Scene 4
The Same. Joab.
Herod (to Joab).
Are they assembled?
Joab.
Long since. From the prison
I must announce to you what seems of weight.
We cannot bring this Sameas to such lengths
That he’ll disbody soul.
Herod.
I gave command
He should be put to torture till he do it.
(To Titus.) This man had sworn, I’ve heard, that he would kill him
Could he not make me in his own sweet likeness,
Which process is to break what he has named
The heathenish notions in me. Since he’s failed
I now use force on him his oath to keep,
His death’s a right good thousandfold deserved.
Titus.
I had myself been urgent for his death,
For me he has reviled and Rome in me
And that can everywhere be granted pardon
But here among this stubborn-stomached folk.
Herod (to Joab).
Well then?
Joab.
Your words were followed to the letter,
But it has helped to no success. The headsman
Plied him with almost every pang, and more,
Grimmed into spite by such unwincing front,
Which he misread as scorn, he dealt him wounds.
But ’tis as though he’d given a tree a flogging,
As though ’twere nerveless wood that took his slashing.
There stands the old man dead to feel of pain,
He sings, instead of shrieking out, and clutching
To get the knife that’s held before his eyes,
He sings the psalm which the Three Men of yore
Sang in the fiery oven, and he lifts
At every added pang his voice the louder,
And when he bates it prophesies forsooth!
Herod (aside).
Such is their breed. Yes—will they e’er be other?
Joab.
Then he cries out as though for things of wonder
Beyond the threshold he had got an eye
For every wound that he can count. “Now is
The time fulfilled and in the manger-crib
The Virgin-Mother of the stem of David
E’en at this hallowed moment lays a Child
Destined to topple thrones, awake the dead,
Tear stars from heaven and from eternity
Unto eternity o’erlord the world.”
Meanwhile the folk in thousands are assembled,
Hang on the very doors and hear it all,
Believing that Elijah’s flaming chariot
Will sink to earth and bear him like the prophet
On skyward path. The headsman’s menial even
Shrank back and did not cut him with new wounds,
But held the old together.
Herod.
Then he shall
Be killed upon the spot and to the folk
Be shown when he is dead. Thereafter bid
The Judges to present them and——
Joab.
The Queen!
[Exit.
Herod.
You, Titus, shall be seated at my side.
I send her mother too an invitation
That she at least fail not her child as witness.
[Enter Aaron, and the other Five Judges. Alexandra and Salome follow. Joab appears immediately after.