Chapter VIII: Act II: Scene 1

_The Castle on Zion_. ALEXANDRA’S _Apartments_. ALEXANDRA. SAMEAS.

ALEXANDRA.

You know it now.

SAMEAS.

It gives me no surprise.
No, in a Herod nothing gives surprise
Who once as stripling on the Sanhedrim
Declared a war: who with his gleaming weapon
Strode up before his judge and dropped the hint
That he himself was Headsman and the Headsman
Upon himself no sentence executes,
He may as man--Ha, I can see him now
As, front to front opposing the High Priest,
He leaned against a column ’mid a ring
Of his hired bravos, who in robber-hunting
Turned robber too--strange metamorphosis!
And took our total tally, head for head,
As though he stood before a thistle patch
And summed in mind a way to weed it clean.

ALEX.

Yes, yes, that was an hour of hours for him,
A moment he may proudly call to mind.
A boyish madcap, scarce in his twentieth year,
He stands arraigned before the Sanhedrim,
Because in stark presumptuous sacrilege
He’d arrogated violence on the law;
Because his hand unsanctioned executed
A death-decree you had not yet pronounced.
The dead man’s widow, as he treads the threshold,
Counters him with her curse: within there sits
All in Jerusalem that’s old and grey.
But since he comes not sackclothed, and no ashes
Bestrew his head, you get a sag in the heart:
You think no more with punishment to greet him,
You think no more with threatenings to tame him!
You say him naught, he laughs you off and goes.

SAMEAS.

I spoke!

ALEX.

Yes, when too late!

SAMEAS.

And had I done it
Before that moment it had been too soon.
Through reverence for the High Priest I was silent.
He was the eldest and the youngest I.

ALEX.

No matter. Had you courage at that moment
To prove you held the simple heart of duty
The larger mood would not be urgent now.
Then look to’t well if you--Ho, ho! I see
Another loophole yet remains if you
Scarce relish combat with him, and in truth
’Twere risky play. Best ’ware him. So you’ll enter
For a mild bout with lions and with tigers
In this brute-battle that he now ordains.

SAMEAS.

What mean these words?

ALEX.

You know the fighting-games
Of Rome? What, no?

SAMEAS.

Thank God I know them not.
I count it for no jot of gain to know
About the heathen but what Moses tells us.
Down go my eyelids every single time
I see a Roman soldier cross my path,
And then I bless my father in his grave
That he ne’er gave me tutoring in their tongue.

ALEX.

And so you do not know that savage beasts
Are shipped by them from Africa to Rome
In hundreds?

SAMEAS.

No indeed, I know it not.

ALEX.

Not know that there in a stone-built arena
They drive them at each other, and that slaves
Are hounded on them, who for life or death
Must face them in the fight, and they the while
Circled around upon high benches sit
All jubilant when wounds of death are gaping
And when the red blood spurts on sprinkled sand?

SAMEAS.

Such things the wildest fancy of my dreaming
Ne’er showed me; but it joys my very soul
If such they do. It fits the breed o’ them!
(_With raised hands._) Lord, Thou art great; and though
Thy will vouchsafe
The heathen life, he must requite the gift
By payment to Thee of a gruesome tribute.
Thou dost chastise him as he uses others.
Such games I could well see!

ALEX.

Your wish will find
Fruition soon as Herod comes again.
He plans to introduce them.

SAMEAS.

Never, never!

ALEX.

That’s what I said to you. Why not? We have
Lions enough for sure. The mountain herd
Will be rejoiced to see their tale diminished
By saving many kine and many calves.[7]

SAMEAS.

To raise no other point, where would he find
The fighters? In our folk there are no slaves
Bound to his beck and call for life or death.

ALEX.

The first I see before me.

SAMEAS.

What?

ALEX.

For sure!
You will, as now, twist up your angry face,
Forget yourself, perhaps, and clench the fists,
Set eyes at rolling and the teeth at gnashing
If spared to witness that high day on which,
August, as Solomon of yore the Temple,
He consecrates the heathenish arena.
This will not slip his eyes, and for reward
He passes you a signal that you enter
And show to the assembled folk your powers
When you stand face to face against a lion
Who’d been whole days before made sharp with hunger.
But since among our folk there’s lack of slaves,
The death-devoted criminals must needs
Supply their place; and who’s more death-devoted
Than he who openly defies the King?

SAMEAS.

He may----

ALEX.

Dispel your doubts! It would go ill
If he should lose his head before his time.
There would be projects nipped along with him
That Pompey, who with brazen heathendom
Dared the approach unto the Holy of Holies,
Himself might----

SAMEAS (_breaking out_).

Antony, if thou’lt but grip him;
A whole year’s space I vow I will not curse thee!
And if thou dost it not--then good, we’re ready!

ALEX.

He says that if our folk were not ordained
To mix with others, then had we this earth-ball
From God received for our sole dwelling-portion.

SAMEAS.

He says so?

ALEX.

But since Fate has other will
There rises need the dam-walls to unbarrier
Which long have shut us, like a stagnant mere
Locked from the sea, away from other peoples,
And there’s no other method but that we
In use and custom mould us to their fashion.

SAMEAS.

In use and--(_to Heaven_) Lord, if I break not in raving
Send me Thy sign how such a churl shall die,
Sign of some death which every other death
Sucks of its horrors, and proclaim to me
That it is Herod for whose sake ’tis done.

ALEX.

Be you then the Death-Angel?

SAMEAS.

Or for him
Or for myself! I swear’t! Can I not hinder
This ghastly plan, my impotence I’ll punish
With murder of myself (_with a gesture towards his breast_)
ere that day comes,
The day that he shall first befleck with mire.
_There_ is a binding oath that a misdeed
Will wring from me if for a hero-deed
I prove unfit. Who ever swore a greater?

ALEX.

Good! But forget not this; if your own arm
Be over-weak to dash your foemen downwards,
A stranger’s arm must not then be contemned.

SAMEAS.

And such a stranger?

ALEX.

You may arm with ease.

SAMEAS.

Speak plainer language!

ALEX.

Who created Herod
A King?

SAMEAS.

Why, Antony; who otherwise?

ALEX.

And wherefore did it?

SAMEAS.

While it pleased him so;
Perhaps, too, just because it pleased not us.
When had a heathen ever better grounds?

ALEX.

And, further, what maintains him on the throne?

SAMEAS.

Not the folk’s blessing! Maybe ’tis its curse.
Who can say that?

ALEX.

I! Nothing but his trick
Of sending every year ere reckoning-day
The tax that we are forced to pay the Romans,
Ay, and the same of his own will to double
If some new war has broken into blaze.
The Roman wants our gold and nothing more,
He leaves to us our Faith, he leaves our God,
Would even help to do Him reverence,
And, niched with Jupiter and Ops and Isis,
Grant Him a corner in the Capitol
That has been let lie vacant till to-day
If only He, as they, were made of stone.

SAMEAS.

If it be so, alas! and it is so,
What have you then to hope of Antony?
In this regard, yourself has said it, Herod
Yields each punctilious tittle. Why, I’ve seen
The tribute-panniers carried. One mule broke
His backbone ere it reached the city-gate.
For every drop of blood within his veins
He renders up to him an ounce of gold.[8]
Think you on your account he’ll send it back?

ALEX.

’Twere bootless, if I steered my cause myself,
But Cleopatra does the deed for me,
And, so I hope, will Mariamne too.
Amazed? Fail not my meaning. Not in person;
In such a case she’d rather turn on me.
But through her picture, and not even through that,
No, through another close resembling her.
For as a wild wood harbours not alone
The lion, but his foe as well, the tiger,
So in the hot-bed of this Roman’s heart
Ennests itself a wormy brood of passions
Wrestling each other for the dominant place.
And thus, if Herod builds upon the first
I build upon the second, and I think
That mine’s a lustier wrestler than its fellow.

SAMEAS.

You are----

ALEX.

No Hyrcan, tho’ I be his daughter.
But, lest you should misprise what I have done,
I am not Mariamne either. If,
To pave his way towards her, Antony
Destroys the man that has her in possession,
She still is mistress of herself and can
Enwrap her in eternal widow-weeds.
But this I hold for certain, that by now
He’s laid his hand on sword and if not yet
He’s drawn it, one sole point of pause detains him
That this luck-minion among soldiers, Herod,
Stands good to Romans for the iron ring
That all things here with us together clamps.
But once you furnish him with opposite proof,
Rouse insurrection, stir the flaccid peace,
And he will draw’t.

SAMEAS.

I’ll furnish easy proof!
The folk’s already struck him dead in thought,
They rumour that----

ALEX.

Impress your seal thereon!
Then swiftly open his last testament;
You know the contents now, the fighting-games
Stand at the head, and then when every man
Believes him shortened of a hundred stripes
Through Herod’s death, or of the torture-cross,
Then each believes what he can dare believe.
For there are things that loom o’er Israel
Will wring from many a heart in its despair
The wish of agony that the Red Sea
Had gulfed the whole folk deep into its maw
And the twelve holy Tribes and Moses first.

SAMEAS.

I go, and ere the midday comes----

ALEX.

I know
What you can work if you but take the sack-cloth
And thread the lanes with wailing-cry of “woe!”
As were your forebear Jonah here again.
And you will find there’s service in the knack
Of paying a chance visit to the Fisher
And sharing Goodman Gaffer’s bite and sup
From what he grants himself since no one buys it.

SAMEAS.

And you will find that all we Pharisees
Have not forgot the stigma that we suffered,
As you would seem to reckon. Hear then now
What only through the deed was meant to reach you--
We have been sworn against him long ere now,
We’ve dug our burrows under all Judaea,
And in Jerusalem, that you may see
How sure the count we have upon the folk,
There’s even a blind adherent to our band!

ALEX.

What boots he?

SAMEAS.

Naught. He knows as much himself,
But he’s so crammed with hate, so grim with grudge,
That he’ll be joined with us in our emprise
And rather perish if it should miscarry
Than drag his life in such a world as this.
I have a notion that’s a promising sign!

[_Exit._

SCENE 2

ALEXANDRA _alone_.

ALEX.

The folk’s already struck him dead in thought!
I know, I know! and by that token see
How sore the wish that he no more returns.
A lucky juncture that the locust-swarm
Settled on him as he went forth! It stands
For omen that it is no futile wish.
It may be, too, by now an actual thing
That, less his head--Not that! Speak as you think!
No eavesdrop Pharisee’s before the door.
An Antony is sure an Antony,
Ay, but a Roman, and a Roman gives
His verdict slow as the fulfilment’s swift.
Prisoner he may be though he sit not yet
Within the dungeon: and a coaxing deft
Can lead it further. Therefore it is good
If now rebellion come, albeit I know
What in itself’s its import, and not less
What aftermath it trammels up if he
Return in Fate’s despite. If! It can happen!
Think well upon’t! He sent you as he left
A severed head for a farewell-reminder.
That shows you--Pah! I speak just like my father!
It shows me that he’s swift to the deed, as tyrants
Are wont; and further that he’s fain to fright me.
The one I long have known, the other shall
Slip his intent; and if the worst should come,
If all o’erleap its target and if he,
Spite his infatuate love for Mariamne
Which sooner mounts than falls and which protects me,
Should dare his fellest once her will is won--
What of it? On revenge is all my stake
And that revenge would follow me in death,
Revenge on him who did it and on her
Who let it happen. Never would the folk
And never Rome look on indulgent-slack,
And then, what touches me myself, I would
In an event so bloody all the better
Be mated with my forebears. They were forced,
The greater number of my stem, th’ Eld-Mothers
As the Eld-Fathers, to forsake the world
Short of a head because they would not bend it.
I would but share their fate; what were it more?

SCENE 3

ALEXANDRA. MARIAMNE.

ALEXANDRA (_aside_).

She comes! Ah, could she be decoyed from him
And yield consent to follow me to Rome,
Then--but she hates and loves him at a breath!
Dare I arouse a last storm? To the deed!

[_Hastening towards_ MARIAMNE.

You seek for comfort where it may be found!
Come to my heart!

MAR.

Comfort?

ALEX.

You need it not?
Then I have known you ill! Yet I had grounds
To judge you for the woman you are not.
You have been slandered to me!

MAR.

I? to you?

ALEX.

I have been told of arms enlinked and kisses
Bestowed upon a brother-murdering consort
Hot on the deed by--Pardon! I had no right
To give it credence.

MAR.

None?

ALEX.

No! ever No!
And No, on more than one ground. Could you even
Begrudge the bloody shadow of your brother,
All heartless, the atonement of revenge
Sisters should sacrifice, revenge that not
Through Judith’s sword and not through Rahab’s[9] nail,
No, merely through a notion of the mouth
And merely through still folding of the arms
Were better wreaked and to the Dead devoted,
Then he, the very murderer, had not dared
To come anear you, for you’re like the Dead One:
And you could hurt his sight as ’twere the corse
Of Aristobulus tricked in woman’s paint;
He would have turned him from you shuddering.

MAR.

He did not do the one, nor I the other.

ALEX.

Then be----But no, perchance a doubt still lingers
Touching his guilt. Will you then have the proof?

MAR.

I need it not.

ALEX.

You need----

MAR.

’Twere bootless to me.

ALEX.

Then--but I hold the curse even now in check,
I see another one has lighted on you!
You still walk in the fetters of a love
That never shed a lustre----

MAR.

Yet I thought
I had not picked a consort for myself,
I had but yoked my neck beneath the doom
That you and Hyrcan with a pious care
Had hung above a daughter and a grandchild.

ALEX.

Not I! My coward father sealed the bond.

MAR.

And by that deed he pleased you ill?

ALEX.

Not that!
Or else I had outstripped him with our flight.
I had a refuge open down in Egypt.
I only say the thing was clinched by him,
By him, the first High Priest without a spine!
And I but battled down the first repugnance
With which I took his meaning. Yet I did it
Because I found the coward’s tradesman-traffic
Good in the main, and gave for Edom’s sword
The Pearl of Zion, when he pressed me hard.
Yea, had the serpent had a poisoned fang
When it was dug that time in Cleopatra,
Or had a lucky chance brought Antony
Toward these regions when upon his march,
I had said no! but, as it was, said yes!

MAR.

Yet in despite of that----

ALEX.

I hoped of you
That you’d not fritter off the bargain-price,
And touching Herod, that you----

MAR.

Ah, I know!
It was my part, for every kiss I gave
To haggle in advance for any head
That had mispleased you, and at last when none
Was left to cross you but his own, to spur him
To his self-slaughter; or if that should fail,
To couch and spy a chance in the still night
And subtly second Judith’s catlike deed.
Then would you have been proud to call me child!

ALEX.

Prouder than now, I give it no denial.

MAR.

I chose to be a wife unto the husband
To whom your hands had led me, and for him
Forget the Maccabean to the measure
In which he should forget the King for me.

ALEX.

And yet it seems in Jericho that she
Caused you a second thought: at all events
You were the first to break in lamentation
When I myself still held my wailings back
To prove you. Was’t not so?

MAR.

In Jericho
The hideous hap had dizzied all my mind.
It came too swift--From board to bath, from bath
To grave--a brother! Whirlwinds swept my brain!
But if against my sovereign and my husband
I barred the door, slant-thoughted and stone-hearted,
I rue it now, and only can condone it
Because ’twas done as though in fever’s heat.

ALEX.

In fever’s heat?

MAR. (_in a semi-aside_).

I’d not have done it either
Were he not come to me in mourning-garments!
In red, dark red, I could have borne to see him,
But----

ALEX.

Ha! He found them quick! Before the deed
He had them ordered, just as other murderers,
Where possible, draw water ere they murder--

MAR.

Mother, forget not!

ALEX.

What? That you are wife
Unto the murderer? You’re but late become
This creature; only while you will you are so;
Yea, and you are so maybe now no more.
But you have ever been the Dead One’s sister
And will remain so--yea, you will remain so
Even when you call--thither, it seems, you tend--
Into his grave--“You had but justice done you!”

MAR.

I owe you debt of reverence, and I shrink
From violence on it; therefore hold your peace.
Or else I could----

ALEX.

What could you?

MAR.

Ask myself
On whom this deed lays guilty onus--him
That took it through because he must, or her
Who wrung it from him! Let the Dead One rest!

ALEX.

Speak thus to one who did not give him birth!
I bore him underneath my heart, and must
Avenge him since I cannot waken him
To wreak his own revenge.

MAR.

Avenge him then,
Avenge him on yourself! You know right well
It was the High Priest whom the shouting folk
Ringed on his giddy pinnacle with joyance
And that ’twas not the youngling Aristobulus
Who brought upon himself the Thing that happened.
Who was it drove the youngling, tell me that!
Out of his old unthinking self-content?
Surely he lacked not coats of many colours
Wherewith to charm the eyes of pretty maids,
And more he needed not for happiness.
What should he do with Aaron’s priestly mantle
You still must hang about him to his surfeit?
And of himself he had no other thought
Than “Does it suit me well?” But others deemed him
Straight from the very moment it was donned
The second Head of Israel; and you
Had swift success himself so to befool
That his puffed mind must think him first and sole.

ALEX.

’Tis blasphemy ’gainst him and me!

MAR.

’Tis none!
For if this youngling, who it seemed had birth
To show the world her first-born happy man,
If he so swift, so dark an end has found,
And if the man who, when his sword’s once drawn
Shames every other man into a woman,
If he--I know not if ’twas he, but fear it,--
Then, true, ambition, lust for power are cause,
But not ambition that the Dead One hugged
And not the lust for power that plagues the King.
I’ll not accuse you--’twould beseem me ill--
But, to requite your sending of a ghost,
A bloody ghost, into our marriage-chamber,
I will not see you shed the tear of rue
Though now we twain no more are side by side
And, for the Third, it wilders so my sense
That I am dumb when it were well to speak
And speak when it were better to be dumb.
Nay, nay, I will not quench your vengeful thirst
Nor ask what you avenge--your plans or son.
Do what you will! go further, check your foot--
Only, be well assured of this--the barb
That reaches Herod reaches Mariamne!
The oath that I withheld and he demanded
In leaving me, I swear it now! I perish
If he should perish! Act then, speak no more!

ALEX.

Then perish! Now! For----

MAR.

Yes, I understand!
And this was why you thought I needed comfort?
Oh no! You err. It frights me not
That the men-slugs o’ the world, who only suffer
The Elect because they owe man’s debt to death,
Have with their mouths already struck him dead.
What has the slave for solace when the King
In gorgeousness and glory sweeps him by
Than this--to say, “He gets his turn like me!
I grudge it not! And when he mounts his throne
Fresh from a field o’erstrewn with graves in thousands
I’ll praise him for’t: it chokes his covetous mood!”
Ah, but my Herod lives and he will live!
So says my heart to me. Death flings a shadow
And that falls on me here! (_pointing to her heart_).

SCENE 4

THE SAME. JOSEPH.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT.

SERVANT.

The Viceroy comes!

ALEX.

Weaponed for certain, as he always is
When he comes our way, since he had no luck
In cozening our wits with glozing phrases
After the manner of his first attempt.
Do you not know Salome at the time
Perished for jealousy?

MAR.

She does so now:
For with an intimate smile I say to him
Most shameless things whenever she is near,
And since herself she never tires of spying
I never tire of soundly whipping her
For fatuous folly.

[_Enter_ JOSEPH.

ALEX. (_pointing to_ JOSEPH’S _weapon_).

See you?

MAR.

Let him then!
His wife demands it so that she may dream
She has a husband who’s a man of war.

ALEX. (_to_ JOSEPH).

I am still here!

JOSEPH.

A very strange reception!

ALEX.

My son too is still here. As once before
He’s hid him in the dead man’s Wooden House.
Harry him out and I will pardon you
Because you did it once before unbidden.
But this time you must hunt your coffin not
Upon a vessel sailing Egypt-bound,
No, you must seek it in the graveyard’s belly!

JOSEPH.

I’m not the man to wake the dead to life.

ALEX. (_with scorn directed at_ MARIAMNE).

Ay true! or you had companied your Lord
So that when all his kneeling and his pleading
Were fruitless to frustrate the lictor’s axe----

MAR.

He kneels and pleads?

JOSEPH (_to_ MARIAMNE).

I’ll let you know his way!
“I am impeached for this crime! I confess it!
But not for this! Well, for your information,
I’ll fill the gap up soon!” Yes, that’s his way.

ALEX.

His cock crows for him?

JOSEPH.

He has done’t ere now,
As I stood by, the time the Pharisees
Would have arraigned him under Antony.
He filed his own indictment in their stead,
Hurried to camp before them, as he was,
And, when they came, revised and supplemented
The reckoning point for point and said to them--
“Speak, if I’ve left an item out or not!”
The event you know; a many of the accusers
Were shorn of their thick heads since they’d not budge;
He carried off the Roman’s fullest favour.

ALEX.

In those days both were younger than they now are.
The one’s superb presumption pleased the other,
And all the more because at other’s costs,
Not at his own, ’twas flaunted. Can the Roman
Value the Pharisee at aught, whose tongue
Preaches continual mutiny ’gainst Rome?
“Who plucks his beard curtails his standing!” thought
Mark Antony in sport: and yet I doubt
If he’ll allow the joke against himself.

JOSEPH.

You speak as though you wished----

ALEX.

Whether our wishes
Are paired or not, is that affair of yours?
You hold fast to your own! For you it’s weighty
That he returns.

JOSEPH.

You think so? If for me
For you, then.

ALEX.

I have not a notion why
There was in olden days an Alexandra
Whose temples bore a crown in Israel,
Who fell on it when it became free prey
And would not leave it lying for a thief.
By God, we’ll have no dearth here of a second
If it is true (_to_ MARIAMNE) that there are Maccabeans
Who keep their childish oaths!

JOSEPH (_sounding_ ALEXANDRA).

’Tis true indeed!
There was in olden days this Alexandra,
But whosoe’er will reach her goal, he must
Tread her whole journey with no half-way lapse.
Soon as she climbed the throne she reconciled
Herself with all her foes, and not a soul
Had need to fear her, only cause to hope.
No wonder that she sat fast till her death!

MAR.

I think that paltry! What end serves a sceptre
If not to gratify our hate and love?
A twig’s enough to frighten off the flies.

JOSEPH.

Quite true. (_To_ ALEXANDRA.) And you?

ALEX.

She never saw in dream
Her House’s earliest sire, the mighty Judas,
’Tis certain else she had no foeman shunned;
For from his grave he still protects his children
Because he cannot die in any heart.
How could he so? There’s never a man can pray
Who must not say--“To him I owe my thanks
That I may yet kneel down before my God
And not to bronze and wood and stone.”

JOSEPH (_aside_).

The King
Was in the right! The deed I must accomplish,
And that on both, or else endure them both.
I must emplant the crown upon my brow
If I’d ensure it from the headsman’s axe.
For here a world of hate stares in against me.
Then good! Their sentence they’ve pronounced themselves.
For the last time I’ve put the test on them.
Were but his courier here, this very moment
I’d bring it to a pitiless consummation.
Each several preparation has been made.

SCENE 5

THE SAME. TITUS.

_Afterwards_, PHILO.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT.

SERVANT.

Titus the Captain craves an audience.

JOSEPH (_about to go_).

At once!

ALEX.

And why not here?

SERVANT.

He’s here already

[_Enter_ TITUS.

TITUS (_in a whispered aside to Joseph_).

What you have feared is come about; the folk
Rebels!

JOSEPH.

Be quick then, do what I’ve commanded!
Call out your cohort! Put it into action!

TITUS.

Already done! And now I come to ask you
Whether you wish for prisoners or dead.
My eagle grips as thoroughly as he mangles
And you must know which better serves your ends.

JOSEPH.

Blood must not flow.

TITUS.

Good. Then the hewing starts
Before they get their stoning well begun,
Else I had done it later.

JOSEPH.

Saw you Sameas?

TITUS.

The Pharisee who once had nearly blundered
His head against my shield because his eyes
He always shuts as soon as e’er he spies me?
I saw him sure enough!

JOSEPH.

And how? Speak loud!

TITUS.

In the open market-place ringed round by thousands
And cursing Herod loudly.

JOSEPH (_to_ ALEXANDRA).

Sameas
Took leave of you but one short hour ago.

ALEX.

Saw you’t?

TITUS (_to_ JOSEPH).

You show yourself?

JOSEPH.

Soon as I can.
Meanwhile----

TITUS.

’Tis good. I go. (_About to go._)

ALEX.

A word yet, Captain!
Say why the guard’s recalled from us.

MAR.

Is’t missing?

ALEX.

Missing since yester-evening.

JOSEPH.

Since I bade it.

TITUS.

And since the King in leaving said to me--
“Before you is the man who knows my will.
What he commands, that I command myself!”

[_Exit._

ALEX. (_to_ JOSEPH).

And you?

JOSEPH.

I thought that Judas Maccabaeus
Were guard enough for you and for your daughter.
And, for the rest, you hear how matters stand
Without. I need the soldiers. (_Aside._) If the Romans
Were near as this, I might have little luck.
To-day I stationed Galileans.

ALEX. (_to_ MARIAMNE).

Think you
That my mistrust is groundless still?

MAR.

I know not,
But now its sting infects. I feel ’tis strange!
And yet--If from the wall a javelin darted
It had not tricked my expectation more.

ALEX.

Two thrusts, and then the throneward way is free:
For when the Maccabeans are no more
The turn comes round for the Herodians.

MAR.

I’d laugh you yet to ridicule if only
His wife were not Salome. By my brother
Her head is mine! For I shall say to Herod,
“As you avenge me on her so you love me!”
For she--’tis she! never that fellow there!

ALEX.

Too early triumph! Our first call is action
And I’ve a notion we can use this outbreak.

MAR.

This outbreak! Nay. I wash my hands of it,
Because, if Herod comes again, there’s naught
For me to fear: and if he come no more
A death in any shape’s right opportune.

ALEX.

I go.

[_Turns to go._

JOSEPH (_blocking her way_).

Where?

ALEX.

Firstly to the battlements
And then wherever it may please me go.

JOSEPH.

Your way is open to the battlements.
The castle’s barred.

ALEX.

’Twould seem, then, we are prisoners?

JOSEPH.

Only till peace may be restored, no longer.
I must request----

ALEX.

What brass effrontery’s this?

JOSEPH.

A stone is blind, a Roman javelin too;
They often find a mark where they should not;
’Twere therefore more discreet to give them room.

ALEX. (_to_ MARIAMNE).

I’ll go aloft and try with signalling
To make our friends acquainted with our plight.

MAR.

By signalling--your friends--Oh, Mother, Mother!
And so ’tis you at bottom, not the folk?
See to’t the pit you dig trips not yourself.

[ALEXANDRA _turns to go_.

JOSEPH.

You will permit my guardsman offer you
His escort. Philo!

ALEX.

So ’tis open war?

[_Enter_ PHILO. JOSEPH _speaks with him, at first softly, then aloud_.

JOSEPH.

You understand?

PHILO.

Yes.

JOSEPH.

I’ the worst event!

PHILO.

For that I’ll wait, then----

JOSEPH.

And your head’s my surety.
(_Aside._) Methinks the soul of Herod’s over me!

ALEX.

I go in his despite. Perhaps the soldier,
Although a Galilean, may be won.
I’ll try it!

[_Exit, followed by_ PHILO.

JOSEPH (_aside_).

I can do no otherwise,
Howe’er it bring mistrust on me; the outbreak
Compels me to this step; I dare not now
Allow her from my sight unless I make
The dead impossible through my own folly,
For every hour this courier may come.
Himself I long have thought to see no more.

MAR.

Say, when died Herod?

JOSEPH.

When died he?

MAR.

And how?
You surely know it since you dare so much.

JOSEPH.

What do I dare then? You propose me riddles.

MAR.

Naught, if you think I cannot find defence
So soon as e’er the Romans think my life
Is threatened; all, if you mistake therein.

JOSEPH.

Who threatens then your life?

MAR.

You ask me still?
You!

JOSEPH.

I?

MAR.

And can you swear the contrary?
Swear it upon your child’s head? You are silent!

JOSEPH.

You have no right of challenge to the swearing.

MAR.

Who hears such challenge gives it of himself,
But woe to you if Herod comes again!
I’ll say to him two things ere the first kiss,
I’ll say to him that you devised my murder,
I’ll say to him my oath; now gauge yourself
The fate that gathers for you if he comes.

JOSEPH.

And what--what was the oath? If it bring horror
Yet I must know it.

MAR.

Hear it to your bane!
That I with my own hand will kill myself
If he--oh had I but foreboded _this_
I had not turned me with a cold good-bye,
Nay, surely not! I would have kept the bearing
I had begun, and all would now be well,
For you at first were a far other man.

JOSEPH.

For me, I’ve naught to fear.

MAR.

Because you think
It is impossible that he return.
Who knows? And if! I hold the oath I swore,
But not till I avenge myself on you,
Avenge me on you--hear the word and tremble!
Sharp as he would avenge me. Come then, draw
Your instant sword! You dare not? I believe you!
And watch me close as e’er you can, I’ll find
A certain way unto the Captain Titus.
You lost your hazard when I pierced your husk.

JOSEPH (_aside_).

True, true! (_To_ MARIAMNE.) I hold you to your word! You’d take
The same, the very vengeance he would wreak;
That vow you swore to me: forget it not.

MAR.

So speaks a wandering wit. That Herod loves me,
Yea, loves me more than I can love myself,
There’s none can doubt; no, not Salome even,
Your sinister-hearted wife, although she double
Just for that cause her hate, and even although
Just for that cause, and spurred by vengeful lust,
She may have filled you with this murder-thought.
And that it comes from her I know, and will
Pierce to her feeling nerve; her pain for you
Shall be my latest joy upon this earth.

JOSEPH.

You err. But that’s all one: I have your word.

MAR.

You say that once again? You--impious!
Oh what an uprush of night-spawnéd thoughts
And what mistrust you wake within my breast!
You speak such words as though I had been chosen
For altar-beast and you for altar-priest--
By Herod’s very self. Is’t so? At parting
There fell from him--I think thereon with horror--
A word of darkness. Answer!

JOSEPH.

This I give,
Soon as the need shall come, soon as I know
That he----

MAR.

No more can give you level lie,
If you, poltroon and vile, charged him with what
Numbs thought with fear, unmeasured and unnamed,
To sweep your own name sweet in my esteem?
I tell you, I but listen to you now
Since now, perhaps, before I make an end,
He may step through the door and strike you down.
Be silent then for aye or speak at once.

JOSEPH.

And if ’twere so? I say not it is so,
But if it were? What other would it be
Than confirmation of the thing you feel,
Than noble proof he loves as ne’er before
A man has loved his wife?

MAR.

What is’t you say?
Methinks my ears have heard that word before!

JOSEPH.

Why, I’d have thought ’twould please your quick of pride
To know he felt not death was half so bitter
As this, the thought he’d----

MAR.

Come, what will you stake
Myself can bring it for you to an end?
--As this, the thought he’d leave me here behind him
Amid a world where lives an Antony.

JOSEPH.

Well--yes then! But I say not that he’s said it--

MAR.

He’s said it? He has--Oh, what has he not?
Oh, that he came to end it!

JOSEPH.

Mariamne!
(_Aside._) My feet are in the gin! True, I did naught
But what I must; and yet a horror grips me
That he--before my eyes comes Aristobulus.
Accurséd be the dead that flings a shadow
Ere it steps into life!

MAR.

Like to a crazy blister of the brain
Whose swollen puffiness at times will split,
So was it--From this hour my life begins.
Until to-day I dreamed!

SCENE 6

THE SAME. SALOME.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT, _followed by_ SALOME.

SALOME (_to the_ SERVANT).

Were you forbidden
To grant to any entry unannounced?
I take the blame.

JOSEPH.

Salome, you?

SALOME.

Who else?
No evil ghost! Your wife, your hapless wife
Whom once you wooed as Jacob wooed his Rachel
And whom you now----(_To_ MARIAMNE.) Accurséd, was’t not even
Enough for you to turn away from me
My brother’s heart? And must you now go further
And rob me of my husband? Day and night
He thinks of you as though you were a widow
Even now, and I still less than that. By day
He dogs your goings step by step; by night
He dreams of you, calls out your name in anguish
And starts up from his slumber--(_To_ JOSEPH.) Did I not
Chide you this morning for’t? And now to-day;
When all Jerusalem is in an uproar,
To-day he’s not with me, not at the market,
Where I bade seek him, since he never came.
He is with you, and ye--ye are alone!

MAR.

Then sure it is not she; it is himself!
If any remnant-doubt still gave me pause
’Tis choked by this insensate jealousy.
I was a thing to him and nothing more.

JOSEPH (_to_ SALOME).

I swear----

SALOME.

That I am blind? No, no--I see!

MAR.

The dying man whose will decreed his fig-tree
Be hewn to earth because he grudged its fruits
After his death to any other man,
The dying man were execrate, and had,
It may be, sown the tree himself and knew
That any thief, that even any murderer
Who shook its boughs must share its quickening gift--
But neither fits my case. And yet, and yet
That is an outrage Time has yet not known.

SALOME (_to_ JOSEPH).

You speak in vain. Commission? What commission?

MAR.

Commission? Ah, that seals it! If it could be,
Now surely, now if never it could be.
Ah, but it cannot be! There is no impulse
Of baser sort that spots my innermost
For all my stormy-ridden breast. I would
Now at this moment give to Antony
The answer, yea the very self-same answer
I would have given him on our wedding-day.
It wounds me as it wounds because I feel it,
Else were I bound to suffer, yea, to pardon.

SALOME (_to_ MARIAMNE).

It seems for you I am not!

MAR.

Nay, far from it!
Indeed you have bestowed on me the greatest
That kindness could. I, who was blind, now see;
I see full clear and that through you alone.

SALOME.

You void your scorn on me? That too I’ll penance
If but my brother come again. I will
Relate him all----

MAR.

What? Ay, ’tis well! Do so!
If he give ear--why not? Why do I laugh?
Is that too past belief? If he give ear
Then hear my word--I will gainsay you not.
I love myself no more enough to do it.

[_Enter hastily_ ALEXANDRA.

ALEX.

The King!

JOSEPH.

Within the town?

ALEX.

By now i’ the castle!