’Twere bootless, if I steered my cause myself, But Cleopatra does the deed for me, And, so I hope, will Mariamne too. Amazed? Fail not my meaning. Not in person; In such a case she’d rather turn on me. But through her picture, and not even through that, No, through another close resembling her. For as a wild wood harbours not alone The lion, but his foe as well, the tiger, So in the hot-bed of this Roman’s heart Ennests itself a wormy brood of passions Wrestling each other for the dominant place. And thus, if Herod builds upon the first I build upon the second, and I think That mine’s a lustier wrestler than its fellow. SAMEAS. You are---- ALEX. No Hyrcan, tho’ I be his daughter. But, lest you should misprise what I have done, I am not Mariamne either. If, To pave his way towards her, Antony Destroys the man that has her in possession, She still is mistress of herself and can Enwrap her in eternal widow-weeds. But this I hold for certain, that by now He’s laid his hand on sword and if not yet He’s drawn it, one sole point of pause detains him That this luck-minion among soldiers, Herod, Stands good to Romans for the iron ring That all things here with us together clamps. But once you furnish him with opposite proof, Rouse insurrection, stir the flaccid peace, And he will draw’t. SAMEAS. I’ll furnish easy proof! The folk’s already struck him dead in thought, They rumour that---- ALEX. Impress your seal thereon! Then swiftly open his last testament; You know the contents now, the fighting-games Stand at the head, and then when every man Believes him shortened of a hundred stripes Through Herod’s death, or of the torture-cross, Then each believes what he can dare believe. For there are things that loom o’er Israel Will wring from many a heart in its despair The wish of agony that the Red Sea Had gulfed the whole folk deep into its maw And the twelve holy Tribes and Moses first. SAMEAS. I go, and ere the midday comes---- ALEX. I know What you can work if you but take the sack-cloth And thread the lanes with wailing-cry of “woe!” As were your forebear Jonah here again. And you will find there’s service in the knack Of paying a chance visit to the Fisher And sharing Goodman Gaffer’s bite and sup From what he grants himself since no one buys it. SAMEAS.