ACT II
SCENE: The royal tent of Saul pitched on one hill of the battle-field of Ephes-Dammin. The tent is of black embroidered with various warlike designs. To one side on a dais are the chairs of SAUL and AHINOAM; also DAVID’S harp. On the other side, toward the front, is a table with wine and wine cups. The tent wall is lifted along the back, revealing on the opposite hill, across a deep narrow valley, the routed camp of the Philistines: before it in gleaming brazen armor lies GOLIATH slain. Other hills beyond, and the sky above. By the wine table, her back to the battle-field, sits MERAB in cold anger. AHINOAM and several women look out in ecstasy toward DAVID, SAUL, JONATHAN and the army, returning victorious and shouting.
FIRST WOMAN
See, see, at last!
SECOND WOMAN
They come!
THIRD WOMAN
An avalanche.
Over the brook and bright amid hosannas!
SECOND WOMAN
And now amid the rushes!
FIRST WOMAN
And the servants!
Goliath’s head high-borne upon a charger!
The rocks that cry reverberant and vast!
The people and the palms!
THIRD WOMAN
Yea all the branches
Torn from the trees! The waving of them—O!
SECOND WOMAN
And David, see! triumphant, calm, between
The king and Jonathan!… His glory
All the wild generations of the wind
Ever shall utter! Hear them—
[The tumult ascends afar] David! David!
A sea of shouting!—
O queen!
AHINOAM
You yearn for it?
Then go and lave you in this tide of joy.
[The women go rapturously. Ahinoam turns.]
MERAB
Mother!
AHINOAM
My daughter?
MERAB
Well?
AHINOAM
They all are gone.
MERAB
And Michal, where?
AHINOAM
I do not know, my child.
MERAB
Why did my father pledge her to him! you
Not hindering!
AHINOAM
She is your sister. You
Are pledged to Adriel.
MERAB
And as a slave!
And if I do not love him there is—riches!
If he is Sodom-bitter to me—riches!
AHINOAM
But for the kingdom.
MERAB
For my torture! What
Kingdom is to a woman as her love!
AHINOAM
And David still enthralls you?
MERAB
Though he never
Sought me with any murmur or desire!
Though he is Michal’s for Goliath’s death!
Michal’s to-day, unless—
AHINOAM
Merab, a care!
Too near in you were ever love and hate.
[The tumult nears. Ahinoam goes to look out.]
[Doeg enters to Merab.]
DOEG [low]
News, Merab!
MERAB
Well—?
DOEG
A triumph o’er him, yet!
The king is worn, as a leopard pent, between
Wonder of David and quick jealousy
Because of praise this whelming of Goliath
Wakes in the people.
MERAB
Then? the triumph?
DOEG
This.
[The tumult, nearer.]
I’ve skilfully disposed the women
To coldly sing of Saul, but of our David
With lavish of ecstasy as to a king.
[He watches her.]
MERAB
Then I will praise him.
DOEG
David? you?
MERAB
As he
Was never—and shall never be again,—
DOEG
But—
MERAB
Give me the phial.
DOEG
The poison?
MERAB
Come; At once!
DOEG
What will you do?
MERAB
At once with it!
[He hands it to her. She dips the point of her dagger in it.]
DOEG
To stab him
MERAB
As any fool? Wait.—And the rest now, quick.
This timbrel-player, Judith?
DOEG
She is ready
And ravishing!
MERAB
Well, well; then—?
DOEG
We will send her
Sudden, as Michal is alone with David,
To seize him with insinuative kisses,
And arms that wind as they were wonted to him.
Michal once jealous—and already I
Have sowed suspicions—
MERAB
Will—? yes—?
DOEG
On him burst [laughs]
And as a fury.
MERAB
May it be their rending!
[The tumult, near.]
Come, we must see.
[They go to look out. Shouts of “David!” “David!” arise, and a band of timbrel-players, dancing and singing, followed by a band of priests bearing the ark with its cherubim of gold, pass the tent opening. David, Saul, Jonathan, Ishui and the Court then enter amid acclamations; before them servants, bearing the head of Goliath on a charger under a napkin. Saul darkly mounts the throne with Ahinoam, to waving of palms and to praise.]
A WOMAN [breaking from the throng.]
Our little ones are saved! hosannah! joy!
[She kisses David’s hand.]
JONATHAN
Woman, thy tongue should know an angel-word,
Or seraph-syllables new-sung to God!
Earth has not any rapture well for this!
David, my brother!
DAVID
Jonathan, my friend!
While life has any love, know mine for you.
JONATHAN
Then am I friended as no man was ever!
And though my soul were morning wide it were
Helpless to hold my wonder and delight!
O people, look upon him!
THE PEOPLE
David! David!
JONATHAN
Never before in Israel rose beauty
Up to this glory!
DAVID
Jonathan, nay—
JONATHAN
Never!
[Loosing his robe and girdle.]
Therefore I pour him splendor passionate.
In gold and purple, this my own, I clothe him.
David, my brother!
SAUL [Angered.]
Brother!
AHINOAM
Saul?
SAUL
Thou fool!
JONATHAN
Father?
AHINOAM
My lord?
SAUL
Thou full-of-lauding fool!
Of breath and ravishment unceasing!
AHINOAM
Saul!
SAUL
Is it not praise enough, has he not reached
The skies on it!
DAVID
O king, my lord—
SAUL
Had Saul
Ever so rich a rapture from his son?
Ever this worshipping of utterance?
DAVID
My lord, my lord, this should not fret you.
DOEG [Derisively.]
Nay!
DAVID
’Tis only that the soul of Jonathan,
Brimmed by the Philistines with bitterness,
Sudden is joy and overfloweth—
DOEG
Fast—
DAVID
Upon his friend, thy servant, David.
DOEG
Aie!
[He turns away laughing.]
SAUL
Why do you laugh?
DOEG
“Thy servant David!”
SAUL
Why!
A WOMAN [Without.]
King Saul has slain his thousands!
DOEG
“Why,” my lord?
THE WOMAN
But David his ten thousands!
DOEG
Do you hear?
King Saul has slain his thousands, David ten!
Thy servant is he? servant?
DAVID [To Saul.]
Shall thy sceptre
Be wielded by this venom-word, as is
A weed under the wind?
SAUL
’Tis overmuch!
I’ll burst all bond of priest or prophecy.
Nor cringe to threatening and fondle fear.
[He seizes a javelin.]
I’ll smite where’er I will.
DAVID
No!
JONATHAN
Father!
DAVID
Shall
A rapid palsy now come on thy hand,
Awful and sceptre-ruined lord of men?
An impotence, a shriveling to fear,
Avenging ere thou shed offenceless blood?
[Saul’s hand drops.]
Is this thy love, the love of Saul the king?
Who once was kindlier than kindest are.
For but a woman’s wantonness of word
And idle air, my life?
AHINOAM
Saul, Saul—!
JONATHAN
The shame!
DAVID
Some enemy—does Doeg curve his lip?—
Hath put into her mouth this stratagem
Of fevered false-impassioned overpraise.
[Saul, silent, rises slowly and goes, entreated of Jonathan. Many follow in doubt, whispering.]
DOEG [To David.]
This is not all, boy out of Bethlehem.
Goliath’s dead—
DAVID
But not all villainy?
[Doeg goes, flushing,—and all follow, except Michal, and Merab, who moves cunningly forward as if incensed.]
MERAB
I burn for it!
DAVID
For what, and suddenly?
MERAB
My father so ungenerously wroth!
And wrought away from recompense so right;
Can you forgive him?
DAVID
Merab?…
MERAB
Is it strange
That even I now ask it?
DAVID
Merab’s self?
MERAB
Herself and not to-day your friend; but now
Conquered to exaltation and aglow
To wreathe you for this might to Israel,
Beautiful, unbelievable and bright!
Noble the dawn of it within your dream,
Noble the lightning of it in your arm,
And noble in your veins the fearless flow
And dare of blood!—so noble that I ask
As a remembrance and bequest forever,
In priceless covenant of peace between us,
A drop of it—
[She draws her dagger and offers it to him.]
Upon this sacred blade.
DAVID
Such kindness, in all honor?
MERAB
Poor requital
To one whose greatness humbles me from hate.
DAVID
Then of my veins whatever drop you will,
Were it the very dwelling of my soul.
[He takes the dagger and makes as if to prick himself.]
Ah, but you do not mock me?
MERAB
Rather upon
Its edge one vein of you—than priceless nard.
DAVID
And perfume out of India jewel poured?
[He searches her eyes.]
Or than—I may believe?—a miracle
Of dew, were you a traveller and lost
Upon the illimitable desert’s thirst?
Or than—
[He draws his own dagger, pricks his wrist with it, and hands it to her.]
than this?
MERAB
Shepherd!
Treachery, then?
Under a sham of tribute, poison?
MICHAL
Poison?
DAVID
And I of vanity should prick it in?
I a mere shepherd innocent of wile!
A singer music-maudled and no more.
[As she goes, stung with chagrin.]
The daughter of king Saul has yet to learn.
[From looking after her, he turns toward Michal, and, sighing, slowly approaches her.]
The vaunting of this victory is done.
We are alone at last.
MICHAL
Yes.
DAVID
That is all?
For Israel I’ve wrought to-day, for you
Who were about me, in me, as a mist
Of armed mighty angels triumphing.
MICHAL
Yes? It was well.
DAVID
To you no more? to you
Whom not a slave can serve unhonored?
MICHAL [Struggling.]
Nothing.
DAVID
Empty of glow then seems it, impotent,
A shrivelled hallowing.…
Ashes of ecstasy that burned in vain.
MICHAL
No, no! I—
DAVID
Michal?
MICHAL
No, divine it was!
And had I cried my praise the ground had broke
To Eden under me with blossoming.
Where was so wonderful a deed as this,
So fair a springing of salvation up!
Glory above star-soaring could I seize,
Auras of dawn and loveliness unfading,
To crown you with and crown!
DAVID
O lips!
MICHAL
With but
A sling, a shepherd’s sling, you sped the brook,
Drew from its bed a stone, and up the hill
Where the great Philistine contemning cried,
Mounted and flung it deep upon his brain!
DAVID
This is the victory and not his death!
Tell, tell thy joy with kisses on my lips!
Thy mouth! thy arms! thy breast!
MICHAL
No no!
DAVID
Thy soul!
Too much of waiting and of severance!
Of dread and distance and the deep of doubt.
Now must I fold you, falter all my love
And triumph on your senses till they burn
Beautiful to eternity with bliss.
MICHAL
Loose, loose me!
DAVID
Nay, again! immortal kisses!
MICHAL
A frenzy, ’tis a frenzy! From me! see!
This irremediable victory
Over Goliath severs us the more.
[The tumult breaks again, afar.]
Hear how the people lift you limitless!
Almost, to-day, and in my father’s room
They would that you were king.
DAVID
But ere to-morrow
Dim shall I be, and ere the harvest bend
Less than a gleam in their forgotten peril!
MICHAL
O were it, were it! But all silently
Jehovah fast is beckoning the realm
Into thy hands.
DAVID
Then futile to resist
The gliding on of firm divinity.
And yet whatever may be shall be done.
MICHAL
All, all?
DAVID
That for thee reverently may.
MICHAL
The anointing, then—
DAVID
Of that!… not that!
MICHAL
Yet grant
It may be told my father; that I may
Say to him all the secret!
DAVID
And provoke
Murder in him, insatiable though
I fled upon the wilderness and famine?
MICHAL
He would not!
DAVID
Nay.
MICHAL
I’ll plead with him.
DAVID
In vain!
MICHAL
Then [coldly] it is as I thought.
DAVID
You are distraught.
MICHAL
This stroke to-day [pointing to Goliath’s head] no love of me had in it.
DAVID
A love, a passion fervid thro’ me as
The tread and tremble of immortal song
Along the infinite.
MICHAL
You use me!
DAVID
Use?
MICHAL
A step to rise and riot in ambition!
DAVID
So bitter are you, blind?
MICHAL
It was a trick!
You snared me to you.
DAVID
Michal!
MICHAL
Cunningly
With Samuel netted fears about my father
Till I am paltrily unto you pledged.
DAVID
Enough.
MICHAL
Too much.
DAVID
No more; the pledge I fling
Out of my heart, as ’twere enchantment dead.
And free you; but, no more.
[He moves from her.]
MICHAL
As if it were
Enchantment dead. Ah, then ’tis true—there is
Another—is another!
DAVID
Now what fever?
A gentleness clad once your every grace.
MICHAL
There is some other that you lure and love.
DAVID
It is not Michal speaking; so I wait.
MICHAL
Then—
[Judith glides suddenly in with a low laugh and kneels before David. Michal stands amazed.]
JUDITH [As if with amorous admiration.]
Brave, it was brave, my love! beauteous! brave!
DAVID
Woman?
JUDITH
The Philistine, a brazen tower,
A bastion of strength fell to the earth!
DAVID
Woman, who are you?
[She clasps and kisses him.]
Take away your flesh.
[Free] Take it away, the heat and myrrh of it.
JUDITH
So cold?
DAVID
Away.
JUDITH
And ’tis no longer fair?
[Wantonly] Oh! Ah! I understand! the princess?—
DAVID
Go.
[Judith obeys, laughing and shaking her timbrel.]
MICHAL
A dancer then, a very timbrel player!
DAVID
Until this hour I never looked upon her.
It is chicanery of chance or craft.
You who are noble, though in doubt adrift,
Be noble now!
MICHAL
And loving? O, I will—
Now that I know what should be done. Be sure.
DAVID
You mean, that Saul?—you would not, no!
MICHAL
Rest sure.
[A hand is seen at the tent. Ahinoam enters.]
AHINOAM
David, the king—But what is this?
[Michal goes.]
DAVID
O queen—
It is but life.
AHINOAM
Nay.
DAVID
Life that ever strings
Our hearts, so pitifully prone for it,
To ecstasy—then snaps.
AHINOAM
I love thee, David.
DAVID
Then gracious be, and question here no more.
Where words are futile for an utterance.
But of the king—the king?
AHINOAM
He’s driven still.
And hither comes, and soon, and must be calmed.
Thy harp take, winds of beauty from it bring,
And consolation—as of valley-eves
When there is ebb of sorrow and of toil,
O could you heal him and forever heal.
DAVID
Then would I be—!
[He breaks off with a gesture of great desire, takes the harp and seats himself.]
AHINOAM
At once, for he will come.
[David begins; a strain of wild sadness. Saul enters and with him Doeg, Ishui, Jonathan—others. He pauses, his hand to his brow, and goes slowly, enspelled of David’s playing, up the dais.]
AHINOAM
My lord, shall David sing—to ease us?
SAUL
Let him.
DAVID
[With high sorrow.]
O heart of woe,
Heart of unrest and broken as a reed!
[Plays.]
O heart whose flow
Is anguish and all the bitterness of need!
[Plays.]
O heart as a roe,
Heart as a hind upon the mountain fleeing
The arrow-wounds of being,
Be still, O heart, and rest and do not bleed!
[Plays longer with bowed head.]
O days of life,
Days that are driven swift and wild from the womb!
[Plays.]
O days so rife—
Days that are torn of trouble, trod of doom!
[Plays.]
[Michal enters.]
O days of strife,
Days of desire on deserts spread unending,
The burning blue o’erbending,
O days, our peace, our victory is the tomb!
[He plays to a close that dies in anguished silence.]
SAUL [Rising in tears]
David!
DAVID
My lord?
SAUL
Thy breathing! beauteous!
Stilling to sorrow! O my friend, my son!
DAVID
To me is this? I dream it not? The king
Again is kind and soft his spirit moves?
SAUL
To you!
DAVID
How shelter o’er me then will spring
And safety covering!
SAUL
It ever shall.
Loveliest have you been among my days,
And singing weary madness from my brain.
[David starts toward him.]
How I have wronged thee!
MICHAL
Wronged him? [In fury.]
DAVID
Michal!
SAUL
Girl?
MICHAL
You have not wronged him!
DAVID
Michal!
MICHAL
No, but he
Is jeopardy and fate about you! drive
Him from you utterly and now away!
[Murmurs of astonishment.]
SAUL
What mean you?
ISHUI
Speak.
SAUL
What mean you?
MICHAL
This!
DAVID
No word!
MICHAL
I’ll not be kept—
DAVID
But shall be; for to tell
Would rend silence forever from you—pale
Your flesh with haunting of it evermore!
All, all your being would become a hiss.
A memory of syllables that sear,
A living iteration of remorse.
I—I myself will save your lips the words
Of this betrayal leaping from your heart.
[Nobly, before Saul.]
You seek, my lord, you seek whom Samuel
Anointed.
SAUL
Yes.
DAVID
Then know that it is I.
SAUL
’Tis—?
DAVID
I.
SAUL
You!
DAVID
I. And guiltless I, no other.
I, though I sought it not and suffer, though
I would it had not come and fast am sworn
Never against you to lift up—
MERAB
Hear, hear!
Now he will cozen!
DOEG
He, “thy servant!”
ISHUI
Hear!
A VOICE [Without.]
A thousand Saul hath slain! But David ten!
SAUL [Choking.]
Omnipotence shall not withhold me more.
[He lifts a javelin.]
DAVID
Murderous king afoam with murder-heat!
[He avoids from side to side.]
Monarch of misery—of might—of rage
So fell that lightning were not dread enough
Were it thy bolt! To-day you will destroy me?
[Goliath’s head overturned, rolls on the floor.]
Upon this day will slay me innocent?
SAUL
Die, die!
JONATHAN
No, father, hold!
[Saul flings the javelin.]
MICHAL [Reeling.]
What have I done?
JONATHAN
David, unhurt? Away, the wilderness.
[Thrusts a sword on him.]
SAUL
He shall not! no.
[Seizes another javelin.]
DAVID [Aflame.]
Then, king of Israel, strike!
Strike me to darkness and the waiting worm!
Into the Pit and to the hopeless gloom.
But, after, be your every breathing blood,
Remorse and riving bitterness and fear,
Be guilt and all the hideous choke of horror!
[Saul trembling at the curse lets the javelin fall from his hand. David breaking through Doeg and Ishui escapes by the door. Michal sinks to her knees, her face buried in her hands.]
[CURTAIN.]