SCENE 7

SALOME. ALEXANDRA. TITUS.

_Afterwards_, MARIAMNE.

ALEX.

Titus, you notice how my daughter’s mourning.

TITUS.

’Twould seem she has some new despatch from Herod.

ALEX.

Despatch that all is over with him, yes!

TITUS (_watching_ MARIAMNE).

She dances!

ALEX.

Less like widow than like bride! Titus, until to-day she’s worn a mask, And mark you this, not she alone has done’t.

TITUS.

Well for her! She’ll not change from what she is, For if she ranks her with the foes of Herod She will not share the pangs his friends must suffer.

ALEX.

And to prove that she gives, you see, this feast.

[_Moves away from_ TITUS.

TITUS.

Oh what a shudder takes me at these women! One, plotting at a hero, whom she first With hoodwink-kisses lulled to lying peace, Hews off his head in sleep; the other dances, Merely to keep firm hands upon the crown, Like one possessed upon her husband’s grave. And sure I was invited this to see.

[_Watches_ MARIAMNE _again_.

Yes, yes, I see’t. In Rome she’ll have my witness! But here I drink no single drop of wine.

SALOME.

What say you, Titus? Stands it with the King In such ill plight that she may now dare all?

TITUS.

If he’s not straightway given Octavian His turncoat loyalty and helped to deal The home-thrust ere his fall at Antony, And that I must misdoubt, it stands not well.

SALOME.

Oh, if he had but done it! If her head Be kept to her, I know not why the Lord Gave o’er the blood of hot-eyed Jezebel For dogs to lick.

[_She is lost among the others._

TITUS.

She dances still, and yet Seems forced in mien and mood. She should be glowing And yet is blanched as though, enchained in musing, She did some other thing, and sleepy-willed Followed the dancing. Then it seems this Judith Brought not her work unanguished to the full. Ay, and the last kiss given by her husband, She here and now disowns with pompous show, Must leave upon her lips the cling of feeling. She’s not yet even seen him dead--She comes!

[MARIAMNE _appears again_. ALEXANDRA _and_ SOEMUS _follow her_.

ALEX. (_to_ MARIAMNE).

I spoke with Titus.

[MARIAMNE _suddenly turns and sees her image in a mirror_.

MAR.

Ha!

ALEX.

What ails you, then?

MAR.

’Twas thus I saw myself but late in dream-- This was the cause, then, why I could not rest me Till that lost ruby came again to light That now casts from my breast such dusky glimmer-- The image had been flaw-marred lacking it! On this the last treads hot----

ALEX.

Come to yourself!

MAR.

Nay, let me be! A mirror just like this, At first with glazy muffle, as o’erbreathed By living lips; then, like the pictures which It showed in linked procession, softly clearing And lastly luminant as polished steel. I saw my life in sum. First I appeared As child in light of roses tender-ambient Of ever redder, ever darker hue. But then the features, though my own, were strange And only in the third-changed scene I knew Myself in such an all too youthful face. And now there came the Virgin and the moment When Herod took me to the flowery garden, Bearing me company, and flattering spoke:-- “There’s none so fair she would not need to pluck The lily of your hand.” Ha, be he cursed That he forgot so full, so full! And then It all grew eerie, and against my will I saw the future, saw me thus and thus And lastly as I stand here. (_To_ ALEXANDRA.) Is it then Not passing strange if dreams step into life? Again the gleaming mirror overmisted, The light grew ashen-coloured and myself, So shortly since a blooming creature, blanched As though beneath the splendour of this garb My every vein had long been stilly bleeding. A shudder gripped me, and I cried “I come now As skull and bones and that I will not see!” And then I turned away--

[_She turns away from the mirror._

VOICES IN THE BACKGROUND.

The King!

[_General stir._

ALEX.

Who? who?