HEROD AND MARIAMNE
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.1
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.2
[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,3
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.