SCENE 1

_Castle on Zion. A large Audience-Chamber, as in Act I. Throne and tribunal._

HEROD. SALOME.

HEROD.

An end, an end to this! The Inquisition I’ve ordered and will execute its sentence. I, I whom once each fever set a-shaking E’en though her maid-in-waiting it befel, ’Tis I myself that weapons death against her. Be that enough! and if your zeal not yet Allow you rest, it will o’ershoot its target. I shall be thinking that ’tis hate alone Speaks from your mouth, and you will meet as witness Rejection, though I shall admit as such Each several candle that has cast its flame, Each several flower that has shed its scent.

SALOME.

Herod, I’ll not deny the truth. I have Ere now spied on her faults and painted them With heightened hue as you enhanced the virtues That you discovered in her. Was the pride Flaunted upon your mother and me whenever She crossed our path, was this a ground for love? As being of a loftier race she bore her That never had awaked another thought Within my mind than this--“Wherefore exists The bulky book that tells the hero-deeds The Maccabeans wrought unto our folk? She bears the chronicle upon her face.”

HEROD.

Your will is to refute me, and you seal The sentence I have passed.

SALOME.

Nay, hear me out! ’Twas so, I’ll not deny it. But if now I’ve said more than I know and think and feel, Yea, if I am not moved by sister’s pity To lock the half of what I could have told you Even now within my breast, then may my child-- You’ll grant I love it well--as many years Live out as hairs are counted on his skull And every day as much of sorrow bring him As it shall have of minutes, yea, of seconds.

HEROD.

A fearsome oath!

SALOME.

And yet it falls from me More lightly than this word--“The night is black.” E’en though the eye were jaundiced, ’tis past credence That jaundiced eye were paired by jaundiced ear, Yea, and by instinct, heart, and every manner Of organ that is buttress to the senses. And this time all are tuned so fine together That they could never clash in contradiction, Yea, and had God upon that festal night Called unto me from out the heights of Heaven, “Say from what evil I shall give your earth Deliverance--you have the choice!” I would not Have named the pest, nay, but your wicked wife. I shuddered at her; she would taint my mood As though I’d reached a demon out of Hell Amid the pitchy black by human hand And he had met me with derision, stepping Before me in his proper shape of fright From out the stolen frame of flesh and blood And grinned and mowed at me through twisting flames. Nor did I shudder thus alone. The Roman, Yea, even the ironside Titus felt recoil.

HEROD.

True, true, and he weighs heavier than yourself, For just as he loves no one, he hates no one, And just he is like ghosts devoid of blood. Now leave me, for I am awaiting him.

SALOME.

I vow this dance shall never be forgotten In which, responsive to the music’s beat, She trod the floor as though she knew for sure That you lay underneath. By God, I would I were not forced to say it, for I know How inly you, who gave her mother, sister, And what not for her victims, must rebel. And yet it was so.

[_Exit._