My Reation to The Siege of Jerusalem

When I started reading The Siege of Jerusalem, I figured it would be about someone taking over Jerusalem the introductory text did say it was “gruesomely violent and offensive; I guess I didn’t take that seriously, kind of like T.V. movie ratings (sometimes).  I should have prepared myself a tad bit more for the gore and very aggressive language that was going to be used; an example would be on line 575 “the blood foamed from them into great motionless pools,” and lines 697-700 , with the disgustingly detailed visual imagery given about how they would drag the skinned bodies across a field tied to a horse. The continued next like 6 quatrains emphasized so much hate and torture. I was completely dumbfounded and needed a second.  Another gory line that stuck with me was line 1203, “so that the brain burst out at both nostrils.” So much repulsive detail went into this I just can’t get over it!

 I was not mentally prepared for this. I also think it’s a bunch of bologna how Vespasian wanted to bully the unbelieving and condemning Jews into faith, because that always works well. Not only does he bully them but he is literally torturing them to death and I thought to myself, “How Christian of you, Vespasian.” Lines 1081 through 1097 when reading about the woman (Mary) who eats her own baby and isn’t ashamed about it. That is desperation. Near the end, I couldn’t figure out if Titus was showing real pity on the Jews because after some are put in jail, Titus’ men slaughter the Jews because the florins were worth more than the lives of the Jews! What is that about? I really enjoyed line 1337, “When all was finished and judged, they folded up tents,” who in this entire siege had the right to judge? I could see no side that could say they were not with sin.

 I did have a few wrap up questions though. In the prologue-passus 4, the word red is used to describe blood, wind, flames, stones, dawn, and I’m sure there were a few I didn’t catch, what do you think the significance here is of the color red? Another question I have is what is anyone else’s opinion on why in line 1778, the author refers to Jews as werewolves’, and it is only done in this line? Any ideas would be great to hear!