HEROD My greetings, Princes. Freedoms of my realm Be yours. But this I pray you, when you find The Child indeed, bring me straight word of it. For I would worship also. JASPAR Peace be thine. _Herod goes down the stair, and pauses at the central landing, his spearmen and counsellors about him._ HEROD Dreams and seditions! When these kings return, These dark intruding Magi, with their babe, Bring them before me. They adventure far But I will send them on a longer quest. A COUNSELLOR Whither wilt send them, Tetrarch? HEROD Unto death. For all their dreams are treason ’gainst my house. COUNSELLOR And if they do not find the child? HEROD Still--death. For they have mocked me, searching. COUNSELLOR And the child? HEROD Hear ye my sentence: if they find this child, He dies. And if they find him not, but slip Out of my hands unrecompensed, then all Men children of this young child’s year, shall die, That he escape not. COUNSELLOR These be bloody words. HEROD I have my prophets too. Wouldst flout their law And mine? Set on. _Herod and his people move slowly down the stairways into darkness. In radiance above the center appears the Messenger Gabriel._ GABRIEL The watchers of the skies, God’s messengers, Keep ward upon this land to-night. The tyrant Speaketh true: the olden words shall fall Like blades of harvest on the innocents And Rachael weep, and weep uncomforted. So it is written. But the child they seek Dies not, but waits his agony, serene Amid the singing of the morning stars.