Avenge him then, Avenge him on yourself! You know right well It was the High Priest whom the shouting folk Ringed on his giddy pinnacle with joyance And that ’twas not the youngling Aristobulus Who brought upon himself the Thing that happened. Who was it drove the youngling, tell me that! Out of his old unthinking self-content? Surely he lacked not coats of many colours Wherewith to charm the eyes of pretty maids, And more he needed not for happiness. What should he do with Aaron’s priestly mantle You still must hang about him to his surfeit? And of himself he had no other thought Than “Does it suit me well?” But others deemed him Straight from the very moment it was donned The second Head of Israel; and you Had swift success himself so to befool That his puffed mind must think him first and sole. ALEX. ’Tis blasphemy ’gainst him and me! MAR. ’Tis none! For if this youngling, who it seemed had birth To show the world her first-born happy man, If he so swift, so dark an end has found, And if the man who, when his sword’s once drawn Shames every other man into a woman, If he--I know not if ’twas he, but fear it,-- Then, true, ambition, lust for power are cause, But not ambition that the Dead One hugged And not the lust for power that plagues the King. I’ll not accuse you--’twould beseem me ill-- But, to requite your sending of a ghost, A bloody ghost, into our marriage-chamber, I will not see you shed the tear of rue Though now we twain no more are side by side And, for the Third, it wilders so my sense That I am dumb when it were well to speak And speak when it were better to be dumb. Nay, nay, I will not quench your vengeful thirst Nor ask what you avenge--your plans or son. Do what you will! go further, check your foot-- Only, be well assured of this--the barb That reaches Herod reaches Mariamne! The oath that I withheld and he demanded In leaving me, I swear it now! I perish If he should perish! Act then, speak no more! ALEX. Then perish! Now! For---- MAR.