MANAHEM.
Thou shalt reign twenty,
Nay, thirty years. I cannot name the end.
HEROD. Thirty? I thank thee, good Essenian! This is my birthday, and a happier one Was never mine. We hold a banquet here. See, yonder are Herodias and her daughter.
MANAHEM, aside. 'T is said that devils sometimes take the shape Of ministering angels, clothed with air. That they may be inhabitants of earth, And lead man to destruction. Such are these.
HEROD. Knowest thou John the Baptist?
MANAHEM.
Yea, I know him;
Who knows him not?
HEROD.
Know, then, this John the Baptist
Said that it was not lawful I should marry
My brother Philip's wife, and John the Baptist
Is here in prison. In my father's time
Matthias Margaloth was put to death
For tearing the golden eagle from its station
Above the Temple Gate,—a slighter crime
Than John is guilty of. These things are warnings
To intermeddlers not to play with eagles,
Living or dead. I think the Essenians
Are wiser, or more wary, are they not?
MANAHEM. The Essenians do not marry.
HEROD.
Thou hast given
My words a meaning foreign to my thought.
MANAHEM. Let me go hence, O King!
HEROD.
Stay yet awhile,
And see the daughter of Herodias dance.
Cleopatra of Jerusalem, my mother,
In her best days, was not more beautiful.