SCENE 2

HEROD. MARIAMNE. ALEXANDRA. SALOME.

HEROD.

Fling you down Before her, who in all these witness-eyes Have put the offending tarnish on her name, And I’ll not do it!

SALOME.

Ha!

ALEX.

What may that mean?

HEROD.

Well, Mariamne?

MAR.

What commands the King? I have been summoned and I have appeared.

ALEX.

Is this the wife who swore to kill herself If he returned not hither?

HEROD.

This your greeting?

MAR.

The King bade summon me that I should greet him? I greet him; and thereby the work is done.

ALEX.

You’re sore in error. Here you stand arraigned.

HEROD.

There was a charge preferred. Before I gave The charge a hearing I sent word to beg you Come hither, but in truth with no desire That you should counter it with your defence, Only because I think that of itself ’Twill lose its breath and die before your presence.

MAR.

To hinder that I should again begone.

HEROD.

What, Mariamne? You were never ranked Among those souls of despicable kind Who, when their foeman’s countenance or back Comes to first gaze, forgive and fresh their grudging Because they are too weak for genuine hate, Too tiny for the fuller, greater mood. By what then is your deepest so transformed That now so late you should companion them? What? When I left you had for me farewell And I had thought that this a claim would give me Upon your welcome. You deny me that? And you stand here as though the berg and vale Still lay between that kept us so long sundered? You step aback when I would come anear? Is’t then that my return is hateful to you?

MAR.

How should it be? Indeed it gives my life Again to me.

HEROD.

Your life? What word is this?

MAR.

You’ll not deny you understand the word.

HEROD (_aside_).

Can she then know it? (_To_ MARIAMNE.) Come!

[MARIAMNE _does not follow_.

Leave us alone! (_To_ ALEXANDRA.) You’ll pardon?

ALEX.

Ay!

[_Exit, followed by the others._

MAR.

So craven, then!

HEROD.

So craven?

MAR.

And also--how’s it nameable?

HEROD.

And also? (_Aside._) ’Twere horrible! I’d never quench it in her!

MAR.

His wife, free-willed, may grave-ward follow him, The headsman’s hand may thrust her under earth-- All’s one if he make sure she dies. He leaves her No time even for self-sacrificial death.

HEROD.

She knows it!

MAR.

And is Antony a man As I till now believed, a man like you, Or else a demon, as you must believe Since you’re in desperate doubt if in my bosom Some last lorn duty-sense, some remnant pride Would make a stand against him when, all dripping With blood of yours, he faced me as a wooer And made assault of storm to pass the time Which the Egyptian Woman leaves him free?

HEROD (_aside_).

But how? but how?

MAR.

At least he were compelled To have you dead before he came a-wooing, And if you feel yourself--I were not able To think it, but I see’t--so null a nithing That you despair his scale to counterpoise With the pure metal of your manhood’s worth In your wife’s heart, what justifies you then To hold my worth so light that you could fear Myself would never spurn the murderer back? O double insult!

HEROD (_breaking out_).

Tell me for what price You learnt this secret! ’Twas not lightly venal! A head was pledged me for it!

MAR.

O Salome, How well you knew your brother!--Question him Whose treachery told me what he had received. From me expect to hear no answer more.

[_She turns away._

HEROD.

I’ll show you quickly how I’ll question him! Soemus!

[_Enter_ SOEMUS.