Pilate's Wife
This righteous man has caused my lady grief, A stranger whom she doesn't even know. (May something happen soon to bring her peace.) She's often had bad dreams, but they've been brief— I sing to her and soothe her and they go. This righteous man has caused my lady grief. What can I do to make her sorrows cease? I’m on my knees to every god I know: May something happen soon to bring her peace. Roman justice has released a thief And made a good man walk the road of woe: This righteous man has caused my lady grief. Her husband washed his hands of it with ease, But can't (she fears) so easily wash his soul. May something happen soon to bring her peace! For three days now she's known no relief. It can't be right that my lamb's troubled so. This righteous man has caused my lady grief— May something happen soon to bring her peace.
There’s a reason why you won’t often bump into a villanelle in an anthology of poetry (with “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” being, of course, the notable exception): unlike our beautifully versatile friend the sonnet, it’s a hard poetic form to pull off and to pull off well. I certainly don’t have Dylan Thomas’ magic touch, but I think a villanelle works passably well for this poem, in which the speaker is the maid of Pilate’s wife.
Pilate’s wife is only mentioned briefly in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion. We don’t know her name or age, whether she was beautiful or plain, what her marriage was like, or how much she knew about Jesus. All we know is in this verse: “Besides, while [Pilate] was sitting on the judgement seat, his wife sent word to him, ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.’”1
She must have been deeply toubled by her dream to go to the length of interrupting her husband while he was trying a case. How did she feel, then, when he disregarded her? Did she lie awake at night wondering what would happen to him, to them, because he’d sent a good man to his death? What fears chased at her heels as she walked down the long, quiet corridors of the governor’s palace?
We can only guess, of course. But however hard those days were for her, I hope that when rumours of the resurrection began whispering their way around Jerusalem, she heard and was comforted.
Matthew 27:19 ESV (Anglicised)