Then indeed the audience had an opportunity of watching Herod’s rage:
“Another way!” (he exclaimed, trembling with fury)
“Out! Out! Out!
Hath those foul traitors done me this deed?
I stamp, I stare, I look all about;
Might them I take I should them burn at a glede [fire].
I rend, I roar, and now run I wood [mad] ...
They shall be hanged if I come them to.”
Roaring and stamping and raving, as he said of himself, the king rushed down the pageant steps and “raged” in the market-place amongst the people, to the delight of the grown-up folk and the terror of the children in the crowd. And all the while he was running to-and-fro, screaming with fury, he was giving orders that “all young children” should be slain.
But even the rough soldiers who had come from the palace to follow their master, and had at last succeeded in getting him to return to the stage, were horrified at this cruel command, and one of them spoke indignantly: