Scene 8
Salome, The Three Kings from the East, Herod, Titus, Joab, Alexandra.
Servant.
Three kings from out the Eastern lands are here,
They are with costly presents richly laden
And at this very moment have arrived.
Never were seen more strangely striking figures
Nor garments of more wondrous kind than these.
Salome.
Conduct them in.
[Exit Servant.
I’ll tell him this at once.
So long as they’re with him he will not think
On her; and all is over soon with her.
[She goes after Herod.
[The Servant conducts in the Three Kings From the East. They are dressed in strange and curious raiment in such a way that they differ from each other in every particular. A rich retinue follows them, of like characteristics. Gold, incense, and myrrh. Enter Herod, and Salome shortly after him.
First King.
O King, all hail!
Second King.
A blessing on thy House!
Third King.
A benison to all eternity!
Herod.
I thank you. But methinks for such an hour
The salutation’s strange.
First King.
Was not a son
Born to you?
Herod.
Me? Oh no! My wife has died.
First King.
We have no call to tarry here.
Second King.
So there’s
A second King then here?
Herod.
Then there would be
None here at all.
Third King.
There’s here, beside your own,
A second stem, it seems, of Kingly blood.
Herod.
And why?
First King.
It is so.
Second King.
Yes, it must be so.
Herod.
Of that too I know naught.
Salome (to Herod).
In Bethlehem
The stem of David still has left a shoot
Remaining.
Third King.
David was a King?
Herod.
’Tis so.
First King.
Let us now go even unto Bethlehem!
Salome (continuing, to Herod).
But now it plants its seed alone in beggars.
Herod.
I think it, else——
Salome.
I spoke once with a virgin
Of David’s house, Mary, I think, her name.
I found her fair enough for such a lineage,
But she was to a carpenter betrothed
And scarcely lifted eyes upon my face
When I made question of her name.
Herod.
You hear it?
Second King.
’Tis naught! We go.
Herod.
You will then, ere you go,
Acquaint me what has brought you hither.
First King.
Reverence
Before the King above all Kings.
Second King.
The wish
Ere yet we die to view his countenance.
Third King.
The holy duty at His feet in homage
To lay whatever on earth is costly-rare.
Herod.
Who gave you tidings of Him then?
First King.
His star!
We journeyed not together and we knew
Naught of each other, for our kingdoms lie
To furthest East and furthest West, seas flow
Between them, lofty mountains sunder them——
Second King.
And yet it was the self-same star we saw,
The self-same impulse that had seized our hearts;
We wandered on the self-same way and met us
At last together at the self-same goal——
Third King.
Whether a King’s son or a beggar’s son
The Child this star has lighted into life
Will be uplifted high, and on the Earth
No man shall breathe that will not bow to Him.
Herod (aside).
So speaks the Ancient Book as well! (Aloud.) May I
Make offer of a guide to Bethlehem?
First King
(pointing to Heaven). We have a guide!
Herod.
Then good. And if the Child
Be found, I prithee send to me the tidings
That I with you may do Him reverence.
First King.
It shall be done. Now forth to Bethlehem!
[The Three Kings with their retinue leave the stage.
Herod.
It never will be done!
[Enter Joab and Titus, followed by Alexandra.
Ha!
Joab.
It is finished!
[Herod covers up his face.
Titus.
She died, yes, died! But as for me, I have
A still more fearful office to perform
Than he who brought your word of blood to pass,
For I must tell you she was innocent.
Herod.
No, Titus, no!
[Titus is about to speak.
(Stepping close up to him.) For were that so, you could not
Have let her go to death.
Titus.
No one was able
To hinder that but you. It gives me pain
To be against my will your worse than headsman,
But if a holy duty yields the dead one,
Whoever he may be, the rite of burial,
Still holier is the duty from a shame
To wash him clean if he deserve it not.
This duty now lays law on me alone.
Herod.
I see from all you say one only thing—
Her spell in death itself was true to her.
Why eats Soemus still my heart? How could he
Resist this blinding woman in her life?
Even in the dying flash she kindled you.
Titus.
Goes jealousy the very grave beyond?
Herod.
If I have duped me, if from out your mouth
Some other thing than pity now were speaking
Too deep by far not to be more than such,
Then I must give you warning that your witness
Helped to condemn her, that the duty-bond
For you had then been this—to give me warning
As soon as e’er the tiniest doubt had come.
Titus.
But my word held me back, and, more than that,
The unimplorable Necessity.
Had I relaxed from her one pace, no further,
Upon herself the deathly thrust were given.
I saw the dagger hidden in her breast
And more than once the twitching of her hand.
[Pause.
She wished to die; she must have done so, too.
As much she suffered and as much she pardoned
As she had power to pardon and to suffer.
I have beheld her very innermost,
Who more demands should quarrel not with her,
Should quarrel only with the elements
Which, willed or not, had been so mixed in her
That she could go no further. Yes, but let him
Show me a woman further gone than she!
[Herod makes a gesture.
She wished to have her death from you, and called
The unshapen dream-child of your jealousy
Into illusive being at her feast,
Juggling her soul to death and all deceiving.
I found that stern but not unjust. She stepped
As mask before your eyes; the mask was destined
To sting you till you pierced it with a sword-thrust.
[He points to Joab.
And that you did and killed her very self.
Herod.
So spoke she, but she spoke from vengeance so.
Titus.
So was it. I have testified against her.
How gladly would I doubt it!
Herod.
And Soemus?
Titus.
Upon the way that leads to death I met him,
He entered on his own as soon as hers
Had been accomplished, and he felt it balm
To think his blood with hers should be commingled
E’en though upon the block by headsman-hand.
Herod.
Aha! You see?
Titus.
And what? Perchance in stillness
He burned for her. But if that were a sin
Then it was his and never aught of hers.
He cried to me:—“I die because I spoke;
Else had I died because I might have spoken.
For such was Joseph’s lot. He swore while still
In death that he was innocent as I,
I marked it.”
Herod (breaking out).
Joseph! Is he too avenged?
Does Earth gape open? Do the striding dead
Outface me all?
Alex. (approaching him).
They do! But no, fear nothing.
There’s one—a woman—still lies under earth!
Herod.
Accursèd! (Commanding himself.) Be it so. If then Soemus
Committed but a single crime against me,
[He turns to Salome.
Joseph, through whom this vulgar-souled suspicion
Had filled him, Joseph fooled him even in death—
Is it not so?—Why are you silent now?
Salome.
Hot-foot he dogged her every step——
Alex. (to Herod).
Ay true!
But with intent to find the ripened time,
No more, in which to carry out your charge
Both her and me to murder——
Herod.
Is this true?
(To Salome.) And you, you?
Alex.
Almost the self-same hour
Why he allowed his mask fully to fall
Had Mariamne ta’en on her the oath
To give herself, if you returned not hither,
A sacrifice to death. I hide it not.
For doing so I hated her.
Herod.
Oh fearful!
And this—but now you tell this?
Alex.
Yes!
Titus.
I know
This too. It was her latest word to me.
But for a thousand years I had been silent,
I would but clear her name, not give you torture.
Herod.
Then—— (His voice fails him.)
Titus.
Calm yourself! It wounds me too.
Herod.
Ay, wounds
You, her (to Salome) and everyone who here, like me,
Has been the blinded tool of slant-souled Fate,
But I alone have lost what on this earth
Eternally will ne’er be seen again.
Have lost! Oh! Oh!
Alex.
Aha, Aristobulus,
You are avenged, my son, and I in you.
Herod.
What, triumphing? You think that I will now
Wilt like a broken thing? Nay, I will not.
I am a king and I will let the world
[He makes a gesture as though snapping something to pieces.
Feel it and tremble! Up now, Pharisees.
Up with your rebel heads! (To Salome.) And you, why shrink you
So soon from me? Why, sure, I’ve not yet altered
My face, but on the morrow it may happen
That my own mother shall be forced to swear
I am no more her son.
[After a pause, in a toneless voice.
Ah, if my crown
Were set with all the stars that flame in heaven,
For Mariamne I would give them hence
And, if I had it too, this earthen ball.
Yea, were it possible that I myself
Living as now within the grave could lay me
And ransom her from out her own, I’d do it!
With my own hands I’d dig myself therein.
Ah, but I cannot! Therefore have I still
And fastly hold what still I have. That is
Not much, but still a crown is part thereof
Which now shall fill for me the woman’s place,
And who makes grasp for that—One does so now;
Why yes, a Boy does so, a Marvellous Boy—
He Whom the Prophets have long been announcing
And Whom e’en now a star lights into life.
But, Fate, thy reckoning is sore at fault
If thou, in trampling me with iron foot,
A piecemeal thing, hast thought to smooth His course.
A soldier I; myself will fight with thee
And, as I lie, will bite thee in the heel.
(Sharply.) Joab!
[Joab approaches.
(In a contained voice.) You go at once to Bethlehem
And tell the Captain there who’s in command
To find the Marvellous Boy—Nay, he will not
Ransack him out, not all can see the star;
As for those Kings, they’re sly as sanctimonious—
The children who within the bygone year
Were born, he is to slay upon the spot.
He leaves no single one surviving.
Joab (retreating).
Good!
(Aside.) And I know why! But Moses was delivered
Pharaoh despite!
Herod (still loud and strong).
I’ll see to it to-morrow,
To-day with Mariamne—(He collapses.) Titus!
[Titus catches him.