think its my mum in pertikuler as she is kwite nice. I think it is just wimmin.

(D. B. Jenkinson)