SCENE 1

_The Castle on Zion_. ALEXANDRA’S _Apartments_. ALEXANDRA. SAMEAS.

ALEXANDRA.

You know it now.

SAMEAS.

It gives me no surprise. No, in a Herod nothing gives surprise Who once as stripling on the Sanhedrim Declared a war: who with his gleaming weapon Strode up before his judge and dropped the hint That he himself was Headsman and the Headsman Upon himself no sentence executes, He may as man--Ha, I can see him now As, front to front opposing the High Priest, He leaned against a column ’mid a ring Of his hired bravos, who in robber-hunting Turned robber too--strange metamorphosis! And took our total tally, head for head, As though he stood before a thistle patch And summed in mind a way to weed it clean.

ALEX.

Yes, yes, that was an hour of hours for him, A moment he may proudly call to mind. A boyish madcap, scarce in his twentieth year, He stands arraigned before the Sanhedrim, Because in stark presumptuous sacrilege He’d arrogated violence on the law; Because his hand unsanctioned executed A death-decree you had not yet pronounced. The dead man’s widow, as he treads the threshold, Counters him with her curse: within there sits All in Jerusalem that’s old and grey. But since he comes not sackclothed, and no ashes Bestrew his head, you get a sag in the heart: You think no more with punishment to greet him, You think no more with threatenings to tame him! You say him naught, he laughs you off and goes.

SAMEAS.

I spoke!

ALEX.

Yes, when too late!

SAMEAS.

And had I done it Before that moment it had been too soon. Through reverence for the High Priest I was silent. He was the eldest and the youngest I.

ALEX.

No matter. Had you courage at that moment To prove you held the simple heart of duty The larger mood would not be urgent now. Then look to’t well if you--Ho, ho! I see Another loophole yet remains if you Scarce relish combat with him, and in truth ’Twere risky play. Best ’ware him. So you’ll enter For a mild bout with lions and with tigers In this brute-battle that he now ordains.

SAMEAS.

What mean these words?

ALEX.

You know the fighting-games Of Rome? What, no?

SAMEAS.

Thank God I know them not. I count it for no jot of gain to know About the heathen but what Moses tells us. Down go my eyelids every single time I see a Roman soldier cross my path, And then I bless my father in his grave That he ne’er gave me tutoring in their tongue.

ALEX.

And so you do not know that savage beasts Are shipped by them from Africa to Rome In hundreds?

SAMEAS.

No indeed, I know it not.

ALEX.

Not know that there in a stone-built arena They drive them at each other, and that slaves Are hounded on them, who for life or death Must face them in the fight, and they the while Circled around upon high benches sit All jubilant when wounds of death are gaping And when the red blood spurts on sprinkled sand?

SAMEAS.

Such things the wildest fancy of my dreaming Ne’er showed me; but it joys my very soul If such they do. It fits the breed o’ them! (_With raised hands._) Lord, Thou art great; and though Thy will vouchsafe The heathen life, he must requite the gift By payment to Thee of a gruesome tribute. Thou dost chastise him as he uses others. Such games I could well see!

ALEX.

Your wish will find Fruition soon as Herod comes again. He plans to introduce them.

SAMEAS.

Never, never!

ALEX.

That’s what I said to you. Why not? We have Lions enough for sure. The mountain herd Will be rejoiced to see their tale diminished By saving many kine and many calves.[7]

SAMEAS.

To raise no other point, where would he find The fighters? In our folk there are no slaves Bound to his beck and call for life or death.

ALEX.

The first I see before me.

SAMEAS.

What?

ALEX.

For sure! You will, as now, twist up your angry face, Forget yourself, perhaps, and clench the fists, Set eyes at rolling and the teeth at gnashing If spared to witness that high day on which, August, as Solomon of yore the Temple, He consecrates the heathenish arena. This will not slip his eyes, and for reward He passes you a signal that you enter And show to the assembled folk your powers When you stand face to face against a lion Who’d been whole days before made sharp with hunger. But since among our folk there’s lack of slaves, The death-devoted criminals must needs Supply their place; and who’s more death-devoted Than he who openly defies the King?

SAMEAS.

He may----

ALEX.

Dispel your doubts! It would go ill If he should lose his head before his time. There would be projects nipped along with him That Pompey, who with brazen heathendom Dared the approach unto the Holy of Holies, Himself might----

SAMEAS (_breaking out_).

Antony, if thou’lt but grip him; A whole year’s space I vow I will not curse thee! And if thou dost it not--then good, we’re ready!

ALEX.

He says that if our folk were not ordained To mix with others, then had we this earth-ball From God received for our sole dwelling-portion.

SAMEAS.

He says so?

ALEX.

But since Fate has other will There rises need the dam-walls to unbarrier Which long have shut us, like a stagnant mere Locked from the sea, away from other peoples, And there’s no other method but that we In use and custom mould us to their fashion.

SAMEAS.

In use and--(_to Heaven_) Lord, if I break not in raving Send me Thy sign how such a churl shall die, Sign of some death which every other death Sucks of its horrors, and proclaim to me That it is Herod for whose sake ’tis done.

ALEX.

Be you then the Death-Angel?

SAMEAS.

Or for him Or for myself! I swear’t! Can I not hinder This ghastly plan, my impotence I’ll punish With murder of myself (_with a gesture towards his breast_) ere that day comes, The day that he shall first befleck with mire. _There_ is a binding oath that a misdeed Will wring from me if for a hero-deed I prove unfit. Who ever swore a greater?

ALEX.

Good! But forget not this; if your own arm Be over-weak to dash your foemen downwards, A stranger’s arm must not then be contemned.

SAMEAS.

And such a stranger?

ALEX.

You may arm with ease.

SAMEAS.

Speak plainer language!

ALEX.

Who created Herod A King?

SAMEAS.

Why, Antony; who otherwise?

ALEX.

And wherefore did it?

SAMEAS.

While it pleased him so; Perhaps, too, just because it pleased not us. When had a heathen ever better grounds?

ALEX.

And, further, what maintains him on the throne?

SAMEAS.

Not the folk’s blessing! Maybe ’tis its curse. Who can say that?

ALEX.

I! Nothing but his trick Of sending every year ere reckoning-day The tax that we are forced to pay the Romans, Ay, and the same of his own will to double If some new war has broken into blaze. The Roman wants our gold and nothing more, He leaves to us our Faith, he leaves our God, Would even help to do Him reverence, And, niched with Jupiter and Ops and Isis, Grant Him a corner in the Capitol That has been let lie vacant till to-day If only He, as they, were made of stone.

SAMEAS.

If it be so, alas! and it is so, What have you then to hope of Antony? In this regard, yourself has said it, Herod Yields each punctilious tittle. Why, I’ve seen The tribute-panniers carried. One mule broke His backbone ere it reached the city-gate. For every drop of blood within his veins He renders up to him an ounce of gold.[8] Think you on your account he’ll send it back?

ALEX.

’Twere bootless, if I steered my cause myself, But Cleopatra does the deed for me, And, so I hope, will Mariamne too. Amazed? Fail not my meaning. Not in person; In such a case she’d rather turn on me. But through her picture, and not even through that, No, through another close resembling her. For as a wild wood harbours not alone The lion, but his foe as well, the tiger, So in the hot-bed of this Roman’s heart Ennests itself a wormy brood of passions Wrestling each other for the dominant place. And thus, if Herod builds upon the first I build upon the second, and I think That mine’s a lustier wrestler than its fellow.

SAMEAS.

You are----

ALEX.

No Hyrcan, tho’ I be his daughter. But, lest you should misprise what I have done, I am not Mariamne either. If, To pave his way towards her, Antony Destroys the man that has her in possession, She still is mistress of herself and can Enwrap her in eternal widow-weeds. But this I hold for certain, that by now He’s laid his hand on sword and if not yet He’s drawn it, one sole point of pause detains him That this luck-minion among soldiers, Herod, Stands good to Romans for the iron ring That all things here with us together clamps. But once you furnish him with opposite proof, Rouse insurrection, stir the flaccid peace, And he will draw’t.

SAMEAS.

I’ll furnish easy proof! The folk’s already struck him dead in thought, They rumour that----

ALEX.

Impress your seal thereon! Then swiftly open his last testament; You know the contents now, the fighting-games Stand at the head, and then when every man Believes him shortened of a hundred stripes Through Herod’s death, or of the torture-cross, Then each believes what he can dare believe. For there are things that loom o’er Israel Will wring from many a heart in its despair The wish of agony that the Red Sea Had gulfed the whole folk deep into its maw And the twelve holy Tribes and Moses first.

SAMEAS.

I go, and ere the midday comes----

ALEX.

I know What you can work if you but take the sack-cloth And thread the lanes with wailing-cry of “woe!” As were your forebear Jonah here again. And you will find there’s service in the knack Of paying a chance visit to the Fisher And sharing Goodman Gaffer’s bite and sup From what he grants himself since no one buys it.

SAMEAS.

And you will find that all we Pharisees Have not forgot the stigma that we suffered, As you would seem to reckon. Hear then now What only through the deed was meant to reach you-- We have been sworn against him long ere now, We’ve dug our burrows under all Judaea, And in Jerusalem, that you may see How sure the count we have upon the folk, There’s even a blind adherent to our band!

ALEX.

What boots he?

SAMEAS.

Naught. He knows as much himself, But he’s so crammed with hate, so grim with grudge, That he’ll be joined with us in our emprise And rather perish if it should miscarry Than drag his life in such a world as this. I have a notion that’s a promising sign!

[_Exit._