University of Virginia Library

SCENE X.

Herod enters on one side of the Stage, and Sohemus on the other.
Herod,
to Sohemus.
Will the Queen obey
Our order, and attend us?

Soh.
Sir, she comes
With much reluctance.

[Mariamne enters.
Her.
to Mar.
Did the banquet want
Variety, or elegance of art,
T'engage you to partake? If all our court
Had been alike abstemious, Death had miss'd
A rich repast!

Mar.
Death!—I can bear the sound:
Ill fate is grown familiar to my ear!

Her.
There let it meet your eye.
[She goes to the door which he points to.
O'er the black crime
How white a veil of innocence she throws!

Soh.
Her eyes glance indignation, now she finds
Th' invenom'd dart hath err'd.

Mar.
Poor Hazeroth!
Thy freedom costs thee dear!

Her.
You have been just,
In punishing the traytor's insolence;
Whom in excess of clemency I spar'd,
Because ally'd to you.

Mar.
Murther'd by me!—
So let the tiger sheath his savage fangs,
And for the mangled fawn implead the roe!—
To build my frame the forming pow'r infus'd
Too mild a spirit, in too soft a mold,
For such barbarian deeds.—Who wears the sword
That flesh'd in slaughter, levell'd to the dust
The royal stem, whence that poor scion sprung?
[Pointing toward Haz.
Who doom'd to death the hoary majesty
Of good Hyrcanus? Whose insatiate rage
Murther'd my royal father, and his son?
Bid fame to late posterity report
That Mariamne did it:—She destroy'd
Her grandsire, father, uncle, brother, all
Her Asmonæan race; and then constrain'd
Herod to wear the crown!—

Her.
So grac'd, to fall
A nobler victim to her vast revenge!

Mar.
Call your brib'd witnesses; they're useful paint
To varnish acts of arbitrary rage.

Her.
Why comes not Sameas?
[Exit. Soh.
Oh! how blest am I,
If heav'n preserves that angel-form the seat
Of innocence and truth: but much I fear
Too plain conviction; for thy dream reveal'd
This meditated crime: I heard thee cry,
The King is poison'd.—But attend the proof.