SCENE 6

THE SAME. SALOME.

[_Enter a_ SERVANT, _followed by_ SALOME.

SALOME (_to the_ SERVANT).

Were you forbidden To grant to any entry unannounced? I take the blame.

JOSEPH.

Salome, you?

SALOME.

Who else? No evil ghost! Your wife, your hapless wife Whom once you wooed as Jacob wooed his Rachel And whom you now----(_To_ MARIAMNE.) Accurséd, was’t not even Enough for you to turn away from me My brother’s heart? And must you now go further And rob me of my husband? Day and night He thinks of you as though you were a widow Even now, and I still less than that. By day He dogs your goings step by step; by night He dreams of you, calls out your name in anguish And starts up from his slumber--(_To_ JOSEPH.) Did I not Chide you this morning for’t? And now to-day; When all Jerusalem is in an uproar, To-day he’s not with me, not at the market, Where I bade seek him, since he never came. He is with you, and ye--ye are alone!

MAR.

Then sure it is not she; it is himself! If any remnant-doubt still gave me pause ’Tis choked by this insensate jealousy. I was a thing to him and nothing more.

JOSEPH (_to_ SALOME).

I swear----

SALOME.

That I am blind? No, no--I see!

MAR.

The dying man whose will decreed his fig-tree Be hewn to earth because he grudged its fruits After his death to any other man, The dying man were execrate, and had, It may be, sown the tree himself and knew That any thief, that even any murderer Who shook its boughs must share its quickening gift-- But neither fits my case. And yet, and yet That is an outrage Time has yet not known.

SALOME (_to_ JOSEPH).

You speak in vain. Commission? What commission?

MAR.

Commission? Ah, that seals it! If it could be, Now surely, now if never it could be. Ah, but it cannot be! There is no impulse Of baser sort that spots my innermost For all my stormy-ridden breast. I would Now at this moment give to Antony The answer, yea the very self-same answer I would have given him on our wedding-day. It wounds me as it wounds because I feel it, Else were I bound to suffer, yea, to pardon.

SALOME (_to_ MARIAMNE).

It seems for you I am not!

MAR.

Nay, far from it! Indeed you have bestowed on me the greatest That kindness could. I, who was blind, now see; I see full clear and that through you alone.

SALOME.

You void your scorn on me? That too I’ll penance If but my brother come again. I will Relate him all----

MAR.

What? Ay, ’tis well! Do so! If he give ear--why not? Why do I laugh? Is that too past belief? If he give ear Then hear my word--I will gainsay you not. I love myself no more enough to do it.

[_Enter hastily_ ALEXANDRA.

ALEX.

The King!

JOSEPH.

Within the town?

ALEX.

By now i’ the castle!