 | Queen Mariamne |  |
1
ACT I
Scene I
Jericho: the garden of the royal pleasure-house. In front a bathing-tank; above it terraces masked by balm-shrubs. A voice is heard calling:Mariamne! Mariamne!
Can she have slipped down from the parapet?
[Herod is seen through the branches.
Herod.
Or has she crept to the smooth tanks to breathe
The air of the water?
No, the bathing-tanks
Are guarded for some sport,
[Cries and laughter of unseen swimmers.
And there is congregation on the shores.
If she could know, if she could but conceive!
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Mariamne! Mariamne!
How often I evoke her to the echo!
Mariamne! Very oft
I call down to my soul to her, and there
She answers in abundance, as the corn
That the large waters woo to sudden tilth.
I would that she were only in my soul!
. . . On every element
I call to do her injury. . . . I love her
The way I hate a foe I cannot strike.
[The sound of laughter and cries is now close.
My Gauls at play!—
[To a boy, who rests on the edge of the tank.
Child, you are bathing? Child,
To watch your seats!
Aristobulus.
But I must rest a little.
Herod.
Lay your clothes on you; rest within my tent.
Aristobulus
(laughing and pointing to the Gauls).
Not while this rank of glittering teeth and eyes
3
Your Gauls can swim; they challenge,
Till I am turned to dolphin, or a boat
Shot by Phœnician skill to sea. Their challenge
Must have a royal answer. I must triumph,
Must I not, Herod?—or my royal blood
Were undistinguished in this drowsy pool.
I rest for safer triumph. Then to dive
Under the water and there hear the shouts
Of the people who applaud my art and worship
Outside my crystal walls!
Herod.
Are you a god?
I sometimes fear that you may be Apollo.
Caress me, O my dear!
You sail away?
[Aristobulus dives. Herod gazes out as if he had lost something.
Aristobulus
(reappearing at Herod's feet).
Ha, brother!—this my homage.
4
O plunged swan,
Is this your homage?
Dive down in the water!
You dazzle me too much.
Aristobulus.
I am scarcely breathed.
Herod.
No. . . . I would have you, all your beauty, held
Safe down in yonder crystal. I would hear
No more of homage, triumph, god or man,
Ambition, rivalry. I would stoop down,
And hear the pond lap over you, and know
Your sovereign, lovely body safe beneath.
Safe . . . Do you stare?
Ay, safe as gods are in their hyaline,
Assuaging and eternal, armed with distance
As with a silver mail. . . . Aristobulus!
A perfect priest and king for shawms to greet,
But in retirement, safe. . . . Aristobulus!—
And only mine.
[He bends above Aristobulus.
. . . You are her very image.
Why have the sons and daughters of old kings
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My wilful,
Why do you lie and rest so in the sun,
Idling your powers away?
[To certain of the Gauls, who have been following his every word and motion.
Dive, dive!
My Beauty,
Have you no breath for this?
. . . The smiling water
Must be your element—to play with it,
As birds play with the air around.
Delicious
The water and the musky scents!
[They remain still and enjoying.
Aristobulus.
See, Herod,
Your divers reappear.
Herod
(hastily rising).
You love the water!
I am jealous. Drink,
Drink of it till you are a very god!
[He watches the bubbles on the surface of the water, then climbs the terraces.
Close-covered as the dead be those I love . . .
6
Of my desire. . . . Death, death!
[His voice rolls out like a peal of low thunder in a radiant sky.
Scene II
Masada, by the Dead SeaAlexandra and Mariamne.
Mariamne is sitting listless. Alexandra approaches her with jewels
Mariamne.
I will not give him pleasure.
Alexandra.
Child,
He is parting from you; he may not return.
[Mariamne stares fixedly in a mirror.
What is it?
A bloom is on your beauty like the dew.
What is it?
[Queen Alexandra looks into the mirror.
Mariamne.
You behold!
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My beauty, my heart's fashioning, my jewel . . .
A little pale, fairer about the eyes—
My daughter!
Mariamne.
No—your son, your murdered son.
He beckons me each time I face the mirror;
He comes up from the water through the metal;
He shines distorted . . .
Alexandra
(clasping Mariamne).
Hush!
Mariamne.
He comes to me . . .
For we are children, for we love each other.
He tells me all his secrets; I have this.
My heart is with him. How can you forget?
Alexandra.
Child, you must come to take the scent of blood
As simply as it were the scent of roses.
Grow winsome to your husband, give him pleasure:
All sullenness in woman is defeat. . . .
[She draws her daughter again to her side.
How can you see down to the heart of things?
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Not one, if you would move soft-footedly
About the world and sway it to your will.
Listen a little. . . . You are hard, you took
No heed of Herod at the funeral. . . .
Mariamne.
That he should weep! He moved you by his weeping.
It is the ghosts that move me, and the ghosts
Alone that I can comfort. They are helpless
As children, and they cry to me; the old
Cry to me as the young—my grandfather
Murdered by Herod and my brother murdered.
Alexandra.
Child, you are very deaf to human sounds;
You are yourself a ghost, a mystery,
Almost to me who bore you, a dismay.
What would you have—revenge?
[Mariamne shakes her head.
Mariamne.
There, mother, deck me
With these long chains and chains.
[Alexandra adorns her with ropes of pearls and amethysts; Mariamne looks up at her mother and smiles.
How do men love?
9
They love a little while: they love but beauty.
Mariamne
(gazing into the mirror).
Oh, then, I have no fear: I am eternal.
[Queen Alexandra's face glows as Mariamne rises. Herod enters.
Herod.
Mariamne!
[He pauses, bowing profoundly to Queen Alexandra.
Alexandra.
Son, I have dressed her for you, have perfumed
And dressed her.
Herod.
You have dressed her as a queen,
Queen Mariamne.
Alexandra
(with deep obeisance).
I yield now my place;
And blessing on you, blessing!
[Herod bows again and watches the Queen retire, staring blankly as in a trance.
Herod.
Mariamne,
I have been musing. . . . How shall I bid farewell?
You are shaken. Speak!
If I died from you . . . and to Antony
I pass, to my extremest foe, to peril
10
[Mariamne is silent.
(Softly, in her ear.)
My flower! death may be painless, sudden, joyous,
A wafting into bliss.
Mariamne
(speaking as if from sleep).
There is drowning. . . . No,
I would not drown myself;
I would not you should order me that death.
Herod.
My flower!—your death?
I am thinking of my death and of your tears.
Mariamne, would you live
When my great love to you is dumb?
Mariamne.
I love
The dead so dearly!
Herod.
Could you mourn me, then,
Life-long, shut in this fortress of Masada?
Could you make all its walls a lamentation?
Mariamne.
I never shall lament the dead—my days
Were a long mourning if I mourned the dead.
Herod.
Beloved, my bitter-herbs, my sacred feast,
Be not too bitter!
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I have many tears:
My mother says that I must dry my tears.
Herod.
A smile, that is the shadow of a bird
In a deep pool—but still a smile!
Blest be your mother; I will leave you with her.
Mariamne.
She hates you: do not leave me with my mother.
Herod.
I will leave you with my sister, for she loves me.
Mariamne.
Salome? Does she love you?
Herod.
Sweetness of flowering vineyards on your voice!
My wine in flower, are you but flower? A dream?
[With a gesture toward the plain of the Dead Sea.
Desert acacias, desert spring!
O Mariamne!
[Round every hill and cranny the words are murmured in confusing mockery, until distinct in every syllable they are returned. Mariamne comes up to him and takes the fringes of his robe in her hand.
12
Yea, my lord?
Herod.
Mariamne,
Your touch—my cheek, my neck!
You shall not finger
The tassels of my tunic as a slave.
[Laying her head back on his arm.
O my Judæa,
I fable to your people I was born
Of Jewish race from Babylon—I fable!
Here, in the austere country of my fathers,
And with your tendrilled face upon my arm,
I do not juggle. I am a son of Esau,
Who has snatched back again his riven blessing
From Israel. O garden of your land!
If I should die . . .
I have never spared . . . Mariamne,
Can I spare? . . .
O garden of your land, is this surrender?
Is this thyself? Abandnoment of love!—
A swoon! . . . Salome!
Re-enter Queen Alexandra with Joseph
She is gone!
13
You have killed her?
Herod.
No.
Alexandra.
Lift the pearls back from her throat.
(To Joseph.)
Fetch cordials.
[Exit Joseph.
What have you done?
Herod.
'Midmost of my caress
She sank my arm . . .
Revive her, bring her back!
Alexandra.
Lift her, and let me take her to my lap.
Herod
(snatching a phial from Joseph's hand).
Dew on her, dew!
[He wildly scatters the cordial over her as if scattering incense.
Alexandra.
Let her not wake and see your face. My daughter
Is fragile, your embraces,
Herod, too fervent. See, her colour comes.
Kiss her as you would kiss a babe asleep . . .
Rise softly, very softly step aside.
[Herod kisses Mariamne, and then withdraws to the entrance of the room, where he whispers to his brother-in-law.
14
Joseph, you are her guardian. You reply
For her as would a common sentinel;
And as I have commanded be it done.
Joseph.
To the extreme of your commands, my lord
And brother. God be with you!
Herod.
God with her!
[Exit.
| Queen Mariamne | |