Act 5 — Scene 8

Three kings from out the Eastern lands are here, They are with costly presents richly laden And at this very moment have arrived. Never were seen more strangely striking figures Nor garments of more wondrous kind than these.

Conduct them in.

I’ll tell him this at once. So long as they’re with him he will not think On her; and all is over soon with her.

O King, all hail!

A blessing on thy House!

A benison to all eternity!

I thank you. But methinks for such an hour The salutation’s strange.

Was not a son Born to you?

Me? Oh no! My wife has died.

We have no call to tarry here.

So there’s A second King then here?

Then there would be None here at all.

There’s here, beside your own, A second stem, it seems, of Kingly blood.

And why?

It is so.

Yes, it must be so.

Of that too I know naught.

In Bethlehem The stem of David still has left a shoot Remaining.

David was a King?

’Tis so.

Let us now go even unto Bethlehem!

But now it plants its seed alone in beggars.

I think it, else——

I spoke once with a virgin Of David’s house, Mary, I think, her name. I found her fair enough for such a lineage, But she was to a carpenter betrothed And scarcely lifted eyes upon my face When I made question of her name.

You hear it?

’Tis naught! We go.

You will then, ere you go, Acquaint me what has brought you hither.

Reverence Before the King above all Kings.

The wish Ere yet we die to view his countenance.

The holy duty at His feet in homage To lay whatever on earth is costly-rare.

Who gave you tidings of Him then?

His star! We journeyed not together and we knew Naught of each other, for our kingdoms lie To furthest East and furthest West, seas flow Between them, lofty mountains sunder them——

And yet it was the self-same star we saw, The self-same impulse that had seized our hearts; We wandered on the self-same way and met us At last together at the self-same goal——

Whether a King’s son or a beggar’s son The Child this star has lighted into life Will be uplifted high, and on the Earth No man shall breathe that will not bow to Him.

So speaks the Ancient Book as well! (Aloud.) May I Make offer of a guide to Bethlehem?

(pointing to Heaven). We have a guide!

Then good. And if the Child Be found, I prithee send to me the tidings That I with you may do Him reverence.

It shall be done. Now forth to Bethlehem!

It never will be done!

Ha!

It is finished!

She died, yes, died! But as for me, I have A still more fearful office to perform Than he who brought your word of blood to pass, For I must tell you she was innocent.

No, Titus, no!

(Stepping close up to him.) For were that so, you could not Have let her go to death.

No one was able To hinder that but you. It gives me pain To be against my will your worse than headsman, But if a holy duty yields the dead one, Whoever he may be, the rite of burial, Still holier is the duty from a shame To wash him clean if he deserve it not. This duty now lays law on me alone.

I see from all you say one only thing— Her spell in death itself was true to her. Why eats Soemus still my heart? How could he Resist this blinding woman in her life? Even in the dying flash she kindled you.

Goes jealousy the very grave beyond?

If I have duped me, if from out your mouth Some other thing than pity now were speaking Too deep by far not to be more than such, Then I must give you warning that your witness Helped to condemn her, that the duty-bond For you had then been this—to give me warning As soon as e’er the tiniest doubt had come.

But my word held me back, and, more than that, The unimplorable Necessity. Had I relaxed from her one pace, no further, Upon herself the deathly thrust were given. I saw the dagger hidden in her breast And more than once the twitching of her hand.

She wished to die; she must have done so, too. As much she suffered and as much she pardoned As she had power to pardon and to suffer. I have beheld her very innermost, Who more demands should quarrel not with her, Should quarrel only with the elements Which, willed or not, had been so mixed in her That she could go no further. Yes, but let him Show me a woman further gone than she!

She wished to have her death from you, and called The unshapen dream-child of your jealousy Into illusive being at her feast, Juggling her soul to death and all deceiving. I found that stern but not unjust. She stepped As mask before your eyes; the mask was destined To sting you till you pierced it with a sword-thrust.

And that you did and killed her very self.

So spoke she, but she spoke from vengeance so.

So was it. I have testified against her. How gladly would I doubt it!

And Soemus?

Upon the way that leads to death I met him, He entered on his own as soon as hers Had been accomplished, and he felt it balm To think his blood with hers should be commingled E’en though upon the block by headsman-hand.

Aha! You see?

And what? Perchance in stillness He burned for her. But if that were a sin Then it was his and never aught of hers. He cried to me:—“I die because I spoke; Else had I died because I might have spoken. For such was Joseph’s lot. He swore while still In death that he was innocent as I, I marked it.”

Joseph! Is he too avenged? Does Earth gape open? Do the striding dead Outface me all?

They do! But no, fear nothing. There’s one—a woman—still lies under earth!

Accursèd! (Commanding himself.) Be it so. If then Soemus Committed but a single crime against me,

Joseph, through whom this vulgar-souled suspicion Had filled him, Joseph fooled him even in death— Is it not so?—Why are you silent now?

Hot-foot he dogged her every step——

Ay true! But with intent to find the ripened time, No more, in which to carry out your charge Both her and me to murder——

Is this true? (To Salome.) And you, you?

Almost the self-same hour Why he allowed his mask fully to fall Had Mariamne ta’en on her the oath To give herself, if you returned not hither, A sacrifice to death. I hide it not. For doing so I hated her.

Oh fearful! And this—but now you tell this?

Yes!

I know This too. It was her latest word to me. But for a thousand years I had been silent, I would but clear her name, not give you torture.

Then—— (His voice fails him.)

Calm yourself! It wounds me too.

Ay, wounds You, her (to Salome) and everyone who here, like me, Has been the blinded tool of slant-souled Fate, But I alone have lost what on this earth Eternally will ne’er be seen again. Have lost! Oh! Oh!

Aha, Aristobulus, You are avenged, my son, and I in you.

What, triumphing? You think that I will now Wilt like a broken thing? Nay, I will not. I am a king and I will let the world

Feel it and tremble! Up now, Pharisees. Up with your rebel heads! (To Salome.) And you, why shrink you So soon from me? Why, sure, I’ve not yet altered My face, but on the morrow it may happen That my own mother shall be forced to swear I am no more her son.

Ah, if my crown Were set with all the stars that flame in heaven, For Mariamne I would give them hence And, if I had it too, this earthen ball. Yea, were it possible that I myself Living as now within the grave could lay me And ransom her from out her own, I’d do it! With my own hands I’d dig myself therein. Ah, but I cannot! Therefore have I still And fastly hold what still I have. That is Not much, but still a crown is part thereof Which now shall fill for me the woman’s place, And who makes grasp for that—One does so now; Why yes, a Boy does so, a Marvellous Boy— He Whom the Prophets have long been announcing And Whom e’en now a star lights into life. But, Fate, thy reckoning is sore at fault If thou, in trampling me with iron foot, A piecemeal thing, hast thought to smooth His course. A soldier I; myself will fight with thee And, as I lie, will bite thee in the heel. (Sharply.) Joab!

(In a contained voice.) You go at once to Bethlehem And tell the Captain there who’s in command To find the Marvellous Boy—Nay, he will not Ransack him out, not all can see the star; As for those Kings, they’re sly as sanctimonious— The children who within the bygone year Were born, he is to slay upon the spot. He leaves no single one surviving.

Good! (Aside.) And I know why! But Moses was delivered Pharaoh despite!

I’ll see to it to-morrow, To-day with Mariamne—(He collapses.) Titus!