And can she not then with some show Of right demand your life to pay another’s That she imagines lost through fault of yours? Will she not set her daughter on to do it? JOSEPH. Salome! Ah, that comes of visiting The painter. Year on year fresh portraits of me She still demands. HEROD. I know she loves you dear. JOSEPH. The less her love, the better were my case. Had I the portrait of Aristobulus Detected when I--good then. She can soon Possess my latest, less a head. HEROD. My Joseph, A man protects his head. JOSEPH. When you have given Your own for lost? HEROD. That’s only half the trick. I’ll try to save it through the stratagem, That of myself free-willed I thrust that head Into the lion’s gullet. JOSEPH. Once luck helped you When the Pharisees---- HEROD. This is a sorrier case. But hap what haps to me it is my will To lay your destiny in your own hands. You always were a man, be now a king. I hang the purple mantle round your neck And proffer you the sceptre and the sword. Hold fast. To me alone you give it back! JOSEPH. What, do I understand you? HEROD. And confirm Your throne and life with it in certain tenure By killing Mariamne if your hear That I return not hither. JOSEPH. Mariamne? HEROD. She is the last bond whereby Alexandra Is knit unto the folk now that the flood Has choked her son; she is the gay-hued plume Rebellion’s helm will flaunt, the day whereon It heads against you. JOSEPH. Ah, but Mariamne! HEROD. Amazed that I----? I’ll make no false front, Joseph! My counsel’s good, is good for you; what need Of further words? yet, to be frank, I give it Not for your sake alone--Here’s the bluff truth! That she should with some other--I can’t bear it-- That would be bitterer than--I grant she’s proud-- But after death--and then, Antony-- And first and worst of all that mother of hers Who’ll harry on the dead against the dead-- You catch my drift, you must. JOSEPH. But---- HEROD. Hear me out! She led me on to hope that she herself Would deal her death if I----Tell me, can debts Be summoned in by proxy? ’Tis allowed Even by force--what think you? JOSEPH. ’Tis allowed. HEROD.