Naboth.
I do not speak to you.
Jezebel.
No, Naboth, you are speaking to your Queen,
Who bids you to be silent, if you care
To keep whole bones. Come from him, then, Micaiah.
Hear a last offer, Naboth; you are old,
Soon to become infirm, soon to bear pain.
And find it weariness to cross the room.
Might I not set provision for old age
Against your vineyard? Might I settle on you
A pension that would bring you quietness
And what age loves, respect and ease and state;
Might we not give you rank, as Elder, say,
With pay and servants fitting to the rank;
These things to be assured to you for life,
And after, to your son?
Naboth.
I have no son.
My son was killed while fighting for King Ahab
In this last war. I will not sell my vineyard
For all the rank, for all the slaves and ease
In this realm that you make the gate of hell.
God blot me from the record of the blest
If I give up my father’s heritage,
If I commit into polluted hands,
Red with the blood of offerings to false gods,
The earth my father worked and worshipped in.
It is my vineyard and it shall be mine,
By God’s red hand the King should be ashamed;
You too would be ashamed were you not shameless,
To tempt a poor man’s soul with merchandise;
You, smeared with spice, painted, and dripping perfume,
A shameless woman, chaffering with a man,
And he, the King, a dallier with God’s foes,
Conspiring thus to cheat me of my vineyard.
God puts a word into my mouth to say,
He makes my mouth to spit upon you both.
There is for you. And there is for the King.
I spit upon you both and bid God curse you,
Curse you to ruin and to rottenness.
As here I curse you; him for making peace,
Where no peace is, and you, you insolent woman,
For being, like the King, a curse on Israel,
A bringer down into the pit of hell.
Micaiah.
You shall avoid the presence when you curse.
[Exit with Naboth.
Jezebel.