You hear how she answers me, this daughter of yours? HERODIAS She does right. Why are you always gazing at her? HEROD Bring me ripe fruits [_fruits are brought_]. Salomé, come and eat fruit with me. I love to see in a fruit the mark of thy little teeth. Bite but a little of this fruit and then I will eat what is left. SALOMÉ I am not hungry, Tetrarch. HEROD [_To Herodias._] You see how you have brought up this daughter of yours. HERODIAS My daughter and I come of a royal race. As for thee, thy father was a camel driver! He was also a robber! HEROD Thou liest! HERODIAS Thou knowest well that it is true. HEROD Salomé, come and sit next to me. I will give thee the throne of thy mother. SALOMÉ I am not tired, Tetrarch. HERODIAS You see what she thinks of you. HEROD Bring me--what is it that I desire? I forget. Ah! ah! I remember. [Illustration: THE EYES OF HEROD] THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN Lo! the time is come! That which I foretold has come to pass, saith the Lord God. Lo! the day of which I spoke. HERODIAS Bid him be silent. I will not listen to his voice. This man is for ever vomiting insults against me. HEROD He has said nothing against you. Besides, he is a very great prophet. HERODIAS I do not believe in prophets. Can a man tell what will come to pass? No man knows it. Moreover, he is for ever insulting me. But I think you are afraid of him.... I know well that you are afraid of him. HEROD I am not afraid of him. I am afraid of no man. HERODIAS I tell you, you are afraid of him. If you are not afraid of him why do you not deliver him to the Jews, who for these six months past have been clamouring for him? A JEW Truly, my lord, it were better to deliver him into our hands. HEROD Enough on this subject. I have already given you my answer. I will not deliver him into your hands. He is a holy man. He is a man who has seen God. A JEW That cannot be. There is no man who hath seen God since the prophet Elias. He is the last man who saw God. In these days God doth not show Himself. He hideth Himself. Therefore great evils have come upon the land. ANOTHER JEW Verily, no man knoweth if Elias the prophet did indeed see God. Peradventure it was but the shadow of God that he saw. A THIRD JEW God is at no time hidden. He showeth Himself at all times and in everything. God is in what is evil even as He is in what is good. A FOURTH JEW That must not be said. It is a very dangerous doctrine. It is a doctrine that cometh from the schools at Alexandria, where men teach the philosophy of the Greeks. And the Greeks are Gentiles: They are not even circumcised. A FIFTH JEW No one can tell how God worketh. His ways are very mysterious. It may be that the things which we call evil are good, and that the things which we call good are evil. There is no knowledge of any thing. We must needs submit to everything, for God is very strong. He breaketh in pieces the strong together with the weak, for He regardeth not any man.