John the Baptist: A Play Part 15

THE PALACE CAPTAIN

[_Bows._]

HERODIAS

Go, set watches at every door. Who entereth goeth not out again.... And keep silent.

THE PALACE CAPTAIN

One has but to see thee to know that thou art the mistress.... How should I not be silent? [_Goes to the door._]

SCENE IV

_The same. Herod, Gabalos, Merokles, Jabad. The Palace Captain_ [_exit when the others enter_].

HEROD

Princess, after waiting even the s.p.a.ce of a moment, a man will enjoy his favours to the full.... Therefore ... [_Kisses her on brow and mouth._] Pardon!

HERODIAS

Thou hast rested; art refreshed?

HEROD

That question thou oughtst not to ask me. My father was one of those men who never knew what weariness was. So his son, likewise, parts company with his pillow betimes, and---- [_He observes Salome who, with her veil slightly lifted, looks down from the balcony, and after she sees that he has noticed her, vanishes._]

HERODIAS

Thou art silent.

HEROD

Thy daughter is not with thee?

HERODIAS

[_Dryly._] No.

HEROD

[_Bows his head, smiling._] Allow me, Princess ... to present these friends.... I will not call them servants, for such they are not.

MEROKLES

Oh, mistress, they are servants whom thou mayest safely make thy friends.

JABAD

And they are friends in order that they may serve thee.

GABALOS

And are amply rewarded for both, great mistress.

HEROD

[_Smiling._] This rascal, whose Syrian dialect thou art now acquainted with for the first time, is Gabalos from Antioch. Thou seest, I tolerate his jesting.

GABALOS

For Herod the Great also kept a Fool.

HERODIAS

And people say that he acquired a second Fool before he let the first drown.

GABALOS

[_Bows, smiling, then turns aside with a grimace._]

HEROD

This is Merokles, the rhetorician. His voice carries far. It is heard in Rome, when folks there would overhear my own.

MEROKLES

But I shall take no satisfaction in that voice till it may greet thee, mistress, with the cry "Hail to thee, O Queen!"

HERODIAS

[_Winces, then smiles and exchanges a glance with Herod._]

MEROKLES

[_Sotto voce, joining Gabalos._] Thou madest a good hit; I a better.

HEROD

And in contrast to this cool flatterer, here is Jabad the Levite, my guide and my conscience ever since I set foot on Jewish soil. For, by Bacchus, he knows exactly what I have to do, every moment, in order to be pious, after the manner of my pious people.

GABALOS

[_Sotto voce._] He acts as if he had forgotten the way.

MEROKLES