Scene 2
Herod. Mariamne. Alexandra. Salome.
Herod.
Fling you down
Before her, who in all these witness-eyes
Have put the offending tarnish on her name,
And I’ll not do it!
Salome.
Ha!
Alex.
What may that mean?
Herod.
Well, Mariamne?
Mar.
What commands the King?
I have been summoned and I have appeared.
Alex.
Is this the wife who swore to kill herself
If he returned not hither?
Herod.
This your greeting?
Mar.
The King bade summon me that I should greet him?
I greet him; and thereby the work is done.
Alex.
You’re sore in error. Here you stand arraigned.
Herod.
There was a charge preferred. Before I gave
The charge a hearing I sent word to beg you
Come hither, but in truth with no desire
That you should counter it with your defence,
Only because I think that of itself
’Twill lose its breath and die before your presence.
Mar.
To hinder that I should again begone.
Herod.
What, Mariamne? You were never ranked
Among those souls of despicable kind
Who, when their foeman’s countenance or back
Comes to first gaze, forgive and fresh their grudging
Because they are too weak for genuine hate,
Too tiny for the fuller, greater mood.
By what then is your deepest so transformed
That now so late you should companion them?
What? When I left you had for me farewell
And I had thought that this a claim would give me
Upon your welcome. You deny me that?
And you stand here as though the berg and vale
Still lay between that kept us so long sundered?
You step aback when I would come anear?
Is’t then that my return is hateful to you?
Mar.
How should it be? Indeed it gives my life
Again to me.
Herod.
Your life? What word is this?
Mar.
You’ll not deny you understand the word.
Herod (aside).
Can she then know it? (To Mariamne.) Come!
[Mariamne does not follow.
Leave us alone!
(To Alexandra.) You’ll pardon?
Alex.
Ay!
[Exit, followed by the others.
Mar.
So craven, then!
Herod.
So craven?
Mar.
And also—how’s it nameable?
Herod.
And also?
(Aside.) ’Twere horrible! I’d never quench it in her!
Mar.
His wife, free-willed, may grave-ward follow him,
The headsman’s hand may thrust her under earth—
All’s one if he make sure she dies. He leaves her
No time even for self-sacrificial death.
Herod.
She knows it!
Mar.
And is Antony a man
As I till now believed, a man like you,
Or else a demon, as you must believe
Since you’re in desperate doubt if in my bosom
Some last lorn duty-sense, some remnant pride
Would make a stand against him when, all dripping
With blood of yours, he faced me as a wooer
And made assault of storm to pass the time
Which the Egyptian Woman leaves him free?
Herod (aside).
But how? but how?
Mar.
At least he were compelled
To have you dead before he came a-wooing,
And if you feel yourself—I were not able
To think it, but I see’t—so null a nithing
That you despair his scale to counterpoise
With the pure metal of your manhood’s worth
In your wife’s heart, what justifies you then
To hold my worth so light that you could fear
Myself would never spurn the murderer back?
O double insult!
Herod (breaking out).
Tell me for what price
You learnt this secret! ’Twas not lightly venal!
A head was pledged me for it!
Mar.
O Salome,
How well you knew your brother!—Question him
Whose treachery told me what he had received.
From me expect to hear no answer more.
[She turns away.
Herod.
I’ll show you quickly how I’ll question him!
Soemus!
[Enter Soemus.