Decapitate

Decapitate (pronounced dih-kap-i-teyt)

(1) To cut off the head; to behead.

(2) Figuratively, to oust or destroy the leadership or ruling body of a government, military formation, criminal organization etc.

1605–1615: From the fourteenth century French décapiter, from the Late Latin dēcapitātus, past participle of dēcapitāre, the construct being dē- + capit- (stem of caput (head), genitive capitis), from the Proto-Italic kaput, from the Proto-Indo-European káput- (head) + -ātus.  The Latin prefix dē- (off) was from the preposition dē (of, from); the Old English æf- was a similar prefix.  The Latin suffix -ātus was from the Proto-Italic -ātos, from the primitive Indo-European -ehtos.  It’s regarded as a "pseudo-participle" and perhaps related to –tus although though similar formations in other Indo-European languages indicate it was distinct from it already in early Indo-European times.  It was cognate with the Proto-Slavic –atъ and the Proto-Germanic -ōdaz (the English form being -ed (having).  The feminine form was –āta, the neuter –ātum and it was used to form adjectives from nouns indicating the possession of a thing or a quality.  The English suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  Decapitate, decapitated & decapitating are verbs, decapitation & decapitator are nouns.

As a military strategy, the idea of decapitation is as old as warfare and based on the effective “cut the head off the snake”.  The technique of decapitation is to identify the leadership (command and control) of whatever structure or formation is hostile and focus available resources on that target.  Once the leadership has been eliminated, the effectiveness of the rest of the structure should be reduced and the idea is applied also in cyber warfare although in that field, target identification can be more difficult.  The military’s decapitation strategy is used by many included law enforcement bodies and can to some extent be applied in just about any form of interaction which involves conflicting interests.

The common English synonym is behead and that word may seem strange because it means “to take off the head” where the English word bejewel means “to put on the jewels”.  It’s because of the strange and shifting prefix be-.  Behead is from the Middle English beheden, bihefden & biheveden, from the Old English behēafdian (to behead).  The prefix be- however evolved from its use in Old English.  In modern use it’s from the Middle English be- & bi-, from the Old English be- (off, away), from the Proto-Germanic bi- (be-), from the Proto-Germanic bi (near, by), the ultimate root the primitive Indo-European hepi (at, near) and cognate be- in the Saterland Frisian, the West Frisian, the Dutch, the German & Low German and the Swedish.  When the ancestors of behead were formed, the prefix be- was appended to create the sense of “off; away” but over the centuries it’s also invested the meanings “around; about” (eg bestir), “about, regarding, concerning” (eg bemoan), “on, upon, at, to, in contact with something” (eg behold), “as an intensifier” (eg besotted), “forming verbs derived from nouns or adjectives, usually with the sense of "to make, become, or cause to be" (eg befriend) & "adorned with something" (eg bejewel)).

A less common synonym is decollate, from the Latin decollare (to behead) and there’s also the curious adjective decapitable which (literally “able or fit to be decapitated”) presumably is entirely synonymous with “someone whose head has not been cut off” though not actually with someone alive, some corpses during the French Revolution being carted off to be guillotined, the symbolism of the seemingly superfluous apparently welcomed by the mob.

1971 Citroën DS21 Décapotable Usine.

Just as pleasing though less bloody were the special Citroëns crafted by French coachbuilder Henri Chapron (1886-1978) between 1958-1974, the most numerous of which were the 1325 Citroën ID & DS décapotable usines (a "factory convertible", described sometimes as Cabriolets Usines or Cabriolets d'Usine, the significance of usine (factory) being the valuable sales feature of the Citroën corporate warranty) built between 1960-1971.  In 1958, three years after the DS had been released, Chapron completed his first two-door décapotable (the La Croisette) which, with a companion coupé (Le Dandy), was presented at that year’s Paris Motor Show.  The public reaction was positive but, bespoke creations, they were expensive although sufficient demand existed for Chapron to begin small-scale manufacturing.

1963 Citroën Le Dandy & 1964 Citroën Palm Beach by Chapron.

Demand was however higher at a lower price-point, Citroën's dealers reporting many enquiries about a décapotable and the factory thus contracted with Chapron to design one based on the DS, using as many standard components as possible; it was this which became the décapotable usine which, introduced in 1960, remained on the list until 1971.  They were notably less expensive than Chapron’s originals which, with varied and more intricate coachwork, were built to special order between 1958-1974 under the model names La Croisette, Le Paris, Le Caddy, Le Dandy, Concorde, Palm Beach, Le Léman, Majesty, & Lorraine; all together, 287 of these were delivered and reputedly, no two were exactly alike.

1972 Citroën SM (left) & 1971 Citroën SM Mylord by Chapron (right).

The wheels are the Michelin RR (roues en résine or résine renforcée (reinforced resin)) composites, cast using a patented technology invented by NASA for the original moon buggy.  The Michelin wheel was one-piece and barely a third the weight of the equivalent steel wheel but the idea never caught on, doubts existing about their long-term durability and susceptibility to extreme heat (the SM had inboard brakes).

1968 Citroën DS state limousine by Chapron (left) and 1972 Citroën SM Présidentielle (right).

In the summer of 1971, after years of slowing sales, Citroën announced the end of the décapotable usine and Chapron’s business model suffered, the market for specialized coach-building, in decline since the 1940s, now all but evaporated.  Chapron developed a convertible version of Citroën’s new SM called the Mylord but, very expensive, it was little more successful than the car on which it was based; although engineered to Chapron’s high standard, fewer than ten were built.  Government contracts did for a while seem to offer hope.  Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970; President of France 1958-1969) had been aghast at the notion the state car of France might be bought from Germany or the US (it’s not known which idea he thought most appalling and apparently nobody bothered to suggest buying British) so, at his instigation, Chapron (apparently without great enthusiasm) built a long wheelbase DS Presidential model.  Begun in 1965, the project took three years, legend having it that de Gaulle himself stipulated little more than it be longer than the stretched Lincoln Continentals then used by the White House and this was achieved, despite the requirement the turning circle had to be tight enough to enter the Elysée Palace’s courtyard from the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and then pull up at the steps in a single maneuver.  Delivered just in time for the troubles of 1968, the slinky lines were much admired in the Élysée and in 1972, Chapron was given a contract to supply two really big four-door convertible (Le Presidentielle) SMs as the state limousines for Le Général’s successor, Georges Pompidou (1911–1974; President of France 1969-1974).  First used for 1972 state visit of Queen Elizabeth II (b 1926; Queen of UK since 1952), they remained in regular service until the inauguration of Jacques Chirac (1932–2019; President of France 1995-2007) in 1995, seen again on the Champs Elysees in 2004 during Her Majesty’s three-day state visit marking the centenary of the Entente Cordiale.

1972 Citroën SM Opera by Chapron (left) & 1973 Maserati Quattroporte II (right).

However, state contracts for the odd limousine, while lucrative, were not a model to sustain a coach building business and a year after the Mylord was first displayed, Chapron inverted his traditional practice and developed from a coupé, a four-door SM called the Opera.  On a longer wheelbase, stylistically it was well executed but was heavy and both performance and fuel consumption suffered, the additional bulk also meaning some agility was lost.  Citroën was never much devoted to the project because they had in the works what was essentially their own take on a four-door SM, sold as the Maserati Quattroporte II (the Italian house having earlier been absorbed) but as things transpired in those difficult years, neither proved a success, only eight Operas and a scarcely more impressive thirteen Quattroporte IIs ever built.  The French machine deserved more, the Italian knock-off, probably not.  In 1974, Citroën entered bankruptcy, dragged down in part by the debacle which the ambitious SM had proved to be although there had been other debacles worse still.   Four years later, Henri Chapron died in Paris, his much down-sized company lingering on for some years under the direction of his industrious widow, the bulk of its work now customizing Citroën CXs.  Operations ceased in 1985 but the legacy is much admired and the décapotables remain a favorite of collectors and film-makers searching for something with which to evoke the verisimilitude of 1960s France.

Judith and the decapitation of Holofernes

In the Bible, the deuterocanonical books (literally “belonging to the second canon”) are those books and passages traditionally regarded as the canonical texts of the Old Testament, some of which long pre-date Christianity, some composed during the “century of overlap” before the separation between the Christian church and Judaism became institutionalized.  As the Hebrew canon evolved, the seven deuterocanonical books were excluded and on this basis were not included in the Protestant Old Testament, those denominations regarding them as apocrypha and they’re been characterized as such since.  Canonical or not, the relationship of the texts to the New Testament has long interested biblical scholars, none denying that links exist but there’s wide difference in interpretation, some finding (admittedly while giving the definition of "allusion" wide latitude) a continuity of thread, others only fragmentary references and even then, some paraphrasing is dismissed as having merely a literary rather than historical or theological purpose.

Le Retour de Judith à Béthulie (The Return of Judith to Bethulia) (1470) by Botticelli, (circa 1444-1510).

The Book of Judith exists thus in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testaments but is assigned (relegated some of the hard-liners might say) by Protestants to the apocrypha.  It is the tale of Judith (יְהוּדִית in the Hebrew and the feminine of Judah), a legendarily beautiful Jewish widow who uses her charms to lure the Assyrian General Holofernes to his gruesome death (decapitated by her own hand) so her people may be saved.  As a text, the Book of Judith is interesting in that it’s a genuine literary innovation, a lengthy and structured thematic narrative evolving from the one idea, something different from the old episodic tradition of loosely linked stories.  That certainly reflects the influence of Hellenistic literary techniques and the Book of Judith may be thought a precursor of the historical novel: A framework of certain agreed facts upon a known geography on which an emblematic protagonist (Judith the feminine form of the national hero Judah) performs.  The atmosphere of crisis and undercurrent of belligerence lends the work a modern feel while theologically, it’s used to teach the importance of fidelity to the Lord and His commandments, a trust in God and how one must always be combative in defending His word.  It’s not a work of history, something made clear in the first paragraph; this is a parable.

Judit decapitando a Holofernes (Judith Beheading Holofernes) (circa 1600) by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571–1610).

The facts of the climactic moment in the decapitation of General Holofernes are not in dispute, Judith at the appropriate moment drawing the general’s own sword, beheading him as he lay recumbent, passed out from too much drink.  Deed done, the assassin dropped the separated head in a leather basket and stole away.  The dramatic tale for centuries has attracted painters and sculptors, the most famous works created during the high Renaissance and Baroque periods and artists have tended to depict either Judith acting alone or in the company of her aged maid, a difference incidental to the murder but of some significance in the interpretation of preceding events.

Judit si presenta a Holofernes (Judith Presenting Herself to Holofernes) (circa 1724) by Antonio Gionima (1697–1732).

All agree the picturesque widow was able to gain access to the tent of Holofernes because of the general’s carnal desires but in the early centuries of Christianity, there’s little hint that Judith resorted to the role of seductress, only that she lured him to temptation, plied him with drink and struck.  The sexualization of the moment came later and little less controversial was the unavoidable juxtaposition of the masculine aggression of the blade-wielding killer with her feminine charms.  Given the premise of the tale and its moral imperative, the combination can hardly be avoided but it was for centuries disturbing to (male) theologians and priests, rarely at ease with bolshie women.  It was during the high Renaissance that artists began to vest Judith with an assertive sexuality (“from Mary to Eve” in the words of one critic), her features becoming blatantly beautiful, the clothing more revealing.  The Judith of the Renaissance and the Baroque appears one more likely to surrender her chastity to the cause where once she would have relied on guile and wine.

Judith (1928) by Franz von Stuck (1863–1928).

It was in the Baroque period that the representations more explicitly made possible the mixing of sex and violence in the minds of viewers, a combination that across media platforms remains today as popular as ever.  For centuries “Judith beheading Holofernes” was one of the set pieces of Western Art and there were those who explored the idea with references to David & Goliath (another example of the apparently weak decapitating the strong) or alluding to Salome, showing Judith or her maid carrying off the head in a basket.  The inventiveness proved not merely artistic because, in the wake of the ruptures caused by the emergent Protestant heresies, in the counter-attack by the Counter-Reformation, the parable was re-imagined in commissions issued by the Holy See, Judith’s blade defeating not only Assyrian oppression but all unbelievers, heretical Protestants just the most recently vanquished.  Twentieth century artists too have used Judith as a platform, predictably perhaps sometimes to show her as the nemesis of toxic masculinity and some have obviously enjoyed the idea of an almost depraved sexuality but there have been some quite accomplished versions.

Lindsay Lohan gardening with a lopper, decapitation a less demanding path to destruction than deracination, New York City, May 2015.  She appears to be relishing the task.