Scene 7
Salome. Alexandra. Titus.
Afterwards, Mariamne.
Alex.
Titus, you notice how my daughter’s mourning.
Titus.
’Twould seem she has some new despatch from Herod.
Alex.
Despatch that all is over with him, yes!
Titus (watching Mariamne).
She dances!
Alex.
Less like widow than like bride!
Titus, until to-day she’s worn a mask,
And mark you this, not she alone has done’t.
Titus.
Well for her! She’ll not change from what she is,
For if she ranks her with the foes of Herod
She will not share the pangs his friends must suffer.
Alex.
And to prove that she gives, you see, this feast.
[Moves away from Titus.
Titus.
Oh what a shudder takes me at these women!
One, plotting at a hero, whom she first
With hoodwink-kisses lulled to lying peace,
Hews off his head in sleep; the other dances,
Merely to keep firm hands upon the crown,
Like one possessed upon her husband’s grave.
And sure I was invited this to see.
[Watches Mariamne again.
Yes, yes, I see’t. In Rome she’ll have my witness!
But here I drink no single drop of wine.
Salome.
What say you, Titus? Stands it with the King
In such ill plight that she may now dare all?
Titus.
If he’s not straightway given Octavian
His turncoat loyalty and helped to deal
The home-thrust ere his fall at Antony,
And that I must misdoubt, it stands not well.
Salome.
Oh, if he had but done it! If her head
Be kept to her, I know not why the Lord
Gave o’er the blood of hot-eyed Jezebel
For dogs to lick.
[She is lost among the others.
Titus.
She dances still, and yet
Seems forced in mien and mood. She should be glowing
And yet is blanched as though, enchained in musing,
She did some other thing, and sleepy-willed
Followed the dancing. Then it seems this Judith
Brought not her work unanguished to the full.
Ay, and the last kiss given by her husband,
She here and now disowns with pompous show,
Must leave upon her lips the cling of feeling.
She’s not yet even seen him dead—She comes!
[Mariamne appears again. Alexandra and Soemus follow her.
Alex.
(to Mariamne). I spoke with Titus.
[Mariamne suddenly turns and sees her image in a mirror.
Mar.
Ha!
Alex.
What ails you, then?
Mar.
’Twas thus I saw myself but late in dream—
This was the cause, then, why I could not rest me
Till that lost ruby came again to light
That now casts from my breast such dusky glimmer—
The image had been flaw-marred lacking it!
On this the last treads hot——
Alex.
Come to yourself!
Mar.
Nay, let me be! A mirror just like this,
At first with glazy muffle, as o’erbreathed
By living lips; then, like the pictures which
It showed in linked procession, softly clearing
And lastly luminant as polished steel.
I saw my life in sum. First I appeared
As child in light of roses tender-ambient
Of ever redder, ever darker hue.
But then the features, though my own, were strange
And only in the third-changed scene I knew
Myself in such an all too youthful face.
And now there came the Virgin and the moment
When Herod took me to the flowery garden,
Bearing me company, and flattering spoke:—
“There’s none so fair she would not need to pluck
The lily of your hand.” Ha, be he cursed
That he forgot so full, so full! And then
It all grew eerie, and against my will
I saw the future, saw me thus and thus
And lastly as I stand here. (To Alexandra.) Is it then
Not passing strange if dreams step into life?
Again the gleaming mirror overmisted,
The light grew ashen-coloured and myself,
So shortly since a blooming creature, blanched
As though beneath the splendour of this garb
My every vein had long been stilly bleeding.
A shudder gripped me, and I cried “I come now
As skull and bones and that I will not see!”
And then I turned away—
[She turns away from the mirror.
Voices in the background.
The King!
[General stir.
Alex.
Who? who?