Scene 3
Herod. Titus.
Herod.
Well, Titus, well?
Admits Soemus——?
Titus.
What you know. Not more.
Herod.
Naught of——?
Titus.
Oh no! He leapt to feet as raving
If I but cast the lightest hint thereat.
Herod.
I could expect it.
Titus.
“Never could,” he answered,
“A wife like yours have lived, and never was
A man so little worth the precious jewel
That God vouchsafed to him——”
Herod.
As I myself!
Yes, yes! “He did not know the worth of pearls
Wherefore I took them from him,” said the thief.
I know not if that helped.
Titus.
“Her heart was nobler
Than gold.”
Herod.
And so he knows it! Swimming-brained
He lauds the wine. Does not that furnish proof
That he has drunk.[14] And what veneer used he
To coat it? Why betrayed he my commission
To her?
Titus.
From loathing, as he said.
Herod.
From loathing?
And he ne’er gave the loathing words to me?
Titus.
Would not the event have been his bane? Could you
Have granted life unto the stockish servant
If once he had received from you command
And pushed it from him?
Herod.
Why, in such a case,
Was’t not enough to leave it unfruitioned?
Titus.
Yes; but if he went further he has done it
Perchance because he deemed you as one lost
And now was fain to have the Queen’s good grace
A bargain at your cost for his own profit,
Since it was in her hands his future lay.
Herod.
No, Titus, no! Soemus was the man
To risk the daring bid in his own person
That makes another’s grace a needless prop.
For that sole cause I gave it him. I thought:—
“’Tis done for self if ’tis not done for you.”
Yes, had he been a lesser than he is
And had he not in Rome friends in such plenty
I could have thought it true. But now—no, no,
There was one only ground.
Titus.
And yet he’ll not
Confess that one.
Herod.
He were not what he is
If he should do it, for he knows full well
What follows that, and hopes now through his lying
To waken in my breast one last misdoubting
Such as will guard, if not perchance his head,
Then hers before the coming bulk of death.
He errs, though. That misdoubting lacks its sting.
Had I no cause to punish what she did
I’d punish that which she became and is.
Ha, had she ever been what she has seemed
She never could have donned this shifting slough
And I’ll take vengeance on the duplex Thing.
Yes, Titus, yes, I swear it by the key
Of Paradise that she holds in her hands,
By all beatitude that she erewhile
Has granted me, that she can grant me still,
Yea, by this instant’s shudder which monitions
That I in her will blot myself to nothing,
I make an end howe’er the matter stand.
Titus.
It is too late to make the cry of warning
“Give not the order!” and I know myself
No means of leading this to issue clear
And therefore cannot dare to say “Hold! Hold!”
[Enter Joab.