Were I to name it I would make it greater.
There was a secret I’d entrusted to him
On which my All was hanging, and this secret
He has betrayed; shall I then do the same?
Salome.
Pitiful shuffling for my scare contrived!
You think you can outwit me? You believe
In all that I have said, and yet you are
Too strengthless-willed your love to understifle
And rather choose the shrine to overcloak
That you’ll not stamp to nothing. But unless
You murder me, your sister, with my husband,
It will miscarry with you. (To Mariamne.) He is dead!
Now you can swear what pleases you; he will
Not contradict you!
[Exit.
Herod.
Follow her, Soemus,
And seek to win her to a calm! You know her
And she ere now has given you willing ear.
Soemus.
Those times are now no longer; but I go!
[Exit.
Mar. (aside).
For him who meant my murder I might well
Be loath to supplicate; and yet I shudder
That not the respite even for that was left me.
Herod (aside).
’Twas soon or late with him! In the next war
He had been stationed in Uriah’s place!
And yet I rue this hasty hotness now.
[Enter a Courier.
Scene 6
Herod. Mariamne. A Courier.
Courier.
I’m sent by Antony!
Herod.
Ah, then I know
What you are bringing me. I must make ready!
The final feud of which he spoke begins.
Courier.
Octavian, making course for Africa,
Has taken ship; to meet him Antony
Sets out in haste with Cleopatra joined
Intending instant close at Actium——
Herod.
And I, I, Herod, am to make the third!
’Tis good! I make the march to-day. Soemus,
For all this sorry plight of things, supplies me.
Good that he came!
Mar.
Once more he marches forth!
Eternal One, my thanks!
Herod (observing her).
Ha!
Courier.
Great King, no!
He needs you not at Actium; he wills
That the Arabians, who have raised rebellion,
Be blocked by you from coupling with the foemen.
This is the service he would have of you.
Herod.
It lies with him that place to delegate
Where I shall profit him.
Mar.
Once more! Then all
Is fresh unravelled!
Herod (as before).
How my wife is glad!
(To the Courier.) Tell him—you know’t already—
(Aside.) Brow unwrinkled
And hands as though for thankful prayer enfolded—
That is her heart!
Courier.
Have you naught else for me?
Mar.
Now will I know if it were but a fever,
The fever of a passion frenzy-fired
That madded his poised mind, or if I saw
His innermost in clear sane deed betrayed.
Now will I know!
Herod (to the Courier).
Naught, naught!
[Exit Courier.
(To Mariamne.) Your countenance
Has taken gladder glow! But do not hope
Too much. One does not always die in war.
I’ve cheated many a one ere now.
Mar.
(about to speak, but interrupting herself). No, no!
Herod.
The issue now involves a hotter fight
Than then, I grant you. Every fight beside
Was waged for something in the world, but this
Is waged for the world’s self; it makes decisive
Who’s destinied world-master—Antony,
Wencher and trencherman, or else Octavian
Who’s empty of his merit when he swears
That he was never drunken in his life.
There’ll be a pretty buffet-bout, and yet
It may be that your wish be not fulfilled,
That Death may pass me with unbloodied sword.
Mar.
My wish! ’Tis well! My wish—then it is good.
O Heart, be quelled! Betray you not! The proving
Is none if he should sense what quicks your throb.
If he stand proof how you will be rewarded!
And how you can reward him! Let him then
Misprise you. Prove him. Think upon the end,
And on the garland you dare reach to him—
When he has trod the Demon underfoot.
Herod.
I give you thanks; you now have brought my heart
A lightening. Though on the human in you
I may have done no outrage, this is clear—
That I have done no outrage on your love;
And, for this reason, by your love I beg you
Not for one final sacrifice, yet hope
That you will yield to me one final duty.
And this I hope not for my sake alone,
I hope it for your own sake even more,
You will not wish that, at this latest hour,
I see you mistily; you will for this—
That I myself the dead man’s mouth have locked,
Open your own and clear my wondering
How it has come he made his head your gift.
And you will do it for the human in you,
You’ll do it, too, because you honour Self.
Mar.
Because I honour Self I’ll do it not.
Herod.
So you yourself refuse the fair and fitting?
Mar.
The fair and fitting! So ’twere fair and fitting
That I, on knees before you in abjection,
Swear “Lord, your villein came me not anigh!
And that you may believe—for to your faith
I have no right, albeit I am your wife—
Hear this thing yet and that!” O fie, O fie!8
No Herod! If your itching later ask
I answer you—perhaps. Now I am dumb.
Herod.
But if you had been large enough of loving
To grant me grace for all that, out of loving,
I did, I never would have asked you thus.
Now that I know how small your love is, now
I must re-ask the question; for whate’er
Your love vouchsafe me as a bond of surety
Cannot be greater than your love itself.
And Love to which Life is a treasure higher
Than the Beloved, is to me a nothing.
Mar.
Yet am I silent!
Herod.
Then I damn myself
The mouth whose overpride disdains to swear
No other one has kissed it, nevermore
Myself to kiss till such it lowly do.
Yea, if there were a means could give me potence
Your memory within my heart t’ extinguish,
And if the drastic stab that pierced my eyes,
Oblivioning the mirror of your beauty,
Could also give your image to oblivion,
Now at this very hour I’d stab them through.
Mar.
Be your mood’s master, Herod! For perhaps
Even in this Now you’ve Fate within your hands
And you can guide it wheresoe’er you will.
To every man there comes the point of time
When to himself the steerer of his star
Gives o’er the reins. And this alone is ill—
That he knows not the point of time; it may be
Each one that past him rolls. I have monition
For you ’tis this one; therefore keep a check!
The track of life your chart is now designing,
That track, perchance, unto the end you wander.
Will you do that in the wild rush of wrath?
Herod.
I fear but half the truth’s in your monition.
The turning-point is there, but ’tis for you.
For I, what wish I then? why this—naught further,
A means wherewith to frighten bogy-dreams.9
Mar.
I’ll understand you not! I’ve borne you children,
Have thought of them! Then you may ask yourself
What’s possible.
Herod.
Who’s silent, even as you,
Wakes the misthought he has no heart that dares
To say the truth, yet has no will to lie.
Mar.
No further!
Herod.
Nay, no further; and farewell!
And if I come again misgrudge it me
Not all too sorely.
Mar.
Herod!
Herod.
Be assured
I take no more the thing I took to-day,
A greeting wrested.
Mar.
Nay, ’twill be no more
A needful thing. (To Heaven.) Eternal, guide his heart!
I gave him pardon for a brother’s murder,
I was prepared his deathward way to follow,
I am so still; and can a mortal more?
Thou didst what ne’er before thou didst—Thou rolledst
The wheel of time aback; it stands once more
Even as it erewhile stood. Then let him now
Take other course, and I forget what’s happened.
Forget it even as if in heat of fever
He’d dealt me with his sword the stroke of death
And bound himself my wound that I grew whole.
(To Herod.) You’ll come again?
Herod.
If you should see me coming
Then call for fetters. Let it be your proof
That I have gotten crazy wits.
Mar.
You will
Repent that word—oh, Heart, be quelled!—you will!
[Exit.
Scene 7
Herod alone.
Herod.
’Tis true I went too far. When half-way launched
I told myself the same. But not less true
If she loved me the offence she would condone.
If she loved me! Has she loved, truth to truth?
I think it. Ay, but now—oh, how the Dead One
Is skilled to vengeance even in the grave!
I made away with him my crown t’ assure,
He took what dipped the heavier scale—her heart.
For she has shown me since her brother died
Strange alteration; though my nice regard
Has never found between her and her mother
The tiniest tell-tale vestige of resemblance,
To-day showed more than once the linking touches;
Thus I can give no more the old-time faith.
That is a surety; must it therefore be
An equal surety that she has deceived?
The guarantee that in her love had lain
Is fallen away, but still there is a second
Lies in that pride of hers; will not a pride,
Superb-disdainful of its self-defence,
Even more disdain the sullying of self?
Ay, but she knows it! Joseph! Why can man
But kill and nevermore the dead awaken?
He should be able both to do or neither.
He takes his vengeance too! He comes not! Yet
I see him there! “My Lord commanded?” Monstrous!
I’ll not believe ’t! Salome, keep you silent
Howe’er it came it came not so! Perchance
The eating secret like embowelled fire
Forced way through him; or he perchance betrayed it
Because he deemed me as one lost, and now
Was fain to be atoned with Alexandra
Before the tidings came. Well, we shall see!
For she must stand the proof. Had I but guessed
That she could come by knowledge of it, never
Had I so far been gone. Now that she knows,
From her revenge I now will need to fear
The thing that from her soul’s unstableness
Perchance I feared unjustly. I must fear
That on my grave she’ll make my wedding-mirth.
Soemus came at nick of time. He is
A man who, if I were not in the world,
Had stood where I now stand. How true he thinks,
How zealously he serves, he proves by coming.
I give him now the charge. I know from him
She lures naught out of lock if she essay
The man in him to tempt. If he betray me
She pays me such a price as—Then, Salome,
Then you were in the right!—Now to probation!
[Exit.