Chapter VII: Act I: Scene 1

_A Castle on Zion. A large Audience-Chamber._ JOAB, SAMEAS, ZERUBABEL _and his Son_ PHILO, TITUS, JUDAS, _and many others_. _Enter_ HEROD.

JOAB (_advancing towards the King_).

I’m back again.

HEROD.

I’ll speak with you anon.
Announce the weightiest first!

JOAB (_retreating: aside_).

The weightiest!
I had a kind of notion ’twere to learn
Whether my head sits shoulder-tight or not.

HEROD (_beckoning to_ JUDAS).

How is it with the fire?

JUDAS.

With the fire?
Know you already what I came to tell?

HEROD.

At midnight it broke out; I was the first
To mark it, and the first to call the watch.
Am I at fault, or did I wake yourself?

JUDAS.

It is extinguished. (_Aside._) Ha, then it is true
The mummer dogs the town-ways in disguise
When others are asleep! Then bridle tongue!
A chance may prick it blind against his ear!

HEROD.

I saw when all was in a reel of flames
A woman, young, through the window of a house;
She seemed quite sense-numbed. Was this woman saved?

JUDAS.

She’d none of it.

HEROD.

She’d none of it?

JUDAS.

By Heaven,
She made defence against the force essayed
To bear her off; she laid about with hands
And feet; she clutched and clung to the bed
On which she sat, shrieking “that very hour
She’d chosen for a death by her own hands.
And now that death was come by lucky chance!”

HEROD.

She must have been a maniac.

JUDAS.

Possibly
The poignancy of pain gave her the wrench.
Her husband had just died the moment ere then.
His corpse, still warm, was lying in his bed.

HEROD (_aside_).

That tale’s in point: I’ll tell’t to Mariamne
And fix her eyes i’ the very telling! (_Aloud._) This woman
Has had no child belike; in the other case
The child shall be my care; as for herself,
Let her have rich and princely burial.
I feel she was among all women queen.

SAMEAS (_advancing towards_ HEROD).

A burial? I protest the thing can’t be,
Or, at the least, not in Jerusalem,
For it is written----

HEROD.

Are you not known to me?

SAMEAS.

You’ve had ere now a chance to make acquaintance;
I was the tongue once of the Sanhedrim
When it was dumb before you.

HEROD.

Sameas,
I hope you know me too. Hard on the heel
You have pursued the youngling, and were lief
To make the hangman richer by the head
Of that same youngling. I forgive your deeds
As man and King. Your neck still carries yours.

SAMEAS.

If for the grace that bade you leave it me
I dare not use it, here it is! That were
A worse mischance than loss for good and all.

HEROD.

Why did you come? I never saw you here
Till now within these walls.

SAMEAS.

That’s just the reason
You see me here to-day. You may have thought
It was through fear of you. I fear you not!
Not even now, when many learnt to fear you
Who till this time--I mean up till the death
Of Aristobulus--had no fear of you;
And now at offered opportunity
To give you proof I have a grateful heart,
I grasp the chance, and warn you solemnly
Against a deed that the Lord God abhors.
This woman’s bones unhallowed are accursed,
She has rejected rescue heathen-wise;
No less the act than had she killed herself.
And then----

HEROD.

Some other time!
(_To_ ZERUBABEL.) From Galilee!
Zerubabel as well who once----Be welcome!
Yourself’s to blame I’ve seen you not till now.

ZER.

’Tis a high honour, King, you know me still.
(_Pointing to his mouth._) But then of course these teeth,
these mighty twins
That make me a blood-cousin to the boar----

HEROD.

The look of my own face will I forget
Sooner than his who’s served me trustily.
When I was brigand-hunting in your land,
My sharpest sleuth-hound you! Why come you now?

ZER. (_pointing to his son_).

Small cause enough. This Philo here’s my son.
Soldiers you need, and I--well none need I.
This one’s a Roman. By some oversight
A Hebrew daughter gave him to the world.[2]

HEROD.

From Galilee comes to me naught but good.
I’ll have you summoned later.

[ZERUBABEL _retires with his son_.

TITUS (_advancing_).

A cheat’s fraud
I have discovered forces----

HEROD.

Out with it!

TITUS.

The dumb speak!

HEROD.

Riddle not!

TITUS.

Your halberdier
Who, companied with one of my centurions,
Last night was standing guard at your bed-chamber----

HEROD (_aside_).

The man whom Alexandra, my wife’s mother,
Enlisted in my service----

TITUS.

He’s not dumb,
Though not a soul but seems to think so of him.
In dreaming he has found his voice and cursed.

HEROD.

In dreaming!

TITUS.

Yes, he fell asleep on guard,
And my centurion had no mind to wake him,
Thinking his duty’s scope made no exaction,
Because he is not drafted with his cohort.
But his sharp eye was on him, if he fell
To catch him that your rest be not disturbed,
Since it was early and you lay asleep.
While he does this the dumb one sudden starts
A-murmuring, and calls aloud your name,
And couples it with a most fearsome curse.

HEROD.

And this centurion suffers no delusion?

TITUS.

If so, he must himself have fallen asleep,
An omen, for the eternal city’s future,
Worse than the bolt of thunder which of late
Blasted the She-wolf on the Capitol.

HEROD.

My thanks to you--and now----

[_Dismisses all except_ JOAB.

Ay, so it stands!
Traitors in my own house, open defiance
From Pharisaic scum, the more unblushing
Since I dare not deal chastisement unless
I’m mad enough to turn fools into martyrs;
And from those Galileans some scant love,
No, a self-interested hanging-on,
Since I’m the Bogy of the Shining Sword
That from the distance scares their rabble-dregs.
And--this man brings me certain news of ill;
He was too hasty-eager to announce it.
For even he, though my own body-slave,
Delights in my chagrin if he but knows
I must don mask as though I saw it not.
(_To_ JOAB.) The news from Alexandria!

JOAB.

I had speech
With Antony.

HEROD.

O prologue marvellous!
Had speech with Antony! I’m used to see
My couriers to his audience vouchsafed.
You are the first who finds himself compelled
To reassure me he was privileged thus.

JOAB.

A privilege hardly won! I was repulsed,
Obdurately repulsed!

HEROD (_aside_).

A sign he stands
Still better with Octavian than I thought!
(_Aloud._) That shows you picked the right hour clumsily.

JOAB.

I picked each single one o’ the twenty-four
That make the total day. Whate’er was doing
I budged not from the spot, never a foot,
Even when the soldiers offered me some morsel,
And, when I spurned their bounty, vented japes:--
“He’ll only eat the leavings of the cat
And what the dogs have tattered with their jaws!”
At last I had success----

HEROD.

Some cleverer man
Had won forthwith----

JOAB.

In gaining audience.
It was now night, and the first notion forced
Upon my mind was that I had been summoned
To lengthen out his gibing soldiers’ jest.
For, as I entered, there before my eyes
A ring of cushion-sprawling drinkers lay;
But he with his own hand filled me with a goblet
And called out to me--“Drain this to my health!”
I courteously declined, whereat he said:--
“If killing yonder fellow were my mood
I’d merely need for but an eight-days’ space
To have him at my board, and pile thereon
The tribute paid me by the earth and ocean.
He’d sit an-idling, peak away from famine,
And swear in dying he’d a bellyful!”

HEROD.

Yes, yes, they know our breed! It must be altered.
What Moses merely bade, to shield this folk
From a backsliding to its old calf-cult,
Though _he_ was not a fool, such law this folk
Holds fatuous as a self-sufficient end;
So sick men cured still use the healing drug
As though their food and physic were the same.
This must----Continue!

JOAB.

I was soon assured
I had mistook my man, for he dismissed
All State-affairs while cups were going round,
Appointed magistrates and duly ordered
The sacrifice to Zeus, consulted augurs,
Spoke with the couriers fast as e’er they came,
Not me alone. Oh, a rare sight he made!
A slave behind him with his ear acock,
A tablet and a stylus in his hand,
Was scribbling down--absurdly solemn owl!
Whatever crank escaped his tippler-mood.
And on the morning after, so I learnt,
He reads the contents through, his head aburst
With drunkard-dregs, and holds his words so true
That--hear the latest oath they say he swore--
With his own fist he’d choke his very windpipe
Had he the night before in fuddled fit
Made a fool’s freakish present of the world
He dubs his own, and thereby forfeited
His right to one sole single place thereon.
Whether, then too his walk’s a zigzag waddle,
As when at night he seeks his bed, I know not;
But to my thinking, both are on all fours.

HEROD.

Thou’rt conqueror, Octavian! Soon or late;
That’s all the question. Well?

JOAB.

When at long last
The turn had come to me and I delivered
The letter for him that I bore with me,
He then and there, instead of opening it,
Tossed it contemptuous to his secretary,
Bade his cup-bearer bring a certain picture
Which I should thoroughly scan, and say to him
Whether I found the likeness good or no.

HEROD.

It was the likeness of----

JOAB (_with sinister malice_).

Aristobulus,
The High-Priest drowned a trifle suddenly.
A long time since your royal Consort’s mother,
Queen Alexandra, who’s had doings with him,
Had sent it; but ’twas swallowed ravenously
As though he’d ne’er set eyes on it before.
Stock-still I stood, mutely confused. He spoke
When he saw this--“The lamps here burn too dim!”
Then, stretching out his hand toward your letter,
Plunged it in flame and let it flicker slow
Before the picture like an uninked sheet.

HEROD.

Bold, e’en for him: but ’twas a wine-caprice.

JOAB.

I cried--“What’s that you’re doing? Why, you’ve not
So much as read the letter!” He replied:--
“My will’s to speak with Herod! That’s the meaning!
He is arraigned by me on capital charge!”
Then I was bade relate how the High Priest
Came by his death, and as I told the tale--
A dizziness had gripped him in his bath--
He cut me short and quick--“Gripped! Ay, that is
The fitting word. That dizziness had fists!”
Then I perceived--pardon if I declare it,--
Rome’s not persuaded that the youth is drowned;
Nay, but there’s accusation in the wind
That by your chamberlain’s kind offices
You’ve had him strangled in the river-depths.

HEROD.

Thanks, Alexandra, thanks!

JOAB.

Then, waving hand,
He bade me thence--I went. But, once again,
He called to me and spoke--“You’ve not yet paid
The question I first put you its due answer;
Then hear it twice. This picture, does it favour
The Dead?” As I assented with forced nod,
“And favours Mariamne then her brother?
Say, favours she the youth so piteous--dead?
Is she so fair that every woman hates her?”

HEROD.

And you?

JOAB.

Hear first what all the others said
Who meanwhile rose, and, gathered at my side,
Circled the picture. With a laugh they said,
Changing with Antony the double glance,
“Say yes! If e’er you took the dead man’s largess,
Hap or mishap, you’ll see his death avenged.”
But I replied I knew no jot of it,
For never else but draped in veils had I
Beheld the Queen: and that’s the very truth.

HEROD (_aside_).

Ha, Mariamne! But--I laugh at that,
I’ll know the trick to shield me from that danger,
This way or that, whatever way it come.
(_To_ JOAB.) And what commission did you take for me?

JOAB.

No smallest. If commission I had taken
I’d not have roundabouted thus. As ’tis
It seemed imperative.

HEROD.

Good: you return
At once to Alexandria with me.
You leave the palace under penalty.

JOAB.

Your servant! I’ll hold talk with none i’ the palace.

HEROD.

That’s credible! Who hankers for the cross
Now of all times when figs begin to ripe?
My Mute must have the axe, and should he question
The why, he’s answered--“Just that you can question.”
(_Aside._) So now I see through whom the Ancient Serpent
So often learned what I--A wicked wench!
(_To_ JOAB.) See to’t! When done I must behold the head.
I’ll send a present to my mother-in-law.
(_Aside._) She needs a little warning-sign, it seems.

JOAB.

At once!

HEROD.

This too: the Galilean lad--
Take him beneath your wing--Zerubabel’s son.
I’ll have a word with him too ere we go.[3]

[_Exit_ JOAB.

SCENE 2

HEROD _alone_.

HEROD.

Now to’t, “and once again!” I’d almost said,
But there’s no end in prospect. I resemble
The Man i’ the Fable whom before, the lion,
Behind, the tiger gripped at; whom the eagles
With beak and claw were threatening imminent,
And who was standing on a snaky clump.
All’s one! I’ll make defence as best I can,
And fit each enemy with his own weapon.
Be this henceforth my law and ordinance.
What length it takes, it shall not fret my peace.
If but to the end I keep firm-planted feet
And nothing lose of what I’ve called my own,
Then let that end be on me when it will.

SCENE 3

HEROD. MARIAMNE.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT.

SERVANT.

The Queen!

[MARIAMNE _follows close on him_.

HEROD.

You’ve just outstripped my own desire!
I wanted----

MAR.

Nay then, surely not to fetch
My thanks in person for the pearls so wondrous?
I waved you twice aside, but once again
Make trial if I’d pleased to change my mood,
That would have strained the patience of a man,
And, past all doubt, the patience of a King.
Nay, nay, I know my duty, and since you,
After my gay-heart brother’s swift-sent death,
Shower daily so rich gifts as though you courted
My love anew, I come at last myself
And show you I have gratitude in heart.

HEROD.

I see it!

MAR.

Faith, I cannot tell what trend
Your bearing takes. You send for me the diver
Deep, deep into the lightless sea, and if
No one’s to find who for the gleaming guerdon
Will dare disturb Leviathan’s repose,
You fling your dungeons open and give back
Some robber-varlet his devoted head
To get you a pearl-fisherman for me.

HEROD.

That seems a maddish whim? Why, madder still,
I’ve had a murderer cut down from the cross
When need to snatch a child from out the brand
Was urgent, and I’ve said to him:--“If you
Return it to the mother, in my eyes
That counterbalances your debt to death.”
Ay, he was in with a plunge----

MAR.

And back again
Unscathed?

HEROD.

It was too late, or otherwise
My word kept, he’d have been dispatched to Rome
A-soldiering. They call for tigers there!
My policy is “Usury with all!”
And why not drive the trade with forfeit lives?
You have your junctures when they offer use.

MAR. (_aside_).

Oh that he did not have the bloody hand!
What use are words? For whatsoe’er his deed,
Once on his tongue, he paints it wisely done.
And oh, revolting if he drove me, drove me
To judge a brother-murder, like the rest,
Compelled, inevitable, wisely done!

HEROD.

You’re silent?

MAR.

Shall I speak? Well then of pearls,[4]
You know we only spoke of pearls till now,
Of pearls that are so chaste and blanched as foam
That even against a bloody hand they lose
No clearness in their sparkle! And you heap
Them high on me!

HEROD.

To vexing you?

MAR.

Not me!
’Tis sure your gift can never veil intent
Some debt to cancel, and methinks I have
As queen and woman uncontested right
To pearls and precious jewels: I can speak
About the noble stone like Cleopatra:--
“It is my slave to whom I grant my pardon
For standing such ill vicar to the star,
Since, for amends, it overblooms the flower.”
And yet you have Salome for a sister.

HEROD.

And she?

MAR.

Come! If you’d have her murder me
On with your work, and make the deep your plunder,
Else--give the diver his meet rest. I stand
Deep enough in her debt by now. You eye
Me doubtful-scrutinous? Pah! When last year
I lay nigh-dead, she touched me with her kiss;
It was her very first and very last.
I thought at once--“This is your dear reward
For getting gone from the world!” and, faith, it was.
Ah, but I tricked her loving hope, and rallied.
And now I have her kiss for naught, and that
She can’t forget. I’ve mortal fear she might
Store it in mind were I to visit her
With wonder-pearls upon my neck that show
Your latest token of your deepest love.

HEROD (_aside_).

There’s nothing lacking but that my left hand
Turn traitor to my right!

MAR.

I would at least
Disdainfully reject the greeting-cup.
And should she proffer ’stead of spicy wine
E’en innocent water in the crystal bowl,
I’d let that water lie without a touch.
True, that were bare of meaning. No, ’twould be
A natural thing enough; for water is
No more to me what once I felt it was,
Mild element that gives the flowers to drink,
Mother of life to all the world and me.
It thrills with shudders, brims me o’er with horror
Since its jaws oped to gulf my brother down.
Ever I think--“there’s life dwells in the drop,
But in the billow dwells the bitter death!”
To you it must be quite another.

HEROD.

Why?

MAR.

Since through a stream you suffer calumny.
Its own, its dastard, its malicious deed
It dares unload on you! But fear it not,
I’ll give’t the lie!

HEROD.

In very truth?

MAR.

I can!
To love the sister and the brother murder!
What reason yokes that pair?

HEROD.

Yet if, perhaps,
Himself this brother points his thoughts at murder,
And if alone by breasting his advance,
Nay, by outstripping, one could save his skin!
(We speak here of the possible) and further,
If, harmless in himself, he make a weapon
In hands of foeman malleable, a weapon
Whose bite must bring sure death unless its mark
Shatter it well before it can be hurled
(We speak here of the possible), and last
If this same weapon threatened no sole head,
Nay, but a whole Folk’s grand collective head
And one for such a Folk imperative
As is for any other trunk its head
(We speak here of the possible), and yet
In such a chain of chance I think the Sister,
As wife from love she duly owes her husband,
As daughter of her folk from holy bond,
As Queen, from both, would have no choice but say:--
“What happened was the thing I dare not blame.”

[_He clasps_ MARIAMNE’S _hand_.

And if a Ruth be slow to catch my drift
(How could she learn it at the gleaning hour?)
The Maccabean daughter understands!
In Jericho you could not give your kisses,
You will be able in Jerusalem!

[_He kisses her_.

And if perchance the kiss bring after-grudging
Then hear a reconcilement for us twain:--
I took it for a token of farewell
And that farewell may be farewell eternal!

MAR.

Eternal!

HEROD.

Yes! Antony’s had me summoned
But still I know not whether I return.

MAR.

You know not?

HEROD.

Since I know not how severe
An accusation my--your mother’s lodged.

[MARIAMNE _makes to speak_.

That’s naught. I’ll bear it. But one thing alone
I must learn from your lips. I say I must learn--
Whether and how I undertake defence.

MAR.

Whether----

HEROD.

O Mariamne, question not!
You know the spell that knits me into you,
You know that every day makes it more potent.
Ah, but your heart must feel I have no strength
To battle my own cause if you refuse
Assurance that your heart-beats twin my own.
Oh tell me, is that heart fiery or cold?
And then I can tell you if Antony
Will call me brother or condemn me straight
To hunger-death in the earth-embowelled dungeon
Whose blackness prisoned up Jugurtha’s death.
You’re dumb? Oh be not dumb! How keen I feel
That such confession scarce beseems a king;
’Tis not his part to yoke his neck beneath
The common lot of man, ’tis not his part
To bind his inmost on another’s life,
He should be knit unto his God alone.
I am not fashioned thus; when you last year
Were sick to death, then I was busy too
About self-slaughter that I might not live
To see your death; and now that you know this
Know yet another thing. If I should chance,
Yes I, to be a-dying, I could do
What you dread at Salome’s hands, I could
A poison mix and give it you in wine,
That even in death I might be sure of you.

MAR.

And were you to do that you would recover!

HEROD.

No, no! I would have shared the half with you!
Now speak your heart. Were pardon in your grace
For such o’erbrimming measure of love as this?

MAR.

If after quaffing such a drink I had
Surviving breath to utter one last word,
I’d call a curse on you with that last word.
(_Aside._) Yea, all the sooner were it done the surer
That I myself, if death should call you hence,
Could in my pain stretch hands to grasp my dagger.
That deed the heart can do, but suffer never!

HEROD.

In yester-evening’s fire there was a woman
Consumed with her dead husband: ’gainst essay
At rescue made she brindled up: this woman
Of course meets your contempt?

MAR.

Who tells you that?
She scorned at least to be an altar victim
And sacrificed herself, a deed that proves
She prized her dead love more than all the world.

HEROD.

And you, and I?

MAR.

If you dare tell yourself
You’ve put me in the scales against the world,
What could be left to keep me in the world?

HEROD.

The world! The world has many a sovereign still,
And none among them but were fain to share
His throne with you, not one who for your sake
Would not abandon bride and oust his wife
The very morn after his wedding-night.

MAR.

Is Cleopatra dead that you speak thus?

HEROD.

You are so fair that all who gaze upon you
Nigh win a faith in immortality,
That unctuous, flattering Pharisaic hope,
Since none can realise your image e’er
Should fade in him; so fair, that it would seem
No wonder to me if with sudden travail
The mountains yielded me some nobler metal
Than gold and silver for your ornamenting,
Some metal long enwombed against your coming;
So fair that--ha! the knowledge that you die
Hard on another’s death, from loving die
That close upon his fore-flight you may hasten
And in a sphere to hold you where one is
And is no more (I picture such a heaven
As latest breath with latest breath immingled),
Ah, that were worth the self-dealt death, ’twould be
Beyond the grave, that home where horror dwells,
To find still one more rapture. Mariamne,
Dare I hope such a thing, or must fear take me
That you would--Antony has asked of you!

MAR.

Men do not issue notes of hand for acts,
Much less for smartings and for sacrifice,
Such as Despair can bring, I feel full well,
Though love can never make demand on them.[5]

HEROD.

Farewell!

MAR.

Farewell! I know you will come back.
Your slayer’s--He alone (_pointing to heaven_)----

HEROD.

So small the fear?

MAR.

So great the confidence!

HEROD.

Love is a-tremble,
A-tremble even in a hero’s breast.

MAR.

But my love trembles not!

HEROD.

You tremble not?

MAR.

Now I begin. Can you no more trust self
Since you--the brother of me--then woe to me
And woe to you!

HEROD.

You hold that word in check,
That simple word, when I had hoped of you
An oath! What base is left whereon to build?

MAR.

And if I gave that oath, what surety yours
I’d keep it? Always I and only I,
My Being as you know it. Thus I think
Since you must end, it seems, with hope and faith
You make beginning where you end--with both!
Go, go! I can no other! Not now, not yet!

[_Exit._

SCENE 4

HEROD _alone_.

HEROD.

Not now! The next day then, the next day’s morrow!
After my death she will be kind to me!
What, speaks a woman thus? I know that oft
When I have called her fair she’s marred her features
With twistings till she was no longer fair.
I know she cannot weep, that her drawn face
Tells what in others finds the vent of tears.
I know that she had quarrelled with her brother
Not long before he found death in his bath,
And then play-acted the disconsolate,
And, to cap that, when he was now a corpse,
Displayed another gift received from him
And bought for her while he went to his bath!
Yet speaks a woman thus in the very moment
When he, the man she loves or at the least
Is bound to love--She turned not round again
As once when I--She left no kerchief back
That she for pretext--No, she can endure it
That I with this impression--Good! So be it!
To Alexandria--the grave--all’s one!
But one thing first! One! Earth and Heaven hear it!
You swore me naught, I’ll swear a thing to you!
I’ll put you under sword! And Antony,
Should he command my fall on your account,
E’en though he wrought it not to save your mother
Shall be my dupe. How doubtful e’er it be
Whether the robe that shrouds me at my death
Follows me to my grave because some thief
Can still purloin it, you shall follow me!
That’s firm and fixed! Should I return no more
You die! A stumpy point that trips the foot!
What gives assurance I shall be obeyed
When I’m no longer dreaded? Ha, I think
There’s one to find who at her frown has cause
For shivering!

SCENE 5

HEROD. JOSEPH.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT.

SERVANT.

Your kinsman!

HEROD.

He is welcome!
There is my man! To him I hand my sword
And goad him through the craven mood so deep
To hardy mettle that he’ll use’t like me.

[_Enter_ JOSEPH.

JOSEPH.

I heard immediate start for Alexandria
Is your intent, and wished to bid God-speed.

HEROD.

God-speed! A speed, belike, without returning.

JOSEPH.

Without returning!

HEROD.

Ay, ’tis possible.

JOSEPH.

I never saw you thus till now.

HEROD.

Proof certain
I never was in such ill plight till now.

JOSEPH.

But if you grow heart-faint----

HEROD.

I’ll not, I say!
For, come what will, I’ll bear it: yet the hope
That any good can come leaves me in lurch.

JOSEPH.

That makes me wish to God I had been blind
And ne’er on Alexandra’s hooded doings
Had played the pry.

HEROD.

I could believe it of you!

JOSEPH.

For had I not unearthed the portraiture
Of Aristobulus which in secrecy
For Antony was painted, and had I
Not scented out her courier-despatch
To Cleopatra: more than all, the coffin
That with her son concealed her at the harbour--
Had I not blocked it and prevented flight
That was begun already----

HEROD.

Then had she
No thanks to owe you, and with qualmless mind
You’d bear to see her daughter on the throne,
The throne that she, the dauntless Maccabean,
Will surely mount if I return no more,
And none before her edge his way thereto.

JOSEPH.

I mean it not that way; I mean that much
Had lain in smother.

HEROD.

Much! Why, not a doubt
But much that’s awkward had instead occurred.
No matter now. You make your tally full;
But there’s one item you’ve forgot----

JOSEPH.

And that?

HEROD.

You were presumably attending him
The time he went a-bathing when----

JOSEPH.

I was.

HEROD.

Presumably you wrestled him?

JOSEPH.

At first, yes.

HEROD.

H’m, queerish! Well?

JOSEPH.

No dizziness attacked him
When he was in my arms, and had it happened
Either I would have rescued him or he
Had dragged me under with him to the bottom.

HEROD.

No doubt. But as you cannot help but know,
All who were there make just your protestation,
And since a perverse chance will have it so,
That you not only bore him company
But wrestled him----

JOSEPH.

What means that check of word?

HEROD.

My Joseph, you and I, we make a couple
That stands stern charge.

JOSEPH.

I too?

HEROD.

I dare assert
I have both kin and trusty friend in you?

JOSEPH.

’Tis so I flatter me.

HEROD.

’Twere better not so.
Had I like Saul cast the dart after you
And could you prove it through your deathly wound
For you ’twere better: no back-biter’s word
Had risen to find the credulous ear: and you,
For a blood-deed of which your hands were guiltless,
Would never lose your head.

JOSEPH.

I? lose my head?

HEROD.

That is your fate if I do not return,
And Mariamne----

JOSEPH.

But my hands _are_ guiltless:

HEROD.

What helps you there? the ugly look’s against you.
And then again, suppose you were believed,
Are not the many, many services
You’ve rendered me, in Alexandra’s eyes
As many crimes against herself? Will she
Not have these thoughts--“Had he o’erwinked my flight
There’d be one living who now lies i’ the grave?”

JOSEPH.

True, true!

HEROD.

And can she not then with some show
Of right demand your life to pay another’s
That she imagines lost through fault of yours?
Will she not set her daughter on to do it?

JOSEPH.

Salome! Ah, that comes of visiting
The painter. Year on year fresh portraits of me
She still demands.

HEROD.

I know she loves you dear.

JOSEPH.

The less her love, the better were my case.
Had I the portrait of Aristobulus
Detected when I--good then. She can soon
Possess my latest, less a head.

HEROD.

My Joseph,
A man protects his head.

JOSEPH.

When you have given
Your own for lost?

HEROD.

That’s only half the trick.
I’ll try to save it through the stratagem,
That of myself free-willed I thrust that head
Into the lion’s gullet.

JOSEPH.

Once luck helped you
When the Pharisees----

HEROD.

This is a sorrier case.
But hap what haps to me it is my will
To lay your destiny in your own hands.
You always were a man, be now a king.
I hang the purple mantle round your neck
And proffer you the sceptre and the sword.
Hold fast. To me alone you give it back!

JOSEPH.

What, do I understand you?

HEROD.

And confirm
Your throne and life with it in certain tenure
By killing Mariamne if your hear
That I return not hither.

JOSEPH.

Mariamne?

HEROD.

She is the last bond whereby Alexandra
Is knit unto the folk now that the flood
Has choked her son; she is the gay-hued plume
Rebellion’s helm will flaunt, the day whereon
It heads against you.

JOSEPH.

Ah, but Mariamne!

HEROD.

Amazed that I----? I’ll make no false front, Joseph!
My counsel’s good, is good for you; what need
Of further words? yet, to be frank, I give it
Not for your sake alone--Here’s the bluff truth!
That she should with some other--I can’t bear it--
That would be bitterer than--I grant she’s proud--
But after death--and then, Antony--
And first and worst of all that mother of hers
Who’ll harry on the dead against the dead--
You catch my drift, you must.

JOSEPH.

But----

HEROD.

Hear me out!
She led me on to hope that she herself
Would deal her death if I----Tell me, can debts
Be summoned in by proxy? ’Tis allowed
Even by force--what think you?

JOSEPH.

’Tis allowed.

HEROD.

Promise me then that you will take her life
If she take not her own. Be not too hasty
And not too tardy either. Go to her
Soon as my messenger, for I shall send one,
Reports of me “it’s over!” tell it her
And mark then if she reaches hand for dirk
Or makes to do aught else. You promise?

JOSEPH.

Yes.

HEROD.

I will not have you swear, for no man yet
Forced any one to swear he’d use his foot
To crush a snake that threatened him with death.
He does it of himself if he be sane;
For he could sooner practise abstinence
Of meat and drink without a scathe, than this.

[JOSEPH _makes a gesture_.

I know you throughly and I will commend you
To Antony as one in all this crew
That he dare trust in. You will prove him that
By showing that a woman of your blood
Is not too sacred to become your victim
When smothering of rebellion is the stake,
For that’s the point of view will gloze the deed,
That side you serve up for his eyes. ’Tis followed
By a street hubbub: your despatch to him
Is that an outbreak was your deed’s precursor
And only by its instrument was quelled.
As for the folk, ’twill have a shuddering-fit
When it beholds your bloody sword, and many
Will say:--“It seems I knew but half this man!”
And now----

JOSEPH.

I’ll see you yet, not now alone;
I know for sure, as ever you’ll come back.

HEROD.

’Tis not past hope: and therefore one thing more--

[_A long pause._

I swore just now an oath that touches you.

[_Writes a letter and seals it._

Here ’tis! Receive in charge this letter sealed.
You see the run o’ the title--

JOSEPH.

To the headsman!

HEROD.

I’ll keep what I have therein promised you,
And if, perhaps, you’ve mind to tell a tale
About a King who----

JOSEPH.

Come! Impose the task,
To hand this note myself unto the headsman.[6]

[_Exit._

SCENE 6

HEROD _alone_.

HEROD.

Now she lives under sword, and that’s my spur
To do what I ne’er did before, to suffer
What ne’er before I suffered, and find comfort
If all be vain! and now, away!

[_Exit._