Belshazzar - in Art and Popular Culture

In Art and Popular Culture

Music

• George Friderich Händel's Belshazzar is an oratorio composed in the late summer of 1744.
• William Walton wrote an oratorio entitled Belshazzar's Feast.
• Belshazzar's Feast (Sibelius)
• Singer/Songwriter Johnny Cash wrote a song titled "Belshazar", based on the Biblical story. It was recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957.
• The Jewish songwriter Harold Rome wrote, for the musical "Pins and Needles" in 1937, a gospel song, "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin," which made the analogy between Belshazzar and Hitler, saying the former "didn't pay no income taxes:/The big shot of the Babylon-Jerusalem Axis." Interpreting the writing on the wall, Daniel sums it up tersely: "King, stop your fightin' and your flauntin'./You been weighed, and you're found wantin'."
• The Austin, Texas band Sound Team references Belshazzar with the lyric: "But I don't have to sleep at Belshazzar's house anymore / Gave up the center line" on the track "No More Birthdays" off their Movie Monster LP.
• The Norwegian singer/songwriter Eth Eonel wrote a song titled "Belsassar", which was released in 2011 on the album "Drawing Lines (1989)". The song lays out an aquatic version of Belshazzar's feast, in which Belshazzar is a fish, and "the writing on the wall" becomes "the writing in the sand".

Literature

• The fourteenth-century poem Cleanness by the Pearl Poet recounts the feast and subsequent events as a warning against spiritual impurity.
• "Vision of Belshazzar" by the poet Lord Byron chronicles both the feast and Daniel's pronunciation.
• Robert Frost's poem, "The Bearer of Evil Tidings", is about a messenger headed to Belshazzar's court to deliver the news of the king's imminent overthrow. Remembering that evil tidings were a "dangerous thing to bear," the messenger flees to the Himalayas rather than facing the monarch's wrath.
• Emily Dickinson's poem "Belshazzar had a letter," #1459 from the Poems of Emily Dickinson is about Belshazzar's immortal correspondence. Her poem was written in 1879.
• Belshazzar was the title of a 1930 novel by H. Rider Haggard.
• Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, liked to incorporate historical names into his pseudo-historical stories. He wrote a (non-Conan) adventure story, "Blood of Belshazzar" which Roy Thomas adapted into a Conan story in Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian #27 as "The Blood of Bel-Hissar". Howard also used the name of 'Nabonidus' (father of Belshazzar) in the Conan tale "Rogues in the House" which appeared in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian #11.

In Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Portia disguises herself as Balthazar in Act IV, scene i.

• Heinrich Heine wrote a short poem entitled "Belsatzar" in his collection "Junge Leiden".

Paintings, drawings

• Belshazzar's Feast is a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn created around 1635.
• In The Hand-Writing upon the Wall (1803), James Gillray caricatured Napoleon in the role of Belshazzar.
• During the 1884 United States presidential campaign, Republican candidate James G. Blaine dined at a New York City restaurant with some wealthy business executives including "Commodore" Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, etc. This was featured in newspapers, with a drawing illustrating "The Feast of Belshazzar Blaine..." On the wall in the background was written "Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin."

Film, television

• Belshazzar is a main character in one of the four stories presented in D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance (1916).
• Belshazzar is played by Michael Ansara in the 1953 William Castle film, Slaves of Babylon.
• Belshazzar was featured in the Season one, Episode two of the Nickelodeon game show Legends of the Hidden Temple, entitled "The Golden Cup of Belshazzar."

Video games

• The Space Liner Belshazzar, with the player character aboard, was disabled and boarded by Space Pirates in the early CD-ROM adventure game Spaceship Warlock.