Ahab.
No, I do not know.
I wonder, if the blunt and bawdy world
Be not the worse for wisdom, not the better.
Jezebel.
It is a sin and cowardice to say so.
Ahab.
Is it, my Queen? I wonder if it be.
Here have I striven twenty years, for peace
With Syria, and for liberty of thought
Within our borders, yet with what results?
Almost continual war with Syria.
Almost a civil war within this land.
Such being the fruits, I think the seeds were wrong.
Jezebel.
The seeds were right, and if the fruit has failed,
Blame the bad soil, the bitter weather, drought,
Evil of many men hacking the plant,
All things, but you who planted, and the seed.
Ahab.
Even if the seed were right, the ground was wrong.
And then I sowed it out of season, lady.
I could have smitten Syria to the dust,
Yet granted terms. I risked a civil war
To grant the terms. They do not keep the terms.
And these my people prefer blood to quiet.
And now I doubt the usefulness of wisdom,
Doubt my whole life; and wonder, if the prophets,
The people, and the bloody ways they love,
Be not indeed God’s ways for governing.
If these things be, then I have failed my country.