SCENE 4

THE SAME. JOSEPH.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT.

SERVANT.

The Viceroy comes!

ALEX.

Weaponed for certain, as he always is When he comes our way, since he had no luck In cozening our wits with glozing phrases After the manner of his first attempt. Do you not know Salome at the time Perished for jealousy?

MAR.

She does so now: For with an intimate smile I say to him Most shameless things whenever she is near, And since herself she never tires of spying I never tire of soundly whipping her For fatuous folly.

[_Enter_ JOSEPH.

ALEX. (_pointing to_ JOSEPH’S _weapon_).

See you?

MAR.

Let him then! His wife demands it so that she may dream She has a husband who’s a man of war.

ALEX. (_to_ JOSEPH).

I am still here!

JOSEPH.

A very strange reception!

ALEX.

My son too is still here. As once before He’s hid him in the dead man’s Wooden House. Harry him out and I will pardon you Because you did it once before unbidden. But this time you must hunt your coffin not Upon a vessel sailing Egypt-bound, No, you must seek it in the graveyard’s belly!

JOSEPH.

I’m not the man to wake the dead to life.

ALEX. (_with scorn directed at_ MARIAMNE).

Ay true! or you had companied your Lord So that when all his kneeling and his pleading Were fruitless to frustrate the lictor’s axe----

MAR.

He kneels and pleads?

JOSEPH (_to_ MARIAMNE).

I’ll let you know his way! “I am impeached for this crime! I confess it! But not for this! Well, for your information, I’ll fill the gap up soon!” Yes, that’s his way.

ALEX.

His cock crows for him?

JOSEPH.

He has done’t ere now, As I stood by, the time the Pharisees Would have arraigned him under Antony. He filed his own indictment in their stead, Hurried to camp before them, as he was, And, when they came, revised and supplemented The reckoning point for point and said to them-- “Speak, if I’ve left an item out or not!” The event you know; a many of the accusers Were shorn of their thick heads since they’d not budge; He carried off the Roman’s fullest favour.

ALEX.

In those days both were younger than they now are. The one’s superb presumption pleased the other, And all the more because at other’s costs, Not at his own, ’twas flaunted. Can the Roman Value the Pharisee at aught, whose tongue Preaches continual mutiny ’gainst Rome? “Who plucks his beard curtails his standing!” thought Mark Antony in sport: and yet I doubt If he’ll allow the joke against himself.

JOSEPH.

You speak as though you wished----

ALEX.

Whether our wishes Are paired or not, is that affair of yours? You hold fast to your own! For you it’s weighty That he returns.

JOSEPH.

You think so? If for me For you, then.

ALEX.

I have not a notion why There was in olden days an Alexandra Whose temples bore a crown in Israel, Who fell on it when it became free prey And would not leave it lying for a thief. By God, we’ll have no dearth here of a second If it is true (_to_ MARIAMNE) that there are Maccabeans Who keep their childish oaths!

JOSEPH (_sounding_ ALEXANDRA).

’Tis true indeed! There was in olden days this Alexandra, But whosoe’er will reach her goal, he must Tread her whole journey with no half-way lapse. Soon as she climbed the throne she reconciled Herself with all her foes, and not a soul Had need to fear her, only cause to hope. No wonder that she sat fast till her death!

MAR.

I think that paltry! What end serves a sceptre If not to gratify our hate and love? A twig’s enough to frighten off the flies.

JOSEPH.

Quite true. (_To_ ALEXANDRA.) And you?

ALEX.

She never saw in dream Her House’s earliest sire, the mighty Judas, ’Tis certain else she had no foeman shunned; For from his grave he still protects his children Because he cannot die in any heart. How could he so? There’s never a man can pray Who must not say--“To him I owe my thanks That I may yet kneel down before my God And not to bronze and wood and stone.”

JOSEPH (_aside_).

The King Was in the right! The deed I must accomplish, And that on both, or else endure them both. I must emplant the crown upon my brow If I’d ensure it from the headsman’s axe. For here a world of hate stares in against me. Then good! Their sentence they’ve pronounced themselves. For the last time I’ve put the test on them. Were but his courier here, this very moment I’d bring it to a pitiless consummation. Each several preparation has been made.