Chapter XI: Act V: Scene 1

_Castle on Zion. A large Audience-Chamber, as in Act I. Throne and tribunal._

HEROD. SALOME.

HEROD.

An end, an end to this! The Inquisition
I’ve ordered and will execute its sentence.
I, I whom once each fever set a-shaking
E’en though her maid-in-waiting it befel,
’Tis I myself that weapons death against her.
Be that enough! and if your zeal not yet
Allow you rest, it will o’ershoot its target.
I shall be thinking that ’tis hate alone
Speaks from your mouth, and you will meet as witness
Rejection, though I shall admit as such
Each several candle that has cast its flame,
Each several flower that has shed its scent.

SALOME.

Herod, I’ll not deny the truth. I have
Ere now spied on her faults and painted them
With heightened hue as you enhanced the virtues
That you discovered in her. Was the pride
Flaunted upon your mother and me whenever
She crossed our path, was this a ground for love?
As being of a loftier race she bore her
That never had awaked another thought
Within my mind than this--“Wherefore exists
The bulky book that tells the hero-deeds
The Maccabeans wrought unto our folk?
She bears the chronicle upon her face.”

HEROD.

Your will is to refute me, and you seal
The sentence I have passed.

SALOME.

Nay, hear me out!
’Twas so, I’ll not deny it. But if now
I’ve said more than I know and think and feel,
Yea, if I am not moved by sister’s pity
To lock the half of what I could have told you
Even now within my breast, then may my child--
You’ll grant I love it well--as many years
Live out as hairs are counted on his skull
And every day as much of sorrow bring him
As it shall have of minutes, yea, of seconds.

HEROD.

A fearsome oath!

SALOME.

And yet it falls from me
More lightly than this word--“The night is black.”
E’en though the eye were jaundiced, ’tis past credence
That jaundiced eye were paired by jaundiced ear,
Yea, and by instinct, heart, and every manner
Of organ that is buttress to the senses.
And this time all are tuned so fine together
That they could never clash in contradiction,
Yea, and had God upon that festal night
Called unto me from out the heights of Heaven,
“Say from what evil I shall give your earth
Deliverance--you have the choice!” I would not
Have named the pest, nay, but your wicked wife.
I shuddered at her; she would taint my mood
As though I’d reached a demon out of Hell
Amid the pitchy black by human hand
And he had met me with derision, stepping
Before me in his proper shape of fright
From out the stolen frame of flesh and blood
And grinned and mowed at me through twisting flames.
Nor did I shudder thus alone. The Roman,
Yea, even the ironside Titus felt recoil.

HEROD.

True, true, and he weighs heavier than yourself,
For just as he loves no one, he hates no one,
And just he is like ghosts devoid of blood.
Now leave me, for I am awaiting him.

SALOME.

I vow this dance shall never be forgotten
In which, responsive to the music’s beat,
She trod the floor as though she knew for sure
That you lay underneath. By God, I would
I were not forced to say it, for I know
How inly you, who gave her mother, sister,
And what not for her victims, must rebel.
And yet it was so.

[_Exit._

SCENE 2

HEROD _alone_.

HEROD.

Titus said to me
The very same. Myself I saw enough,
And she is right. I gave to her a sister,
A mother almost, for her victims. Would they
Not counterpoise the brother whom she lost?
In her eyes they do not.

[_Enter_ TITUS.

SCENE 3

HEROD. TITUS.

HEROD.

Well, Titus, well?
Admits Soemus----?

TITUS.

What you know. Not more.

HEROD.

Naught of----?

TITUS.

Oh no! He leapt to feet as raving
If I but cast the lightest hint thereat.

HEROD.

I could expect it.

TITUS.

“Never could,” he answered,
“A wife like yours have lived, and never was
A man so little worth the precious jewel
That God vouchsafed to him----”

HEROD.

As I myself!
Yes, yes! “He did not know the worth of pearls
Wherefore I took them from him,” said the thief.
I know not if that helped.

TITUS.

“Her heart was nobler
Than gold.”

HEROD.

And so he knows it! Swimming-brained
He lauds the wine. Does not that furnish proof
That he has drunk.[17] And what veneer used he
To coat it? Why betrayed he my commission
To her?

TITUS.

From loathing, as he said.

HEROD.

From loathing?
And he ne’er gave the loathing words to me?

TITUS.

Would not the event have been his bane? Could you
Have granted life unto the stockish servant
If once he had received from you command
And pushed it from him?

HEROD.

Why, in such a case,
Was’t not enough to leave it unfruitioned?

TITUS.

Yes; but if he went further he has done it
Perchance because he deemed you as one lost
And now was fain to have the Queen’s good grace
A bargain at your cost for his own profit,
Since it was in her hands his future lay.

HEROD.

No, Titus, no! Soemus was the man
To risk the daring bid in his own person
That makes another’s grace a needless prop.
For that sole cause I gave it him. I thought:--
“’Tis done for self if ’tis not done for you.”
Yes, had he been a lesser than he is
And had he not in Rome friends in such plenty
I could have thought it true. But now--no, no,
There was one only ground.

TITUS.

And yet he’ll not
Confess that one.

HEROD.

He were not what he is
If he should do it, for he knows full well
What follows that, and hopes now through his lying
To waken in my breast one last misdoubting
Such as will guard, if not perchance his head,
Then hers before the coming bulk of death.
He errs, though. That misdoubting lacks its sting.
Had I no cause to punish what she did
I’d punish that which she became and is.
Ha, had she ever been what she has seemed
She never could have donned this shifting slough
And I’ll take vengeance on the duplex Thing.
Yes, Titus, yes, I swear it by the key
Of Paradise that she holds in her hands,
By all beatitude that she erewhile
Has granted me, that she can grant me still,
Yea, by this instant’s shudder which monitions
That I in her will blot myself to nothing,
I make an end howe’er the matter stand.

TITUS.

It is too late to make the cry of warning
“Give not the order!” and I know myself
No means of leading this to issue clear
And therefore cannot dare to say “Hold! Hold!”

[_Enter_ JOAB.

SCENE 4

THE SAME. JOAB.

HEROD (_to_ JOAB).

Are they assembled?

JOAB.

Long since. From the prison
I must announce to you what seems of weight.
We cannot bring this Sameas to such lengths
That he’ll disbody soul.

HEROD.

I gave command
He should be put to torture till he do it.
(_To_ TITUS.) This man had sworn, I’ve heard, that he would kill him
Could he not make me in his own sweet likeness,
Which process is to break what he has named
The heathenish notions in me. Since he’s failed
I now use force on him his oath to keep,
His death’s a right good thousandfold deserved.

TITUS.

I had myself been urgent for his death,
For me he has reviled and Rome in me
And that can everywhere be granted pardon
But here among this stubborn-stomached folk.

HEROD (_to_ JOAB).

Well then?

JOAB.

Your words were followed to the letter,
But it has helped to no success. The headsman
Plied him with almost every pang, and more,
Grimmed into spite by such unwincing front,
Which he misread as scorn, he dealt him wounds.
But ’tis as though he’d given a tree a flogging,
As though ’twere nerveless wood that took his slashing.
There stands the old man dead to feel of pain,
He sings, instead of shrieking out, and clutching
To get the knife that’s held before his eyes,
He sings the psalm which the Three Men of yore
Sang in the fiery oven, and he lifts
At every added pang his voice the louder,
And when he bates it prophesies forsooth!

HEROD (_aside_).

Such is their breed. Yes--will they e’er be other?

JOAB.

Then he cries out as though for things of wonder
Beyond the threshold he had got an eye
For every wound that he can count. “Now is
The time fulfilled and in the manger-crib
The Virgin-Mother of the stem of David
E’en at this hallowed moment lays a Child
Destined to topple thrones, awake the dead,
Tear stars from heaven and from eternity
Unto eternity o’erlord the world.”
Meanwhile the folk in thousands are assembled,
Hang on the very doors and hear it all,
Believing that Elijah’s flaming chariot
Will sink to earth and bear him like the prophet
On skyward path. The headsman’s menial even
Shrank back and did not cut him with new wounds,
But held the old together.

HEROD.

Then he shall
Be killed upon the spot and to the folk
Be shown when he is dead. Thereafter bid
The Judges to present them and----

JOAB.

The Queen!

[_Exit._

HEROD.

You, Titus, shall be seated at my side.
I send her mother too an invitation
That she at least fail not her child as witness.

[_Enter_ AARON, _and the other_ FIVE JUDGES.
ALEXANDRA _and_ SALOME _follow_. JOAB
_appears immediately after_.

SCENE 5

THE SAME. AARON. THE FIVE JUDGES. ALEXANDRA. SALOME. _Afterwards_, MARIAMNE.

ALEX.

My King and Lord, I give you lowly greeting.

HEROD.

My thanks to you.

[_He seats himself on the throne._ TITUS
_places himself at his side. Then_ THE
JUDGES _seat themselves at a signal in a
semicircle round the tribunal_.

ALEX. (_while this is being done_).

The fate of Mariamne
I sunder from my own, and save myself,
Like to a torch, to break in future blaze.

[_She sits next to_ SALOME.

HEROD (_to_ THE JUDGES).

You know why I have had you summoned here.

AARON.

In deepest pain do we appear before you.

HEROD.

I do not doubt it. With my house and me
You’re closely bonded all as friend and kin;
What hurts me must hurt you. You will rejoice,
Touching the Queen, if you--(_stops short_) forgive me that!
You will rejoice if you should not condemn her,
If you may send her, cleared before her spouse,
Again unto my house, not Golgotha,
Yet will you not, faced with the uttermost,
Quake marrowless at its necessity.
Since luck and evil luck with me you share
You share my shame and honour alike with me.
Then to your duty!

[_He gives_ JOAB _a sign_. JOAB _goes out and
appears again with_ MARIAMNE. _A long pause._

HEROD.

Aaron!

AARON.

Queen, we have
A heavy task. You stand before your judges.

MAR.

Before my judges, yes. Before you too.

AARON.

Do you repudiate this court?

MAR.

I see
A higher here. If that allow your questions
The answering word from me, then I shall speak,
And hold my peace if such the same forbid.
I scarcely see you clear, for there behind you
Stand ghosts that gaze augustly, dumb, and earnest;
They are the great Forefathers of my stem.
Three nights I saw them ere this hour in dream,
Now too they come by day to me, and well
I know what it must mean when thus assembled
The Dead already ope for me their ranks
And when what lives and breathes for me is pale.
See there behind yon throne on which a king
In seeming sits, stands Judas Maccabaeus--
Hero of Heroes, look thou not so darkly
Upon me from on high! Thou shalt be glad of me!

ALEX.

Curb your defiance, Mariamne!

MAR.

Mother!
Farewell! (_To_ AARON.) Say wherefore I am here accused.

AARON.

The accusation’s this--your King and Lord
You have deceived. (_To_ HEROD.) ’Tis so?

MAR.

Deceived? Ah, folly!
Did he not find me in the way he thought
That he would find me, at the dance and play?
And did I don, when I had heard the death-news,
My mourning-raiment? Did I shed my tears?
And did I tear dishevelled locks? Then had I
Deceived him; but these things I have not done,
And can bring solid proof. Salome, speak!

HEROD.

I found her as she says. She does not need
To look about for other witnesses.
But I had never, never had such thought.

MAR.

Ne’er had such thought? Yet feigned and had the headsman
Set close upon my back? That cannot be.
As I at parting stood before his spirit
E’en so at our reunion he has found me.
Therefore I must deny that I deceived.

HEROD (_breaking into wild laughter_).

Nay, she has not deceived because there’s naught
She did but what foreshadowing Sentience,
All praise to her, dusked warning Deity,
Caused me to feel. (_To_ MARIAMNE.) Woman, this fits you well!
But build not overfast on this, that I
With peace and happiness have lost my strength;
Perchance some jot has still survived for vengeance
And--e’en as boy I ever sent a bird
A chasing dart if it outflew my range.

MAR.

Speak not of sentience foreshadowing, speak
Of fear alone. You trembled at the thing
That you deserved. It is the way of man.
You can no longer trust the sister, since you
Have done to death the brother; all that’s grossest
Your sullying mind imputes and thinks that I
Must give response, yea, and out-Herod you.
Speak truth, or did you always, when you marched
In honourable open war to death,
Set headsmen close behind my back? You’re silent.
Good then! Since you’re so deeply sensitive
On what in me is seemly; since your fear
Schoolmasters me on duty, then will I
Now at long last fulfil this holy duty.
Therefore I sunder me from you for aye.

HEROD.

Answer! Do you confess or not confess?

[MARIAMNE _is silent_.

(_To the_ JUDGES.) You see that all confession fails. Also
I’ve not the proofs as such that you will need.
But on a murderer once I saw you pass
The doom of death because the slain man’s jewel
Was found on him. It was no help that he
Had pointed to his cleanly-washen hands,
And none too that he swore the dead man gave it
As gift. You had the sentence executed.
Good then! It stands thus here. She has the jewel
That proves to me more undeniably
Than ever any tongue of man could do it
She shamed me with the abhorred of all abhorred.
A miracle must not alone have happened.
It must in other case have been repeated,
And miracles were ne’er repeated yet.[18]

[MARIAMNE _makes a gesture_.

’Tis true she’ll speak just as the murderer spoke--
“’Twas given her for a gift!” And she may dare it
Because a chamber, like a wood, is dumb.
But were you tempted thus to give her credit
Then I will set in scale my inmost feeling
And probing of each possibility
As counterbalance, and demand her death,--
Her death, I say! no more this nauseous goblet
I’ll empty which her proud defiance fills,
Nor day on day be gadflied with the riddle
If such a pride’s the most repellent face
Of Innocence, or the most brazen mask
Of Sin. I’ll rescue me from out this whirlpool
Boiling with hate and love ere I be choked,
And be the cost as high as e’er it may.
Therefore away with her! You dally still?
It’s settled! What? I missed the telling point?
Then speak! I know that silence is my part,
But speak! speak! Sit not there like Solomon
Between the mothers with the pair of children.
Her case is clear; you need no more for sentence
Than what you see! A woman that stands there
As she does, earns her death though she were clean
Of every guilt. And still you never speak?
Will you perchance first have the proof how fast
Is my conviction that she has deceived?
Such I will give you through Soemus’ head
And that at once.

[_He goes up to_ JOAB.

TITUS (_rising_).

I say this is not trial.
Your pardon!

[_Is about to go._

MAR.

Roman, stay! I recognise it,
Who can repudiate it if not I?

[TITUS _seats himself again_. ALEXANDRA _rises_.

MAR. (_approaching her, and in a subdued voice_).

You’ve wrought on me much harm and never has
Your meed of happiness by mine been measured.
If I’m to pardon that, be silent now.
You alter naught; my will is firm and fixed.

[ALEXANDRA _seats herself again_.

And now, my Judges?

AARON (_to the other_ JUDGES).

Let that man rise up
Who deems the sentence of the King unjust!

[_All remain seated._

You therefore all resolve yourselves for death?
(_Rising._) Queen, you are here condemned to suffer death.
Have you aught still to answer?

MAR.

If the headsman
Is not bespoke already and by now
Awaits me with his axe, then I would crave
A final word with Titus ere my death.
(_To_ HEROD.) It is not wont to give the last request
Of dying men refusal. Can you grant it,
Then let my life be added unto yours.

HEROD.

The Headsman is not yet bespoke. I can.
And since you promise me eternity
As my reward, I must, and more, I will.
(_To_ TITUS.) This woman is an awesome thing!

TITUS.

She stands
Before a man as never woman should;
Make then an end.

SALOME (_advancing_).

Oh do it! For your mother
Is sick unto the death. She will be whole
If spared to see it.

HEROD (_to_ ALEXANDRA).

Did you not say aught?

ALEX.

No.

[HEROD _gazes long at_ MARIAMNE. MARIAMNE _remains dumb_.

HEROD.

Die! (_To_ JOAB.) I lay it in your hands.

[_Goes off quickly._ SALOME _follows him_.

ALEX. (_looking after_ HEROD).

I have
An arrow still for you. (_To_ MARIAMNE.) You wished it so!

MAR.

I thank you.

[_Exit_ ALEXANDRA.

AARON (_to the other_ JUDGES).

Can we not even now attempt
To soften him? This fills me o’er with horror.
She is the last of Maccabean daughters.
If we could only gain the briefest respite!
Now ’twere not feasible that we withstood him.
Soon will he be his former self again
And then it’s possible he’ll punish us
Because to-day we made him no resistance.
Follow him!

[_Exit._

JOAB (_approaching_ MARIAMNE).

You forgive? I must obey.

MAR.

Do what your Lord commands and do it swift.
I shall be ready soon as you yourself,
And queens, you know, are never wont to wait.

[_Exit_ JOAB.

SCENE 6

MARIAMNE. TITUS. _Afterwards_, JOAB.

MARIAMNE. (_approaching_ TITUS).

Yet one more word before I sleep, the while
My latest chamberlain prepares my bed.
I see you are astounded that this word
Directs itself on you and not my mother,
But she is far and foreign to my heart.

TITUS.

Astounded that the woman thus should teach me
How hearted I, the man, should meet my death.
Yes, Queen, it prickles sense, this thing you’ve done,
Nor less, I hide it not, your Being’s self;
Yet, this despite, the hero-soul I honour
Which lets you take your leave of life as though
You left this fair world at your journey’s end
No longer worth a fleeting backward glance.
And this brave mood half reconciles me to you.

MAR.

’Tis no brave mood.

TITUS.

I’ faith I have been told
Your black-look Pharisees give out the notion
That death is but the proper birth of life.
And who believes them sets the world at nothing
In which the sun alone gives light eternal
And all beside is puffed into the night.

MAR.

I ne’er would hear them and believe it not.
Nay, nay, I know from what I am to part.

TITUS.

Then you stand thus as scarce could Caesar’s self
When Brutus’ hand had dealt the dagger-thrust.
For he, too proud to bare his pain of heart
And yet not strong enough to choke it under,
In falling covered up his countenance.
But you can hold it back within your breast.

MAR.

No more, no more! It is not as you think.
I feel no longer pain of heart, for pain
Demands the nerve of life, and life in me
Is a quenched fire. I long have been no more
Than middle thing between the Man and Shadow
And scarcely grasp the thought I still can die.
Hear now a thing I will confide in you,
But first give oath to me as man and Roman
That you’ll be dumb till I am under earth,
And that you bear me escort when I go.
You hesitate? I ask too much of you?
My slip to sin is not the cause, and if
You later speak or if you hold your peace
Decide yourself; I’ll bind you not in aught,
And more, I hold that wish of mine in check
Since you have ever, like a bronzen god
Above a brawl of fire, self-mastered, cold,
Cast the strong fretless eye upon our hell.
You may command belief in giving witness.
We are for you a race of other breed
No bond can knit to you; you speak of us
As we would speak of foreign plants and stones,
Impartial, void of love and void of hate.

TITUS.

You go too far.

MAR.

If you refuse me now
Your overstubborn word, I take my secret
With me into the grave; my latest solace
I then must lack this--that one human breast
Will keep mine image pure and undefiled,
Which then when Fate has dared its ugliest
Can lift the veil that shrouds it from the feel
Of duty and of reverence for the truth.

TITUS.

Good. I will swear the oath to you.

MAR.

Then know
I put deceit on Herod, but ’twas other,
Far other than he weens; nay, I was true
As he to self. Why shame me thus--much truer,
For he has long been other than he was.
What, am I to protest it? Sooner far
I were resolved to swear an oath I have
My eyes and hands and feet. Them I would lose
And I would still remain that which I am;
But not my heart and soul.

TITUS.

I do believe you
And I will----

MAR.

Keep the promise you have made.
I doubt it not. Now ask yourself my feeling
When for the second time (for once already
I’d pardoned him) he put me under sword
And I must say to me:--“Your shadow’s liker
Your proper self than that wry twisted image
He bears of you far in his inmost depths.”
’Twas that I would not bear, and could I so?
I made to grasp my dagger, and prevented
From rash-essayed self-murder, I then swore--
“It is your will in death to be my headsman?
You shall become my headsman, but in life.
The woman you have gazed on you shall slaughter
And not till death shall see me as I am;”
You came unto my feast; well then, a mask
Was dancing there.

TITUS.

Ha!

MAR.

’Twas a mask that stood
To-day before the Judges; for a mask
The axe is whetted, but it strikes myself.

TITUS.

I stand dumbfounded, Queen, and yet I charge you
With no injustice when perforce I say
That you had duped my very self, had filled me
With horror and recoil before your feast
As now with shudders and admiring wonder.
If thus with me, how could this show for him
Have failed to dim your Being in a darkness,
For him, whose heart all passion-fluctuous
As little as a turbid-troubled stream
Could image things reflected as they are.
Therefore I give his hurt my answering feel
And find that your revenge is overstern.

MAR.

But that revenge I take at my own cost;
And proof it was not for the sake of life
That death like any altar-beast incensed me
I give you, for I cast that life away.

TITUS.

Give me my word again!

MAR.

And if you broke it
You’d alter not a tittle; for to die,
There man commands his fellow, but to live,
In that the mightiest forces not the weakest.
And I’m aweary! Yea, I envy now
The stone, and if the end of life is this
That man should learn to hate it and to death,
Eternal death, give preference, it is
Achieved in me. And may they quarry granite,
Uncrumbling rock, to hollow out my coffin,
May it be sunken in abysmal ocean
That so my dust escape the elements
Oblivioned for all eternity.

TITUS.

And yet we all live in the world of show.

MAR.

I see that now and therefore I go out.

TITUS.

I have myself against you testified.

MAR.

To gain that end I had you at the feast.

TITUS.

Should I say to him what to me you’ve said--

MAR.

Then he would call me back, I doubt it not.
And if I followed, this were my reward,
That now before each one that comes anear me
Henceforward I must shudder and inly say--
“Take care, for this perchance is your third headsman!”
No, Titus, no, I played no pettish game;
For me there’s no return; if such there were
Think you I had not found it out when I
Took everlasting farewell from my children?
Naught but defiance drove me, as he thinks;
If so my guiltless smart had broke defiance
And now ’twould only mean a bitterer death.

TITUS.

Oh, if he felt that, came himself and flung him
Down at your feet!

MAR.

Yes, then indeed he had
The Demon overmastered, and I could
Say all to him. For it is not my part
To chaffer with him meanly for a life
That through the price alone at which ’tis bought
Must lose for me the paltriest patch of worth.
It were my part, to crown him for self-conquest
And, oh believe, I could!

TITUS.

Have you no boding,
O Herod?

[JOAB _enters noiselessly and remains standing in silence_.

MAR.

No! You see, he sends me--him! (_pointing to_ JOAB.)

TITUS.

Let me----

MAR.

Have you not understood me, Titus?
And in your eyes is still the cause defiance
That put my mouth in lock? Can I still live?
Can I still live with him, the man who now
In me God’s image venerates no more?
And if by keeping silence I had power
To necromance old Death and give him weapons
Were it my duty then to break my silence
Only to change one dagger for the other?
And were it more to do so?

TITUS.

She is right.

MAR. (_to_ JOAB).

Are you prepared?

[JOAB _bows_.

(_Turning towards_ HEROD’S _apartments_.) Then, Herod, fare you well!
(_To Earth._) Thou, Aristobulus, oh receive my greeting!
Soon I am with thee in eternal night.

[_She moves towards the door._ JOAB _opens it.
Armed men are seen who form their ranks in
homage. She goes out._ TITUS _follows her_.
JOAB _joins them. Solemn pause._

SCENE 7

SALOME _alone_.

SALOME.

She’s gone! And yet I feel no throb of heart,
A further sign that she deserves her fate.
And so I have at last my brother back,
My mother also has her son. ’Tis well;
I would not budge from him. Else had the Judges
E’en then his judgment jarred. Nay, Aaron, nay,
No word of prison! She’d remain endungeoned
Not for a moon. The grave alone holds fast,
For to the grave alone he has no key.[19]

[_Enter_ A SERVANT.

SCENE 8

SALOME, THE THREE KINGS FROM THE EAST, HEROD, TITUS, JOAB, ALEXANDRA.

SERVANT.

Three kings from out the Eastern lands are here,
They are with costly presents richly laden
And at this very moment have arrived.
Never were seen more strangely striking figures
Nor garments of more wondrous kind than these.

SALOME.

Conduct them in.

[_Exit_ SERVANT.

I’ll tell him this at once.
So long as they’re with him he will not think
On her; and all is over soon with her.

[_She goes after_ HEROD.

[_The_ SERVANT _conducts in the_ THREE KINGS
FROM THE EAST. _They are dressed in strange
and curious raiment in such a way that
they differ from each other in every particular.
A rich retinue follows them, of like
characteristics. Gold, incense, and myrrh.
Enter_ HEROD, _and_ SALOME
_shortly after him_.

FIRST KING.

O King, all hail!

SECOND KING.

A blessing on thy House!

THIRD KING.

A benison to all eternity!

HEROD.

I thank you. But methinks for such an hour
The salutation’s strange.

FIRST KING.

Was not a son
Born to you?

HEROD.

Me? Oh no! My wife has died.

FIRST KING.

We have no call to tarry here.

SECOND KING.

So there’s
A second King then here?

HEROD.

Then there would be
None here at all.

THIRD KING.

There’s here, beside your own,
A second stem, it seems, of Kingly blood.

HEROD.

And why?

FIRST KING.

It is so.

SECOND KING.

Yes, it must be so.

HEROD.

Of that too I know naught.

SALOME (_to_ HEROD).

In Bethlehem
The stem of David still has left a shoot
Remaining.

THIRD KING.

David was a King?

HEROD.

’Tis so.

FIRST KING.

Let us now go even unto Bethlehem!

SALOME (_continuing, to_ HEROD).

But now it plants its seed alone in beggars.

HEROD.

I think it, else----

SALOME.

I spoke once with a virgin
Of David’s house, Mary, I think, her name.
I found her fair enough for such a lineage,
But she was to a carpenter betrothed
And scarcely lifted eyes upon my face
When I made question of her name.

HEROD.

You hear it?

SECOND KING.

’Tis naught! We go.

HEROD.

You will then, ere you go,
Acquaint me what has brought you hither.

FIRST KING.

Reverence
Before the King above all Kings.

SECOND KING.

The wish
Ere yet we die to view his countenance.

THIRD KING.

The holy duty at His feet in homage
To lay whatever on earth is costly-rare.

HEROD.

Who gave you tidings of Him then?

FIRST KING.

His star!
We journeyed not together and we knew
Naught of each other, for our kingdoms lie
To furthest East and furthest West, seas flow
Between them, lofty mountains sunder them----

SECOND KING.

And yet it was the self-same star we saw,
The self-same impulse that had seized our hearts;
We wandered on the self-same way and met us
At last together at the self-same goal----

THIRD KING.

Whether a King’s son or a beggar’s son
The Child this star has lighted into life
Will be uplifted high, and on the Earth
No man shall breathe that will not bow to Him.

HEROD (_aside_).

So speaks the Ancient Book as well! (_Aloud._) May I
Make offer of a guide to Bethlehem?

FIRST KING (_pointing to Heaven_).

We have a guide!

HEROD.

Then good. And if the Child
Be found, I prithee send to me the tidings
That I with you may do Him reverence.

FIRST KING.

It shall be done. Now forth to Bethlehem!

[_The_ THREE KINGS _with their retinue leave the stage_.

HEROD.

It never will be done!

[_Enter_ JOAB _and_ TITUS, _followed by_ ALEXANDRA.

Ha!

JOAB.

It is finished!

[HEROD _covers up his face_.

TITUS.

She died, yes, died! But as for me, I have
A still more fearful office to perform
Than he who brought your word of blood to pass,
For I must tell you she was innocent.

HEROD.

No, Titus, no!

[TITUS _is about to speak_.

(_Stepping close up to him._) For were that so, you could not
Have let her go to death.

TITUS.

No one was able
To hinder that but you. It gives me pain
To be against my will your worse than headsman,
But if a holy duty yields the dead one,
Whoever he may be, the rite of burial,
Still holier is the duty from a shame
To wash him clean if he deserve it not.
This duty now lays law on me alone.

HEROD.

I see from all you say one only thing--
Her spell in death itself was true to her.
Why eats Soemus still my heart? How could he
Resist this blinding woman in her life?
Even in the dying flash she kindled you.

TITUS.

Goes jealousy the very grave beyond?

HEROD.

If I have duped me, if from out your mouth
Some other thing than pity now were speaking
Too deep by far not to be more than such,
Then I must give you warning that your witness
Helped to condemn her, that the duty-bond
For you had then been this--to give me warning
As soon as e’er the tiniest doubt had come.

TITUS.

But my word held me back, and, more than that,
The unimplorable Necessity.
Had I relaxed from her one pace, no further,
Upon herself the deathly thrust were given.
I saw the dagger hidden in her breast
And more than once the twitching of her hand.

[_Pause._

She wished to die; she must have done so, too.
As much she suffered and as much she pardoned
As she had power to pardon and to suffer.
I have beheld her very innermost,
Who more demands should quarrel not with her,
Should quarrel only with the elements
Which, willed or not, had been so mixed in her
That she could go no further. Yes, but let him
Show me a woman further gone than she!

[HEROD _makes a gesture_.

She wished to have her death from you, and called
The unshapen dream-child of your jealousy
Into illusive being at her feast,
Juggling her soul to death and all deceiving.
I found that stern but not unjust. She stepped
As mask before your eyes; the mask was destined
To sting you till you pierced it with a sword-thrust.

[_He points to_ JOAB.

And that you did and killed her very self.

HEROD.

So spoke she, but she spoke from vengeance so.

TITUS.

So was it. I have testified against her.
How gladly would I doubt it!

HEROD.

And Soemus?

TITUS.

Upon the way that leads to death I met him,
He entered on his own as soon as hers
Had been accomplished, and he felt it balm
To think his blood with hers should be commingled
E’en though upon the block by headsman-hand.

HEROD.

Aha! You see?

TITUS.

And what? Perchance in stillness
He burned for her. But if that were a sin
Then it was his and never aught of hers.
He cried to me:--“I die because I spoke;
Else had I died because I might have spoken.
For such was Joseph’s lot. He swore while still
In death that he was innocent as I,
I marked it.”

HEROD (_breaking out_).

Joseph! Is he too avenged?
Does Earth gape open? Do the striding dead
Outface me all?

ALEX. (_approaching him_).

They do! But no, fear nothing.
There’s one--a woman--still lies under earth!

HEROD.

Accursèd! (_Commanding himself._) Be it so. If then Soemus
Committed but a single crime against me,

[_He turns to_ SALOME.

Joseph, through whom this vulgar-souled suspicion
Had filled him, Joseph fooled him even in death--
Is it not so?--Why are you silent now?

SALOME.

Hot-foot he dogged her every step----

ALEX. (_to_ HEROD).

Ay true!
But with intent to find the ripened time,
No more, in which to carry out your charge
Both her and me to murder----

HEROD.

Is this true?
(_To_ SALOME.) And you, you?

ALEX.

Almost the self-same hour
Why he allowed his mask fully to fall
Had Mariamne ta’en on her the oath
To give herself, if you returned not hither,
A sacrifice to death. I hide it not.
For doing so I hated her.

HEROD.

Oh fearful!
And this--but now you tell this?

ALEX.

Yes!

TITUS.

I know
This too. It was her latest word to me.
But for a thousand years I had been silent,
I would but clear her name, not give you torture.

HEROD.

Then---- (_His voice fails him._)

TITUS.

Calm yourself! It wounds me too.

HEROD.

Ay, wounds
You, her (_to_ SALOME) and everyone who here, like me,
Has been the blinded tool of slant-souled Fate,
But I alone have lost what on this earth
Eternally will ne’er be seen again.
Have lost! Oh! Oh!

ALEX.

Aha, Aristobulus,
You are avenged, my son, and I in you.

HEROD.

What, triumphing? You think that I will now
Wilt like a broken thing? Nay, I will not.
I am a king and I will let the world

[_He makes a gesture as though snapping something to pieces._

Feel it and tremble! Up now, Pharisees.
Up with your rebel heads! (_To_ SALOME.) And you, why shrink you
So soon from me? Why, sure, I’ve not yet altered
My face, but on the morrow it may happen
That my own mother shall be forced to swear
I am no more her son.

[_After a pause, in a toneless voice._

Ah, if my crown
Were set with all the stars that flame in heaven,
For Mariamne I would give them hence
And, if I had it too, this earthen ball.
Yea, were it possible that I myself
Living as now within the grave could lay me
And ransom her from out her own, I’d do it!
With my own hands I’d dig myself therein.
Ah, but I cannot! Therefore have I still
And fastly hold what still I have. That is
Not much, but still a crown is part thereof
Which now shall fill for me the woman’s place,
And who makes grasp for that--One does so now;
Why yes, a Boy does so, a Marvellous Boy--
He Whom the Prophets have long been announcing
And Whom e’en now a star lights into life.
But, Fate, thy reckoning is sore at fault
If thou, in trampling me with iron foot,
A piecemeal thing, hast thought to smooth His course.
A soldier I; myself will fight with thee
And, as I lie, will bite thee in the heel.
(_Sharply._) Joab!

[JOAB _approaches_.

(_In a contained voice._) You go at once to Bethlehem
And tell the Captain there who’s in command
To find the Marvellous Boy--Nay, he will not
Ransack him out, not all can see the star;
As for those Kings, they’re sly as sanctimonious--
The children who within the bygone year
Were born, he is to slay upon the spot.
He leaves no single one surviving.

JOAB (_retreating_).

Good!
(_Aside._) And I know why! But Moses was delivered
Pharaoh despite!

HEROD (_still loud and strong_).

I’ll see to it to-morrow,
To-day with Mariamne--(_He collapses._) Titus!

[TITUS _catches him_.