The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde - Signet Classic & PDF

 Table of Contents Oscar Wilde Title Page Copyright Page Introduction Salomé Lady Windermere’s Fan The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People Appendix - The Gribsby Episode in The Importance of Being Earnest Suggested References READ THE TOP 20...

 Table of Contents Oscar Wilde Title Page Copyright Page Introduction Salomé Lady Windermere’s Fan The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People Appendix - The Gribsby Episode in The Importance of Being Earnest Suggested References READ THE TOP 20 SIGNET CLASSICS  Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 16, 1854. He was an outstanding student of classics at Trinity College, and, in 1874, entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize with his poem “Ravenna” (1878). An early leader of the “Aesthetic Movement,” which advanced the concept of “Art for Art’s Sake,” Wilde became a prominent personality in literary and social circles. His volume of fairy tales, The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), was followed by The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and The House of Pomegranates (1892). However, it was not until his play, Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), was presented to the public that he became widely famous. A Woman of No Importance (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) confirmed his stature as a dramatist. In 1895 he brought libel action against the Marquis of Queensbury; during the trial shocking revelations concerning Wilde’s character were made. In May of that year, he was sentenced under the Criminal Law Amendment Act to two years imprisonment with hard labor for homosexual offenses. Upon his release in 1897, he settled on the Continent, where he wrote his most powerful and enduring poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (1898). Oscar Wilde died in Paris on November 30, 1900.  SIGNET CLASSIC Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) 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First Signet Classic Printing, March 1985 Introduction copyright © Sylvan Barnet, 1985 “The Gribsby Episode” copyright © Estate of Vyvyan Holland, 1956 All rights reserved REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA eISBN : 978-1-101-07802-0 The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. http://us.penguingroup.com  Introduction A brief chronology of the life of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854- 1900) is appended to this Introduction: at the outset it is enough to say that by April of 1895 this Dublin-born writer had captivated the English-speaking world with his conversation, his lectures, his novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray), and his plays, two of which were running with great success in theaters in the West End of London. But his involvement with Lord Alfred Douglas (familiarly known as Bosie) and his subsequent conviction in April of 1895 for homosexual offenses with several young men of low social position effectively brought his career to an end. After his release from prison—the term was for two years—he wrote only one significant work, a long poem entitled The Ballad of Reading Gaol. As early as 1881 he had encapsulated his entire career in a sonnet entitled “Hélas,” which served as an epigraph to his Poems, Wilde’s first significant book. Glancing at the echoes of Milton, Shelley, and others in this volume, Punch said, “The poet is Wilde, but his poetry’s tame,” and it must be admitted that there is something schoolboyish in calling the epigraph “Hélas” rather than “Alas”; but the poem is wise beyond its years in its perception of the consequences of rejecting “ancient wisdom and austere self-control” in favor of a life subject to “all winds.” To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God: Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod I did but touch the honey of romance— And must I lose a soul’s inheritance? The sigh of the title and the note of self-criticism at the beginning are moderated in the last two-and-half lines, where Wilde, quoting 1 Samuel 14:27 (Jonathan’s confession that he has broken the fast imposed upon him by Saul), insists that his offense was slight and his punishment disproportionate. With hindsight one inevitably sees in the reference to the honey-tipped rod a phallic suggestion, but the passage must, of course, more generally be taken as concerned with the conflict between Christian asceticism and what Walter Horatio Pater (1839-94)—quoting this line of the Bible in Studies in the History of the Renaissance—spoke of as “the artistic life, with its inevitable sensuousness.” We will shortly return to Pater’s Renaissance, which Wilde read in his first months at Oxford and which he characterized as a book that had “such a strange influence over my life,” but it is worth mentioning here that Wilde as a playwright—especially as the author of Salomé—was also influenced by Pater’s Appreciations (1889), in which he read that a play “attains artistic perfection just in proportion as it approaches that unity of lyrical effect, as if a song or a ballad were still lying at the root of it.” With Pater’s assertion of the primacy of lyric over dramatic writing, compare a remark in a letter Wilde wrote shortly after being released from Reading Gaol: If I were asked of myself as a dramatist, I would say that my unique position was that I had taken the Drama, the most objective form known to art, and made it as personal a mode of expression as the Lyric or the Sonnet, while enriching the characterization of the stage, and enlarging—at any rate in the case of Salome—its artistic horizon.... The recurring phrases of Salome, that bind it together like a piece of music with recurring motifs, are, and were to me, the artistic equivalent of the old ballads. Wilde wrote Salomé in French, chiefly during a stay in Paris in the fall of 1891; he did not put the final touches on it until December of that year, after he had already completed Lady Windermere’s Fan, but we can nevertheless begin with Salomé in our effort to see what he contributed to “enlarging” the “horizon” of drama. There is no reason to doubt his assertion that he discussed the subject of Salomé at lunch with André Gide and several other French writers and, warming to his own conversation, returned to his lodgings, wrote for several hours, supped, and then finished his draft of the play. In time he submitted a French text to Pierre Louys and to other French writers for revision, but their contributions apparently were slight; we have Gide’s word that Wilde’s French was excellent. In the spring of 1892 Sarah Bernhardt was in London and asked Wilde to read the play to her. After hearing it, she told him she wanted to act the title role, and the play went into rehearsal. Public productions of plays in England, however, had to be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain, and Salomé was refused a license because it violated the centuries-old prohibition against portraying Biblical characters, a prohibition originating in puritan opposition to the old Roman Catholic mystery plays. (Not until 1968 was this statute removed, though it had ceased to be enforced several decades earlier.) The production of Salomé was therefore dropped, but the play was published in France in 1893; in 1894 it was published in an anonymous English translation, dedicated to Alfred Douglas, with a cover design and ten illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Salomé was first produced in February 1896, in France, when Wilde was still in prison. A Berlin production of 1902 was an enormous success, as was Richard Strauss’s operatic version, first performed in Dresden in 1905, and it is the opera rather than either the French play or the English translation that chiefly survives on the stage. The authorship of the English translation, by the way, is uncertain. Douglas prepared a version, but Wilde was dissatisfied with it; perhaps the anonymous version—which is often said to be by Douglas—is by Wilde himself, or is Wilde’s revision of Douglas’s attempt. (Henceforth, because I am talking about the translation, I will use not the French but the English spelling of the name.) No reader or viewer today is likely to be shocked by the mere fact that a Biblical episode is dramatized, but Wilde did indeed add to the story a shocking episode: Wilde’s Salome kisses the decapitated head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist). There is nothing of this in the Biblical sources, Matthew and Mark, or even in any of the later written versions, such as those by Flaubert, Huysmans, Heine, and Laforgue. In most of these versions, Salome (who is not even named in the Gospels) is a minor figure, the tool of her mother, Herodias. It is Herodias who orders Salome to ask for the head of John (he had denounced Herodias because after the death of her husband she had married her brother-in-law, Herod) and—in some versions—it is Herodias who kisses the head. Only in Wilde’s version does Salome kill John out of frustrated love and then kiss the decapitated head. J. K. Huysmans, however, in A Rebours (Against the Grain, 1884), had called attention to the sketchiness of the figure in the Gospels and suggested that she could be understood only by “brains shakened and sharpened, made visionary as it were by hysteria.” According to the central figure of Huysmans’s book, only the painter Gustave Moreau had “realized” Salome, had revealed her as “a monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning... all who came near her, all who see her, all who touch her.” Wilde’s sustained interest in perversity, or monstrosity, or criminality can scarcely be traced to any specific beginning, but he surely found in A Rebours some confirmation of this interest. It is worth looking very briefly at a few of Wilde’s remarks about the relation of crime to art. In an essay entitled “Pen, Pencil and Poison” (1889), about a man who poisoned several people, Wilde suggests that an artist of genius is scarcely subject to our ethical judgments. In The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) an aristocrat remarks that “crime” is to the lower classes “what art is to us, simply a method of procuring sensations.” And one can turn to a letter, undated but probably of 1885 or 1886, in which Wilde says: I myself would sacrifice everything for a new experience, and I know there is no such thing as a new experience at all.... Only one thing remains infinitely fascinating to me, the mystery of moods. To be master of these moods is exquisite, to be mastered by them more exquisite still.... There is an unknown land full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and poisonous. Or this, from an essay entitled “The Critic as Artist” (1891): People sometimes say that fiction is getting too morbid. As far as psychology is concerned, it has never been morbid enough. We have merely touched the surface of the soul, that is all. In one single ivory cell of the brain there are stored away things more marvellous and more terrible than even they have dreamed of who, like the author of Le Rouge et Le Noir, have sought to track the soul into its most secret places, and to make life confess its dearest sins. These, and many other comments, relate Wilde to the hundred-year-old romantic tradition of men who, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s words, “venture at times into the twilight realms of consciousness, and... feel a deep interest in modes of inmost being,” but the writer who especially influenced Wilde was Walter Horatio Pater, and it is therefore Pater to whom we should briefly return. Of Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873, retitled The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry in the second edition, 1877), Wilde said, according to W. B. Yeats, “It is my golden book; I never travel anywhere without it.” As we have seen, Wilde read it in his first months at Oxford, and he could hardly have missed the celebrated Conclusion, in which Pater argues that external reality, apparently so solid, so evidently there, is utterly elusive and is perceived differently by each of us—and which in fact each of us perceives differently at different moments:  At first sight, experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality.... But when reflection begins to play upon those objects they are dissipated under its influence,... loosed into a group of impressions—color, odor, texture—in the mind of the observer.... Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without. Every one of those impressions is the impression of the individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world. Wilde echoes this view in many writings, for example in an essay called “The Decay of Lying” when he says, “Try as we may, we cannot get behind the appearance of things to reality,” and in De Profundis, the long letter that he wrote to Alfred Douglas from prison in 1896: It is in the brain that everything takes place. We know now that we do not see with the eyes or hear with the ears. They are really channels for the transmission, adequate or inadequate, of sense impressions. It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings. What has this to do with Salome? One notices almost immediately that the moon in this play is perceived differently by the different characters. For Herodias’s page, the moon (in the second speech of the play) “is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman.” For the Young Syrian, to whom the page speaks, the moon “is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver.... You would fancy she was dancing.” For Salome, the moon “is like a little piece of money, you would think she was a little silver flower.” For Herod, the moon “is like a mad woman, a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers.” But for Herod’s wife, Herodias, “the moon is like the moon, that is all.” Similarly, when Salome sees Jokanaan, she says: Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains, like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judaea, and come down into the valleys, but a moment later, after Jokanaan rebuffs her, she says: Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered  wall where vipers have crawled; like a plastered wall where the scorpions have made their nest. It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things. In Salome, and especially when we are in Salome’s mind, we are in the “unknown land... where all things are perfect and poisonous,” the land of the mysterious brain in which “everything takes place.” The style, or styles, that Wilde uses in Salome might in part be described by a passage from Dorian Gray, where Wilde comments on Huysmans’s A Rebours, which he characterizes as “a psychological study of a certain young Parisian, who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own.... One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some medieval saint or the morbid confessions of a modem sinner.” Huysmans’s style, Wilde says, consists of “elaborate paraphrases” and “subtle monotony,” terms that can be applied to much of Salome. More exactly, in Salome Wilde often uses a style that is supposed to remind us of the Bible, with its repetitions, its lack of subordination, its unusual metaphors, and its catalogs. Here, for instance, is a passage from the Old Testament: Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, And here is Wilde’s Jokanaan, prophesying the coming of Christ: When he cometh, the solitary places shall be glad. They shall blossom like the lily. The eyes of the blind shall see the day, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened. The new-born child shall put his hand upon the dragon’s lair, he shall lead the lions by their manes. The real function of this style, however, is not merely to imitate the Bible but to isolate the characters. Often the characters seem to be captivated by their own sentences, compelled to go on and on, and, surrounded by Pater’s “thick wall of personality,” they often seem curiously unaware of other characters, “each mind [to quote Pater again] keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream world.” The opening passage, which we have already glanced at, in which the Young Syrian and the Page of Herodias comment on the moon is only the first of many examples: THE YOUNG SYRIAN. How beautiful is the Princess Salome to- night. THE PAGE OF HERODIAS: Look at the moon! How strange the  moon seems. She is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman. You would fancy she was looking for dead things. THE YOUNG SYRIAN: She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. You would fancy she was dancing. This is scarcely dialogue (an exchange of speeches) as any dramatist before the late nineteenth century conceived of dialogue. For another example of Wilde’s “Biblical” style we can look at part of one of Salome’s speeches to Jokanaan: It is thy mouth that I desire, Jokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate-flowers that blossom in the garden of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red. The red blasts of trumpets, that herald the approach of kings, and make afraid the enemy, are not so red. Thy mouth is redder than the feet of those who tread the wine in the wine-press. The tower of ivory, the pomegranates, the blast of trumpets, the roses, the kings, the wine and the wine-press, remind us of passages in the Bible; but even more important for Wilde’s purpose is the sense, conveyed by this style, that, as in Pater’s thought, Salome’s varying perceptions or sensations of Jokanaan are all that she can know of Jokanaan. There is also in this passage an incantatory quality (we remember Wilde’s pride in “the recurring phrases of Salome, that bind it together like a piece of music with recurring motifs”), which Wilde felt moved the drama toward music, in accordance with Pater’s dictum that “All the arts aspire to the condition of music.” In De Profundis Wilde speaks of himself as an artist “making beautiful colored musical things such as Salome.” Earlier playwrights thought that they were making plays, chiefly out of plot and character. The reference to “beautiful colored... things” reminds us that Wilde is, of course, also much influenced by the theories of the French Symbolists, which shaped not only lyric and dramatic poetry but also painting. Thus, in 1890 the French painter Maurice Denis— who was a close friend of the actor-manager who gave Salomé its first public performance—wrote words that were to become famous: “Remember that a picture—before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote—is essentially a plane surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order.” That is, a work of art first of all is an independent creation, not an imitation of nature. In some of Wilde’s comments on art, this comes to mean that subject matter is irrelevant and that art is chiefly decoration, but often the point is that a work of art is something designed to evoke feelings (and pleasure) in the perceiver. (I will return to this idea when I discuss The Importance of Being Earnest.) Thus, we come back to the passages on the moon: the different perceivers are not really describing the moon as it is, but are describing and conveying to us their feelings. Only Herodias sees the moon as merely the moon, and she is obviously the most vulgar person in the play, a person without, so to speak, a personality. Salome, somewhat in the mode of Medea, Lady Macbeth, and Phaedra, is a figure whose powerful feelings are essentially destructive; but if she is a femme fatale, she is, like other tragic figures, to be judged not chiefly in ethical terms or in terms of worldly success but in terms of intensity of feeling. Salome is shocking when she strips the veils from her body, but this act of revelation is a sort of prelude to a more important revelation, the revelation of her innermost being, when she fully bares her passion by kissing the severed head: “I love thee yet Jokanaan, I love only thee.” Although the comparison may sound outrageous, in a way there is a kind of analogy here with King Lear, who also strips off his clothing as his mental experience becomes more and more painful, more and more extreme, until we are left with nothing but his passion. The intensity—far more than the ethical quality —of the tragic figure’s experience is what makes the figure an object of awe in the eyes of the spectator. If we take Lear as a model and remember the tribute paid to this passionate man at the end of the play (“we that are young / Shall never see so much”), we can say that the tragic figure comes curiously close to subscribing to Pater’s remark in the Conclusion to The Renaissance, “Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.” Herod, like Herodias, of course survives; but he is presumably a broken man, a minor tragic figure (a sort of Creon, to Salome’s Antigone?) who must live with the knowledge that he has done a deed of horror. (For all of its apparent unconventionality, Salome embodies the basic irony of a conventional tragic plot. Characters passionately desire something—Herod desires to see Salome dance, Salome desires the head of John the Baptist— and they get what they want; but they must pay a price greater than they had imagined.) Herodias alone is triumphant in the world (she loses her daughter, but we feel that she is chiefly concerned with humiliating Herod); she is successful because she is the most trivial person in the play. If she is in some ways the most “real” person in Salome, she is to the artist and to the audience the least interesting. “Nothing that actually occurs,” Wilde wrote in 1884, “is of the smallest importance.” Given his esthetic views, Wilde might have said that no one who fails to feel intensely is of the smallest importance. Salome was not the first of Wilde’s nine plays. As early as 1880 he had written Vera; or The Nihilists, a tragedy about a socialist who falls in love with a young man who turns out to be the son of the Czar. Ordered to shoot him, she instead commits suicide. The young man succeeds his father, with promises of social reform, so Vera’s sacrifice is justified. The play is negligible as drama, but its political implications anticipate Wilde’s essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1890) and the social interests of some of the comedies. His second play, The Duchess of Padua (1883), in the tradition of Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge tragedy uses blank verse for the higher figures, comic prose for the lower, and all in all reads like a pastiche of Renaissance drama though it was seriously intended. But Wilde had already established himself as a literary personality, and especially as a witty speaker both at the dinner table and on the platform. His American tour, which occupied him during much of 1882, was a great success, surprising even to his agent. The idea for a tour originated with Rich rd D‘Oyly Carte, who thought that Wilde—regarded as the symbol of Art for Art’s Sake—would furnish good publicity for D’Oyly Carte’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience, a spoof on the Aesthetic Movement. Wilde, quite willing to exploit himself and to continue the role of the dandy already established in England by George (Beau) Brummel and Benjamin Disraeli, obliged by wearing a velvet jacket, knee-breeches, and silk stockings (this garb was strictly for American consumption) and by lecturing on art and household decorations—as well as on dress reform and on the revolutionary Irish poets of 1848. His important writing begins in the late 1880’s, and from 1888 to 1895 he produced most of the work for which he is remembered: stories, critical essays, a novel, Salome, and four witty plays—Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest. After his arrest, conviction, and imprisonment in 1895, he produced chiefly letters—including the enormously long one, De Profundis —and, in 1897, after his release from jail, the only poem of his that seems to have any popular reputation, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. It is to the comedies that we now turn. Wilde himself turned to this form at the suggestion of a young actor-manager, George Alexander, who, impressed by the witty conversationalist, urged Wilde to write a modern comedy. It should be mentioned that although there is no merit in the view occasionally suggested that much of the “poetic” language of Salome is intended as a parody, a few passages in Salome certainly were intended to be at least faintly amusing. A single brief example: “The Tetrarch does not care to see dead bodies save the bodies of those whom he himself has slain.” Lady Windermere’s Fan, written near Lake Windermere in the fall of 1891, combines Wilde’s comic gift with his interest in social issues. The play had its premier early in 1892, and though the critical reviews were mixed, it was a popular—which is to say a financial—success. The wit is evident enough even today, but the social commentary now seems so muted as to be almost invisible. We can begin with the wit. The chief epigrammatist is Lord Darlington, who says such things as “I can resist everything except temptation,” “[A cynic is] a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” and “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.” Lord Darlington by no means speaks all of the epigrams, however, probably because Wilde could not resist the temptation to make the play sparkle throughout. Moreover, fairly early in the play Darlington reveals that he has feelings: he is in love with Lady Windermere and seeks to persuade her to leave her husband. This means that he is no longer entirely suited to act the role of the witty, apparently dispassionate commentator on life, and so in large measure the wit is then assigned to others, for instance to Dumby, who delights us with such lines as, “The youth of the present day are quite monstrous. They have no respect for dyed hair.” Although wit, especially in the form of paradoxical and apparently unfeeling utterances, is an emblem of the dandy, the dandy is not to be regarded as a mere jester. He wears the mask of indifference, but he feels keenly. Baudelaire’s “Le Dandy” (1846), as well as other writings, had argued that (in Baudelaire’s words) “Dandyism is not, as many unthinking people seem to suppose, an immoderate interest in personal appearance and material elegance. For the true dandy these things are only a symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his personality.” And, Baudelaire again, “Dandyism is the last burst of heroism in a time of decadence.” Pater’s emphasis on sensation is not found in Baudelaire, but we have in both writers an emphasis on the individual, a person set apart from the trivial people who perceive the world in conventional terms. For Wilde, and for some other authors, the world is ugly and disgusting, made bearable only by a rigorous art—that is to say, by artifice. Unconventional but carefully arranged dress, like the shapely utterances of wit, is the symbol of this passion for the discipline of art. Hence we find Wilde writing “One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art,” and “The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered. ” The emphasis on artifice, though sometimes trivialized in Wilde, has a respectable history. The gist of the idea, as found in Baudelaire’s “Praise of Cosmetics,” is that nature is a fallen, wicked world (a view that has a respectable Christian history), and since we are naturally wicked it follows that virtue or the good is “artificial.” “Evil,” he writes, “arises of itself, naturally and by predestination. Good is always the product of a creative skill.” If for “creative skill” we substitute “carefully built-up civilization,” even “education” or “artifice,” we can see that the idea is not utterly preposterous, though Wilde liked to put it in forms that were more shocking. For instance, he wrote: “It is only the superficial qualities that last. Man’s deeper nature is soon found out.” And: “What art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.... Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach Nature her proper place.” Wilde, like some others who held that art is superior to nature, made the view visible in elegant and unusual dress, and in a studied. impassive manner—hence, of course, his costume and his sometimes heartless epigrams. But there can be no doubt that Wilde was genuinely concerned about social issues and that he saw esthetic appreciation as a way (he told his audiences during his lecture tour, when he spoke of “The English Renaissance of Art”) of creating a “beautiful national life.” Similarly, his reported comments to young hustlers on the beauty of naked Greek athletes probably were genuinely high-minded; indeed, his interest in these lower-class companions was partly rooted in his belief that the appreciation of beauty should not be limited to the privileged few. His remark, in the lecture on the renaissance of art in England, that “art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day,” is sometimes taken to be a manifesto on behalf of Art for Art’s Sake, but it should be understood in the context of his view that art sets a standard to which life—in this case ugly, commercial Victorian society —should aspire. Unlike those proponents of Art for Art’s Sake who see art as utterly independent of daily life, in his essays Wilde often sees art as a standard, an ideal to which life must aspire. In The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1890), his only sustained political essay, he argues that humanity is most likely to achieve its fullest development in a classless society that has abolished private property. Only under these conditions can life be beautiful. How much social criticism, we may ask, can one find in Lady Windermere’s Fan? A little in the epigrams, and perhaps a little more in the overall plot. Like A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere’s Fan has a woman with a guilty past (in A Woman of No Importance Mrs. Arbuthnot has had an illegitimate son), and the audience, along with Lady Windermere, is brought to see that such a person can be “a very good woman,” to quote the final line of the play. But these “social dramas,” or “social comedies,” or “society comedies” can scarcely be said to challenge society’s values, say as the plays of Ibsen’s do. (Translations of Ibsen were made in England in the 1870’s, and at least half a dozen of Ibsen’s plays had been performed in London by the time of Lady Windermere; A Doll’s House, for instance, was performed as early as 1889.) In Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lady Windermere begins as a sort of puritan, strongly condemning Mrs. Erlynne, but she learns two things: that she herself is capable of performing a guilty act (leaving her husband, abandoning her child), and that the despised Mrs. Erlynne is capable of performing a self- sacrificing act. And so Lady Windermere is moved to her final judgment that Mrs. Erlynne is “a very good woman.” The play might seem to merit the tide “The Education of Lady Windermere,” especially since the action is set, significantly, on her twenty-first birthday, the day she comes of age, but the more one thinks about it, the less satisfactory this reading is. Lady Windermere never learns that Mrs. Erlynne is her mother—a relationship that makes Mrs. Erlynne’s act of self-sacrifice somewhat less disinterested. And, more important, the play never vigorously suggests that indeed a woman may be justified in abandoning her husband and child. That is, Mrs. Erlynne looks on her early action, when she left her family, as a terrible mistake, and it is clear to the audience that Lady Windermere’s proposed flight from her family is similarly a mistake. After all, her daring action (luckily never completed) is based entirely on the mistaken belief that her husband is unfaithful. Lord Darlington, urging her to leave her husband, offers her his love and this encouragement: I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a great deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! Oh, my love, choose. She does briefly leave her husband, taking refuge in Lord Darlington’s apartment, but she is persuaded to return to her husband by Mrs. Erlynne, and since it turns out her flight to Darlington was in any case based on a misunderstanding (Lord Windermere has been constant to his wife), Lord Darlington’s unorthodox views are undercut. Any resemblance to Ibsen thus soon disappears. What Shaw rightly saw as “the technical novelty” of the new, Ibsenite drama was the scene of discussion toward which a play moved (e.g. Nora and Torvald sitting down to talk things over near the end of A Doll’s House), but the passage from Lady Windermere is spoken early in the play and the issue is never really analyzed any further. And as has been mentioned, though Lady Windermere at the end of the play takes an altogether different view from the puritanical speech quoted a moment ago, she does so in ignorance of the facts: Mrs. Erlynne’s past is still a secret unknown to Lady Windermere. In this play, then, the topic of infidelity is, so to speak, flirted with but never consummated. Scandal-mongering and hypocrisy are rebuffed, and a sinner is forgiven, but none of this represents a challenge to the settled views of the audience. A play that at first may seem, especially in Lord Darlington’s words, to challenge society, ends up, after some melodramatic moments, with all the usual values intact. The play never faces the question of what is the right, or even the duty, of a wife whose husband is indeed unfaithful. Lady Windermere’s Fan thus toys with social issues, especially with the double standard in sexual morality, but it remains in large measure a comedy (with melodramatic passages) about the usual stuff of comedy, misunderstandings. Although Wilde might have been surprised to learn that his play is conventional, he would not have regarded such a judgment as calling attention to a weakness in the play, and it does not: the job of a playwright, he would have said, is to create a work of beauty, not a work of social criticism. Here we can return to the role of the dandy held first by Lord Darlington and later by others, including (though it is not immediately obvious) Mrs. Erlynne. “Manners before morals,” she coolly says to the indignant Lord Windermere, thus summarizing the apparent creed of the dandy. Mrs. Erlynne has for the most part the admirable poise of the dandy, except when her daughter’s welfare is at stake, but in the last scene she outdoes herself: I suppose, Windermere, you would like me to retire into a convent, or become a hospital nurse, or something of that kind, as people do in silly modern novels. That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don’t do such things—not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate. No—what consoles one nowadays is not repentance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. And besides, if a woman really repents, she has to go to a bad dress-maker, otherwise no one believes in her. And nothing in the world would induce me to do that. No; I am going to pass entirely out of your two lives. My coming into them has been a mistake—I discovered that last night. Clever speech and reserved feeling here, of course, are the mask (to use a term from Wilde’s critical writings) that allows her to perform what in the context of the play is the best thing to do. There is no doubt that Mrs. Erlynne is to be viewed as highly moral. “I regret my bad actions,” she tells Lord Windermere, “you regret your good ones—that is the difference between us,” another statement that is thoroughly dandiacal in its flippancy and in its fundamental morality. If we judge Lady Windermre’s Fan as though it were a play by Ibsen, or even by Shaw, it of course seems weak, though in a few passages the play seems to invite comparison. LORD DARLINGTON.... Do you think seriously that women who have committed what the world calls a fault should never be forgiven? LADY WINDERMERE. I think they should never be forgiven. LORD DARLINGTON. And men? Do you think that there should be the same laws for men as there are for women? LADY WINDERMERE. Certainly! LORD DARLINGTON. I think life too complex a thing to be settled by these hard and fast rules. LADY WINDERMERE. If we had these “hard and fast rules” we should find life much more simple. In Earnest, Algernon will say “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” And Lady Windermere will, by the end of the play, come to see that Mrs. Erlynne—though a liar—is not simply (as Lord Windermere says) “a very clever woman” but “a very good woman.” The weakness of the play is not that it fails to offer new, Ibsenite values (judged by this standard, most of Shakespeare’s plays would be found wanting) but that we are asked to take seriously some unconvincing, melodramatic speeches, such as Lord Windermere’s at the end of the first act, when his wife tells him that if Mrs. Erlynne enters the Windermere house she will strike Mrs. Erlynne with her fan. She strides out, and we are left with Lord Windermere: LORD WINDERMERE (calling after her). Margaret! Margaret! (A pause.) My God! What shall I do? I dare not tell her who this woman really is. The shame would kill her. (Sinks down into a chair and buries his face in his hands.) Wilde took seriously the job of constructing a play. In his original version of Lady Windermere’s Fan the secret—that Mrs. Erlynne is Lady Windermere’s mother—was withheld until the last act. When the producer urged Wilde to let the audience in on the secret earlier, Wilde replied in a letter that to do so would “destroy the dramatic wonder” by making Mrs. Erlynne’s sacrifice natural rather than unexpected. After a few performances Wilde revised the play, putting the revelation earlier, but his original version, as well as many speeches in the final version, shows that Wilde was striving for melodramatic as well as for comic effects. That is, his comedy is cast in the form of the “well-made play,” the pièce bien faite as established by the French playwright Victorien Sardou (1831-1908), a cleverly plotted play with much suspense but little or no subtlety of characterization (the characters are more likely to be inconsistent than complex), a sort of melodrama with the fisticuffs left out. It can, in fact, be argued that Lady Windermere’s Fan is not really to be classified as a “comedy” but as a “drama,” though one with a good deal of witty dialogue. Wilde continued to work in this genre in A Woman of No Importance (produced early in 1893) and An Ideal Husband (produced in 1895), but he abandoned it for what can be called pure comedy in The Importance of Being Earnest (written in 1894 and produced in 1895). For George Bernard Shaw, reviewing the first production of what was to be Wilde’s last play, the piece was “rib-tickling” but lacking in “humanity.” For most readers and viewers, however, The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde’s greatest work, the only play in which, freeing himself from melodramatic claptrap, he wrote a delightfully intricate plot (the four lovers are sometimes partners, sometimes competitors) with consistently witty dialogue. It is, so to speak, a play that is pure play. In Earnest there is, to be sure, the motif of the long-lost child that is found also in Lady Windermere and in A Woman of No Importance, but in those plays the identification was serious, whereas in Earnest the discovery that Jack is the long-lost Ernest, who as an infant had been absentmindedly misplaced in a handbag and left at a railroad station, is unambiguously comic. In his review Shaw conjectured that Wilde had refurbished an early work written under the influence of W. S. Gilbert, a work, Shaw said, “almost inhuman enough to have been conceived” by Gilbert. Shaw could not believe that Earnest represented Wilde’s mature artistic achievement. Some twenty years later Shaw again commented on the play, calling it “heartless,” and attributing to Wilde’s “debaucheries” the lack in Earnest of the “kindness and gallantry” that Shaw found in Wilde’s earlier plays. He did not specify any passages or episodes, but we might agree that when Jack’s “I have lost both my parents” gets as its response from Lady Bracknell, “Both?... That seems like carelessness,” we are not in the realm of kindness or gallantry. And it is certainly true that whatever gallant statements occur in Earnest are undermined. Thus, after Miss Prism identifies the old handbag as hers, Jack exclaims, “Miss Prism, more is restored to you than this handbag. I was the baby you placed in it.” He goes on to call Miss Prism “mother,” and then, when she indignantly says, “Mr. Worthing, I am unmarried,” he heroically responds: Unmarried! I do not deny that is a serious blow. But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Cannot repentance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for men, and another for women? Mother, I forgive you. (Tries to embrace her again.) Out of context, a daring speech—though here not daring of course, but comic, since it is addressed to the prim Miss Prism. What, then, is the play about, or is it about nothing? Some readers see it as a variant of Wilde’s three earlier witty society dramas with their characters who try to conceal shameful secrets: They find, in this motif of a secret, a veiled allusion to Wilde’s homosexuality—a sort of ambiguous confession, or, rather, an ambiguous challenge to society, since his sinners are strong figures, modern versions of Salome, who also defies society. Something has already been said of Wilde’s view that the artist is a sort of brother to the criminal; to this it should be added that Wilde’s taste in sex included good-looking semi- criminal types whom he romanticized: “It was like feasting with panthers,” he wrote in De Profundis: “The danger was half the excitement.” But too much can be made of the view that the plays are daring revelations of a dangerous secret. Secrets are the stuff of much drama, from Oedipus (Oedipus has killed his father and married his mother) to the present, and they were especially common in the well-made plays of the late nineteenth century. It is easy enough to reject this view that the play is a sinner’s artful confession and thus an effort at self-exculpation, but is the play merely what Wilde said it was, something “by a butterfly for butterflies”? In his letters, where Wilde never hesitates to take his works seriously and to lecture his reader on them, none of the comments about Earnest suggests that the play is to I taken seriously: “The great charm of the play is in the dialogue”; “my play is really very funny”; and (as late as 1899), Earnest is “a fanciful absurd comedy.” None of this is inconsistent with Wilde’s statements, made throughout his career as a writer, that (to quote from “The Decay of Lying”) “Art never expresses anything but itself,” or, to quote the first lines of the Preface to Dorian Gray, “The artist is the creator of beautiful things.” This is much of a piece with Maurice Denis’s statement, already quoted, that a picture “before being a war horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote... is essentially a plane surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order.” But to this it can be replied that Earnest is filled with talk about important matters, such as love and marriage and divorce and illegitimacy, education, class relationships, appearance and reality, and death. How seriously does the play allow us to take these themes? Wilde subtitled the play “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” and he told a friend that the play has a “philosophy.” What was this philosophy? Wilde explained: “We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.” This is, of course, again the language of the dandy, designed to shock—but also, perhaps, to stimulate thought and to induce a new perspective. Perhaps the play is about exactly what its title announces, the importance of being earnest—even in play. Algernon says to Jack, “I happen to be serious about Bunburying. What you are serious about I haven’t got the remotest idea. About everything, I should fancy. You have an absolutely trivial nature.” Algernon is mistaken in his view of Jack, but the point here, reenforced by the title and by the end of the play, is that one must find something to be serious about, i.e. one must not live a mechanical, conventional life but must (in Pater’s words in the Conclusion to The Renaissance) burn with a “hard, gemlike flame.” In the earlier witty plays Wilde tried, at least in some passages, to be serious about the world around him, but this task (dare one say it?) was too much for him. The Soul of Man Under Socialism, where Wilde writes as a polemicist rather than as an artist, too clearly shows that Wilde was not in any reasonable definition of the term a profound thinker about matters other than the arts. In Earnest, however, he determined at last to be serious only about comedy, and he wrote a masterpiece. Perhaps, then, we can accept Shaw’s view that the play is inhuman without accepting his evaluation that it is therefore unworthy. (Elsewhere Shaw made amends of a sort, saying that he picked up his “passion for fun from Oscar Wilde.”) Again we are reminded of Pater’s Conclusion, where, after characterizing “success in life” as the ability to burn with a gemlike flame, an ability to get “as many pulsations into life as possible,” Pater says: “Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.” Salome burned with a gemlike flame, and presumably the play about her is supposed to induce in the spectator a similar intensity. In Earnest, Gwendolyn provides us with a delightful comic version: “This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.” Substitute Shaw’s “rib- tickling” for Gwendolyn’s “suspense,” and we get an intensity that surely Pater did not have in mind but that nonetheless has established the play among the great comedies of the world. A final, bibliographical point: Wilde drafted Earnest in four acts, but was persuaded by the producer to reduce it to three. Acts II and III were combined to form the present Act III, chiefly by the omission of an episode concerning one Gribsby, which we print as an appendix. The omission of this episode from the final version of the play is a real loss, but it should be pointed out that the four-act version is essentially a draft—it lacks much of the wit of the later, three-act version—and cannot by any means be regarded as the play that Wilde would have put on the stage if it had not been for the interference of the producer. The three-act version is the version that he approved for production and later (with the addition of small improvements in the dialogue) for publication. When in 1898 he prepared The Importance of Being Earnest for publication he knew that the stage version was far in advance of his earlier, four-act draft. For instance, in the manuscript (four-act) version Algernon’s “Now produce your explanation, and pray make it remarkable” is followed by these rather dead sentences: “The bore about most explanations is that they are never half so remarkable as the things they try to explain. That is why modern science is so absolutely tedious.” This passage appears also in the typescript of the three-act version, but it is crossed out there. Wilde continued to revise, even on the proofs he received from the publisher, and so in the published version we get something much more concise and much better: “Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable.” To regard the four-act version as authoritative, then, is to reject Wilde’s many improvements. But the loss of Gribsby is regrettable, and we therefore print the episode on page 191. —SYLVAN BARNET Tufts University Chronology  Salomé CHARACTERS HEROD ANTIPAS (Tetrarch of Judaea) JOKANAAN (The Prophet) THE YOUNG SYRIAN (Captain of the Guard) TIGELLINUS (A Young Roman) A CAPPADOCIAN A NUBIAN FIRST SOLDIER SECOND SOLDIER THE PAGE OF HERODIAS JEWS, NAZARENES, ETC. A SLAVE NAAMAN (The Executioner) HERODIAS (Wife of the Tetrarch) SALOMÉ (Daughter of Herodias) THE SLAVES OF SALOMÉ SCENE.—A great terrace in the Palace of HEROD, set above the banqueting-hall. Some soldiers are leaning over the balcony. To the right there is a gigantic staircase, to the left, at the back, an old cistern surrounded by a wall of green bronze. The moon is shining very brightly. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. How beautiful is the Princess Salomé to-night! THE PACE OF HERODIAS. Look at the moon. How strange the moon seems! She is like a woman rising from a tomb. She is like a dead woman. One might fancy she was looking for dead things.  THE YOUNG SYRIAN. She has a strange look. She is like a little princess who wears a yellow veil, and whose feet are of silver. She is like a princess who has little white doves for feet. One might fancy she was dancing. THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. She is like a woman who is dead. She moves very slowly. (Noise in the banqueting-hall.) FIRST SOLDIER. What an uproar! Who are those wild beasts howling? SECOND SOLDIER. The Jews. They are always like that. They are disputing about their religion. FIRST SOLDIER. Why do they dispute about their religion? SECOND SOLDIER. I cannot tell. They are always doing it. The Pharisees, for instance, say that there are angels, and the Sadducees declare that angels do not exist. FIRST SOLDIER. I think it is ridiculous to dispute about such things. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. How beautiful is the Princess Salomé to-night! THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. You are always looking at her. You look at her too much. It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. She is very beautiful to-night. FIRST SOLDIER. The Tetrarch has a sombre aspect. SECOND SOLDIER. Yes; he has a sombre aspect. FIRST SOLDIER. He is looking at something. SECOND SOLDIER. He is looking at some one. FIRST SOLDIER. At whom is he looking? SECOND SOLDIER. I cannot tell. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver. THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. You must not look at her. You look too much at her. FIRST SOLDIER. Herodias has filled the cup of the Tetrarch. THE CAPPADOCIAN. Is that the Queen Herodias, she who wears a black mitre sewed with pearls, and whose hair is powdered with blue dust? FIRST SOLDIER. Yes; that is Herodias, the Tetrarch’s wife.  SECOND SOLDIER. The Tetrarch is very fond of wine. He has wine of three sorts. One which is brought from the Island of Samothrace, and is purple like the cloak of Cæsar. THE CAPPADOCIAN. I have never seen Cæsar. SECOND SOLDIER. Another that comes from a town called Cyprus, and is as yellow as gold. THE CAPPADOCIAN. I love gold. SECOND SOLDIER. And the third is a wine of Sicily. That wine is red as blood. THE NUBIAN. The gods of my country are very fond of blood. Twice in the year we sacrifice to them young men and maidens; fifty young men and a hundred maidens. But I am afraid that we never give them quite enough, for they are very harsh to us. THE CAPPADOCIAN. In my country there are no gods left. The Romans have driven them out. There are some who say that they have hidden themselves in the mountains, but I do not believe it. Three nights I have been on the mountains seeking them everywhere. I did not find them. And at last I called them by their names, and they did not come. I think they are dead. FIRST SOLDIER. The Jews worship a God that one cannot see. THE CAPPADOCIAN. I cannot understand that. FIRST SOLDIER. In fact, they only believe in things that one cannot see. THE CAPPADOCIAN. That seems to me altogether ridiculous. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. After me shall come another mightier than I. I am not worthy so much as to unloose the latchet of his shoes. When he cometh, the solitary places shall be glad. They shall blossom like the rose. The eyes of the blind shall see the day, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened. The suckling child shall put his hand upon the dragon’s lair, he shall lead the lions by their manes. SECOND SOLDIER. Make him be silent. He is always saying ridiculous things. FIRST SOLDIER. No, no. He is a holy man. He is very gentle, too. Every day, when I give him to eat he thanks me. THE CAPPADOCIAN. Who is he? FIRST SOLDIER. A prophet.  THE CAPPADOCIAN. What is his name? FIRST SOLDIER. Jokanaan. THE CAPPADOCIAN. Whence comes he? FIRST SOLDIER. From the desert where he fed on locusts and wild honey. He was clothed in camel’s hair, and round his loins he had a leathern belt. He was very terrible to look upon. A great multitude used to follow him. He even had disciples. THE CAPPADOCIAN. What is he talking of? FIRST SOLDIER. We can never tell. Sometimes he says things that affright one, but it is impossible to understand what he says. THE CAPPADOCIAN. May one see him? FIRST SOLDIER. No. The Tetrarch has forbidden it. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. The Princess has hidden her face behind her fan! Her little white hands are fluttering like doves that fly to their dovecotes. They are like white butterflies. They are just like white butterflies. THE PACE OF HERODIAS. What is that to you? Why do you look at her? You must not look at her.... Something terrible may happen. THE CAPPADOCIAN (pointing to the cistern). What a strange prison! SECOND SOLDIER. It is an old cistern. THE CAPPADOCIAN. An old cistern! That must be a poisonous place in which to dwell! SECOND SOLDIER. Oh, no! For instance, the Tetrarch’s brother, his elder brother, the first husband of Herodias the Queen, was imprisoned there for twelve years. It did not kill him. At the end of the twelve years he had to be strangled. THE CAPPADOCIAN. Strangled? Who dared to do that? SECOND SOLDIER (pointing to the Executioner, a huge Negro). That man yonder, Naaman. THE CAPPADOCIAN. He was not afraid? SECOND SOLDIER. Oh, no! The Tetrarch sent him the ring. THE CAPPADOCIAN. What ring? SECOND SOLDIER. The death-ring. So he was not afraid.  THE CAPPADOCIAN. Yet it is a terrible thing to strangle a king. FIRST SOLDIER. Why? Kings have but one neck, like other folk. THE CAPPADOCIAN. I think it terrible. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. The Princess is getting up! She is leaving the table! She looks very troubled. Ah, she is coming this way. Yes, she is coming towards us. How pale she is! Never have I seen her so pale. THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. I pray you not to look at her. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. She is like a dove that has strayed.... She is like a narcissus trembling in the wind.... She is like a silver flower. (Enter SALOMÉ.) SALOMÉ. I will not stay. I cannot stay. Why does the Tetrarch look at me all the while with his mole’s eyes under his shaking eyelids? It is strange that the husband of my mother looks at me like that. I know not what it means. Of a truth I know it too well. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. You have left the feast, Princess? SALOMÉ. How sweet is the air here! I can breathe here! Within there are Jews from Jerusalem who are tearing each other in pieces over their foolish ceremonies, and barbarians who drink and drink, and spill their wine on the pavement, and Greeks from Smyrna with painted eyes and painted cheeks, and frizzed hair curled in columns, and Egyptians silent and subtle, with long nails of jade and russet cloaks, and Romans brutal and coarse, with their uncouth jargon. Ah! how I loathe the Romans! They are rough and common, and they give themselves the airs of noble lords. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Will you be seated, Princess? THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. Why do you speak to her? Oh! something terrible will happen. Why do you look at her? SALOMÉ. How good to see the moon! She is like a little piece of money, a little silver flower. She is cold and chaste. I am sure she is a virgin. Yes, she is a virgin. She has never defiled herself. She has never abandoned herself to men, like the other goddesses. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. Behold! the Lord hath come. The son of man is at hand. The centaurs have hidden themselves in the rivers, and the nymphs have left the rivers, and are lying beneath the leaves of the forest.  SALOMÉ. Who was that who cried out? SECOND SOLDIER. The prophet, Princess. SALOMÉ. Ah, the prophet! He of whom the Tetrarch is afraid? SECOND SOLDIER. We know nothing of that, Princess. It was the prophet Jokanaan who cried out. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Is it your pleasure that I bid them bring your litter, Princess? The night is fair in the garden. SALOMÉ. He says terrible things about my mother, does he not? SECOND SOLDIER. We never understand what he says, Princess. SALOMÉ. Yes; he says terrible things about her. (Enter a Slave.) THE SLAVE. Princess, the Tetrarch prays you to return to the feast. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Pardon me, Princess, but if you return not some misfortune may happen. SALOMÉ. Is he an old man, this prophet? THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Princess, it were better to return. Suffer me to lead you in. SALOMÉ. This prophet... is he an old man? FIRST SOLDIER. No, Princess, he is quite young. SECOND SOLDIER. One cannot be sure. There are those who say he is Elias. SALOMÉ. Who is Elias? SECOND SOLDIER. A prophet of this country in bygone days, Princess. THE SLAVE. What answer may I give the Tetrarch from the Princess? THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. Rejoice not, O Land of Palestine, because the rod of him who smote thee is broken. For from the seed of the serpent shall come a basilisk, and that which is born of it shall devour the birds. SALOMÉ. What a strange voice! I would speak with him. FIRST SOLDIER. I fear it may not be, Princess. The Tetrarch does not suffer any one to speak with him. He has even forbidden the high priest to speak with him.  SALOMÉ. I desire to speak with him. FIRST SOLDIER. It is impossible, Princess. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Would it not be better to return to the banquet? SALOMÉ. Bring forth this prophet. (Exit the Slave.) FIRST SOLDIER. We dare not, Princess. SALOMÉ (approaching the cistern and looking down into it). How black it is, down there! It must be terrible to be in so black a hole! It is like a tomb.... (To the SOLDIERS.) Did you not hear. me? Bring out the prophet. I would look on him. SECOND SOLDIER. Princess, I beg, you do not require this of us. SALOMÉ. You are making me wait upon your pleasure. FIRST SOLDIER. Princess, our lives belong to you, but we cannot do what you have asked of us. And indeed, it is not of us that you should ask this thing. SALOMÉ (looking at THE YOUNG SYRIAN). Ah! THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. Oh! what is going to happen? I am sure that something terrible will happen. SALOMÉ (going up to THE YOUNG SYRIAN). Thou wilt do this thing for me, wilt thou not, Narraboth? Thou wilt do this thing for me. I have ever been kind towards thee. Thou wilt do it for me. I would but look at him, this strange prophet. Men have talked so much of him. Often I have heard the Tetrarch talk of him. I think he is afraid of him, the Tetrarch. Art thou, even thou, also afraid of him, Narraboth? THE YOUNG SYRIAN. I fear him not, Princess; there is no man I fear. But the Tetrarch has formally forbidden that any man should raise the cover of this well. SALOMÉ. Thou wilt do this thing for me, Narraboth, and to-morrow when I pass in my litter beneath the gateway of the idol-sellers I will let fall for thee a little flower, a little green flower. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Princess, I cannot, I cannot. SALOMÉ (smiling). Thou wilt do this thing for me, Narraboth. Thou knowest that thou wilt do this thing for me. And on the morrow when I pass in my litter by the bridge of the idol-buyers, I will look at thee through the muslin veils, I will look at thee, Narraboth, it may be I will smile at thee. Look at me, Narraboth, look at me. Ah! thou knowest that thou wilt do what I ask of thee. Thou knowest it.... I know that thou wilt do this thing. THE YOUNG SYRIAN (signing to the THIRD SOLDIER). Let the prophet come forth.... The Princess Salomé desires to see him. SALOMÉ. Ah! THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. Oh! How strange the moon looks. Like the hand of a dead woman who is seeking to cover herself with a shroud. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. She has a strange aspect! She is like a little princess, whose eyes are eyes of amber. Through the clouds of muslin she is smiling like a little princess. (The prophet comes out of the cistern. SALOMÉ looks at him and steps slowly back.) JOKANAAN. Where is he whose cup of abominations is now full? Where is he, who in a robe of silver shall one day die in the face of all the people? Bid him come forth, that he may hear the voice of him who hath cried in the waste places and in the houses of kings. SALOMÉ. Of whom is he speaking? THE YOUNG SYRIAN. No one can tell, Princess. JOKANAAN. Where is she who saw the images of men painted on the walls, even the images of the Chaldeans painted with colours, and gave herself up unto the lust of her eyes, and sent ambassadors into the land of Chaldea? SALOMÉ. It is of my mother that he is speaking? THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Oh, no, Princess. SALOMÉ. Yes; it is of my mother that he is speaking. JOKANAAN. Where is she who gave herself unto the Captains of Assyria, who have baldricks on their loins, and crowns of many colours on their heads? Where is she who hath given herself to the young men of the Egyptians, who are clothed in fine linen and hyacinth, whose shields are of gold, whose helmets are of silver, whose bodies are mighty? Go bid her rise up from the bed of her abominations, from the bed of her incestuous-ness, that she may hear the words of him who prepareth the way of the Lord, that she may repent her of her iniquities. Though she will not repent, but will stick fast in her abominations; go, bid her come, for the fan of the Lord is in His hand.  SALOMÉ. Ah, but he is terrible, he is terrible! THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Do not stay here, Princess, I beseech you. SALOMÉ. It is his eyes above all that are terrible. They are like black holes burned by torches in a tapestry of Tyre. They are like the black caverns of Egypt in which the dragons make their lairs. They are like black lakes troubled by fantastic moons.... Do you think he will speak again? THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Do not stay here, Princess. I pray you do not stay here. SALOMÉ. How wasted he is! He is like a thin ivory statue. He is like an image of silver. I am sure he is chaste as the moon is. He is like a moonbeam, like a shaft of silver. I would look closer at him. I must look at him closer. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Princess! Princess! JOKANAAN. Who is this woman who is looking at me? I will not have her look at me. Wherefore doth she look at me with her golden eyes, under her gilded eyelids. I know not who she is. I do not desire to know who she is. Bid her begone. It is not to her that I would speak. SALOMÉ. I am Salomé, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judæa. JOKANAAN. Back! daughter of Babylon! Come not near the chosen of the Lord. Thy mother hath filled the earth with the wine of her iniquities, and the cry of her sinning hath come up even to the ears of God. SALOMÉ. Speak again, Jokanaan. Thy voice is as music to mine ear. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Princess! Princess! Princess! SALOMÉ. Speak again! Speak again, Jokanaan, and tell me what I must do. JOKANAAN. Daughter of Sodom, come not near me! But cover thy face with a veil, and scatter ashes upon thine head, and get thee to the desert and seek out the Son of Man. SALOMÉ. Who is he, the Son of Man? Is he as beautiful as thou art, Jokanaan? JOKANAAN. Get thee behind me! I hear in the palace the beating of the wings of the angel of death. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Princess, I beseech thee to go within. JOKANAAN. Angel of the Lord God, what dost thou here with thy sword? Whom seekest thou in this palace? The day of him who shall die in a robe of silver has not yet come. SALOMÉ. Jokanaan! JOKANAAN. Who speaketh? SALOMÉ. I am amorous of thy body, Jokanaan! Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judæa, and come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses of the garden of the Queen of Arabia, the garden of spices of the Queen of Arabia, nor the feet of the dawn when they light on the leaves, nor the breast of the moon when she lies on the breast of the sea.... There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. Suffer me to touch thy body. JOKANAAN. Back! daughter of Babylon! By woman came evil into the world. Speak not to me. I will not listen to thee. I listen but to the voice of the Lord God. SALOMÉ. Thy body is hideous. It is like the body of a leper. It is like a plastered wall where vipers have crawled; like a plastered wall where the scorpions have made their nest. It is like a whitened sepulchre full of loathsome things. It is horrible, thy body is horrible. It is thy hair that I am enamoured of, Jokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes, like the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites. Thy hair is like the cedars of Lebanon, like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their shade to the lions and to the robbers who would hide them by day. The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black as thy hair. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world that is so black as thy hair.... Suffer me to touch thy hair. JOKANAAN. Back, daughter of Sodom! Touch me not. Profane not the temple of the Lord God. SALOMÉ. Thy hair is horrible. It is covered with mire and dust. It is like a knot of serpents coiled round thy neck. I love not thy hair.... It is thy mouth that I desire, Jokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut in twain with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate-flowers that blossom in the gardens of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red. The red blasts of trumpets that herald the approach of kings, and make afraid the enemy, are not so red. Thy mouth is redder than the feet of the doves who inhabit the temples and are fed by the priest. It is redder than the feet of him who cometh from a forest where he hath slain a lion, and seen gilded tigers. Thy mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for the kings!... It is like the vermilion that the Moabites find in the mines of Moab, the vermilion that the kings take from them. It is like the bow of the King of the Persians, that is painted with vermilion, and is tipped with coral. There is nothing in the world so red as thy mouth.... Suffer me to kiss thy mouth. JOKANAAN. Never! daughter of Babylon! Daughter of Sodom! Never. SALOMÉ. I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. I will kiss thy mouth. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Princess, Princess, thou are like a garden of myrrh, thou who art the dove of all doves, look not at this man, look not at him! Do not speak such words to him. I cannot endure it.... Princess, do not speak these things. SALOMÉ. I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. THE YOUNG SYRIAN. Ah! (He kills himself and falls between SALOMÉ and JOKANAAN.) THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. The young Syrian has slain himself! The young captain has slain himself! He has slain himself who was my friend! I gave him a little box of perfumes and ear-rings wrought in silver, and now he has killed himself! Ah, did he not say that some misfortune would happen? I, too, said it, and it has come to pass. Well I knew that the moon was seeking a dead thing, but I knew not that it was he whom she sought. Ah! why did I not hide him from the moon? If I had hidden him in a cavern she would not have seen him. FIRST SOLDIER. Princess, the young captain has just slain himself. SALOMÉ. Suffer me to kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. JOKANAAN. Art thou not afraid, daughter of Herodias? Did I not tell thee that I had heard in the palace the beating of the wings of the angel of death, and hath he not come, the angel of death? SALOMÉ. Suffer me to kiss thy mouth. JOKANAAN. Daughter of adultery, there is but one who can save thee, it is He of whom I spake. Go seek Him. He is in a boat on the sea of Galilee, and He talketh with His disciples. Kneel down on the shore of the sea, and call unto Him by His name. When He cometh to thee (and to all who call on Him He cometh), bow thyself at His feet and ask of Him the remissions of thy sins. SALOMÉ. Suffer me to kiss thy mouth. JOKANAAN. Cursed be thou! daughter of an incestuous mother, be thou accursed! SALOMÉ. I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan. JOKANAAN. I will not look at thee, thou art accursed, Salomé, thou art accursed. (He goes down into the cistern.) SALOMÉ. I will kiss thy mouth, Jokanaan; I will kiss thy mouth. FIRST SOLDIER. We must bear away the body to another place. The Tetrarch does not care to see dead bodies, save the bodies of those whom he himself has slain. THE PAGE OF HERODIAS. He was my brother, and nearer to me than a brother. I gave him a little box full of perfumes, and a ring of agate that he wore always on his hand. In the evening we were wont to walk by the river, and among the almond trees, and he used to tell me of the things of his country. He spake ever very low. The sound of his voice was like the sound of the flute, of one who playeth upon the flute. Also he had much joy to gaze at himself in the river. I used to reproach him for that. SECOND SOLDIER. You are right; we must hide the body. The Tetrarch must not see it. FIRST SOLDIER. The Tetrarch will not come to this place. He never comes on the terrace. He is too much afraid of the prophet. (Enter HEROD, HERODIAS, and all the Court.) HEROD. Where is Salomé? Where is the Princess? Why did she not return to the banquet as I commanded her? Ah! There she is! HERODIAS. You must not look at her! You are always looking at her! HEROD. The moon has a strange look to-night. Has she not a strange look? She is like a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers. She is naked, too. She is quite naked. The clouds are seeking to clothe her nakedness, but she will not let them. She shows herself naked in the sky. She reels through the clouds like a drunken woman.... I am sure she is looking for lovers. Does she not reel like a drunken woman? She is like a mad woman, is she not? HERODIAS. No; the moon is like the moon, that is all. Let us go within.... We have nothing to do here. HEROD. I will stay here! Manasseh, lay carpets there. Light torches, bring forth the ivory table, and the tables of jasper. The air here is sweet. I will drink more wine with my guests. We must show all honours to the ambassadors of Cæsar. HERODIAS. It is not because of them that you remain. HEROD. Yes; the air is very sweet. Come, Herodias, our guests await us. Ah! I have slipped! I have slipped in blood! It is an ill omen. Wherefore is there blood here?... and this body, what does this body here? Think you I am like the King of Egypt, who gives no feast to his guests but that he shows them a corpse? Whose is it? I will not look on it. FIRST SOLDIER. It is our captain, sire. He is the young Syrian whom you made captain of the guard but three days gone. HEROD. I issued no order that he should be slain. SECOND SOLDIER. He slew himself, sire. HEROD. For what reason? I had made him captain of my guard. SECOND SOLDIER. We do not know, sire. But with his own hand he slew himself. HEROD. That seems strange to me. I had thought it was but the Roman philosophers who slew themselves. Is it not true, Tigellinus, that the philosophers at Rome slay themselves? TIGELLINUS. There may be some who slay themselves, sire. They are the Stoics. The Stoics are people of no cultivation. They are ridiculous people. I myself regard them as being perfectly ridiculous. HEROD. I also. It is ridiculous to kill oneself. TIGELLINUS. Everybody at Rome laughs at them. The Emperor has written a satire against them. It is recited everywhere. HEROD. Ah! he has written a satire against them? Cæsar is wonderful. He can do everything.... It is strange that the young Syrian has slain himself. I am sorry he has slain himself. I am very sorry; for he was fair to look upon. He was even very fair. He had very languorous eyes. I remember that I saw that he looked languorously at Salomé. Truly, I thought he looked too much at her. HERODIAS. There are others who look too much at her. HEROD. His father was a king. I drove him from his kingdom. And of his mother, who was a queen, you made a slave—Herodias. So he was here as my guest, as it were, and for that reason I made him my captain. I am sorry he is dead. Ho! why have you left the body here? I will not look at it—away with it! (They take away the body.) It is cold here. There is a wind blowing. Is there not a wind blowing? HERODIAS. No; there is no wind. HEROD. I tell you there is a wind that blows.... And I hear in the air something that is like the beating of wings, like the beating of vast wings. Do you not hear it? HERODIAS. I hear nothing. HEROD. I hear it no longer. But I heard it. It was the blowing of the wind. It has passed away. But no, I hear it again. Do you not hear it? It is just like the beating of wings. HERODIAS. I tell you there is nothing. You are ill. Let us go within. HEROD. I am not ill. It is your daughter who is sick to death. Never have I seen her so pale. HERODIAS. I have told you not to look at her. HEROD. Pour me forth wine. (Wine is brought.) Salomé, come drink a little wine with me. I have here a wine that is exquisite. Cæsar himself sent it me. Dip into it thy little red lips, that I may drain the cup. SALOMÉ. I am not thirsty, Tetrarch. HEROD. You hear how she answers me, this daughter of yours? HERODIAN. She does right. Why are you always gazing at her? HEROD. Bring me ripe fruits. (Fruits are brought.) Salomé, come and eat fruits with me. I love to see in a fruit the mark of thy little teeth. Bite but a little of this fruit that I may 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 a thief and a robber to boot! 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 in what regard she holds you. HEROD. Bring me—what is it that I desire? I forget. Ah! ah! I remember. THE VOICE OF JOKANMN. Behold the time is come! That which I foretold has come to pass. The day that I spoke of is at hand. HERODIAS. Bid him be silent. I will not listen to his voice. This man is for ever hurling 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. Also 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 face to face. In these days God doth not show Himself. God 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 all places. God is in what is evil even as He is in what is good. A FOURTH JEW. Thou shouldst not say that. It is a very dangerous doctrine. It is a doctrine that cometh from 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 dark. 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 can but bow our heads to His will, for God is very strong. He breaketh in pieces the strong together with the weak, for He regardeth not any man. FIRST JEW. Thou speakest truly. Verily God is terrible. He breaketh in pieces the strong and the weak as a man breaks corn in a mortar. But as for man, he hath never seen God. No man hath seen God since the prophet Elias. HERODIAS. Make them be silent. They weary me. HEROD. But I have heard it said that Jokanaan is in very truth your prophet Elias. THE JEW. That cannot be. It is more than three hundred years since the days of the prophet Elias. HEROD. There be some who say that this man is Elias the prophet. A NAZARENE. I am sure that he is Elias the prophet. THE JEW. Nay, but he is not Elias the prophet. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. Behold the day is at hand, the day of the Lord, and I heard upon the mountains the feet of Him who shall be the Saviour of the world. HEROD. What does that mean? The Saviour of the world? TIGELLINUS. It is a title that Caesar adopts. HEROD. But Cæsar is not coming into Judæa. Only yesterday I received letters from Rome. They contained nothing concerning this matter. And you, Tigellinus, who were at Rome during the winter, you heard nothing concerning this matter, did you? TIGELLINUS. Sire, I heard nothing concerning the matter. I was explaining the title. It is one of Cæsar’s titles. HEROD. But Caesar cannot come. He is too gouty. They say that his feet are like the feet of an elephant. Also there are reasons of State. He who leaves Rome loses Rome. He will not come. Howbeit, Caesar is lord, he will come if such be his pleasure. Nevertheless, I think he will not come. FIRST NAZARENE. It was not concerning Caesar that the prophet spake these words, sire. HEROD. How?—it was not concerning Cæsar?  FIRST NAZARENE. No, my lord. HEROD. Concerning whom then did he speak? FIRST NAZARENE. Concerning The Messiah who has come. A JEW. The Messiah hath not come. FIRST NAZARENE. He hath come, and everywhere He worketh miracles. HERODIAS. Ho! hot miracles! I do not believe in miracles. I have seen too many. (To the PAGE.) My fan. FIRST NAZARENE. This man worketh true miracles. Thus, at a marriage which took place in a little town of Galilee, a town of some importance, He changed water into wine. Certain persons who were present related it to me. Also He healed two lepers that were seated before the Gate of Capernaum simply by touching them. SECOND NAZARENE. Nay; it was blind men that He healed at Capernaum. FIRST NAZARENE. Nay; they were lepers. But He hath healed blind people also, and He was seen on a mountain talking with angels. A SADDUCEE. Angels do not exist. A PHARISEE. Angels exist, but I do not believe that this Man has talked with them. FIRST NAZARENE. He was seen by a great multitude of people talking with angels. HERODIAS. How these men worry me! They are ridiculous! (To the PACE.) Well! my fan! (The PAGE gives her the fan.) You have a dreamer’s look; you must not dream. It is only sick people who dream. (She strikes the PACE with her fan.) SECOND NAZARENE. There is also the miracle of the daughter of Jairus. FIRST NAZARENE. Yea, that is sure. No man can gainsay it. HERODIAS. These men are mad. They have looked too long on the moon. Command them to be silent. HEROD. What is this miracle of the daughter of jairus? FIRST NAZARENE. The daughter of Jairus was dead. This Man raised her from the dead. HEROD. Howl He raises people from the dead?  FIRST NAZARENE. Yea, sire, He raiseth the dead. HEROD. I do not wish Him to do that. I forbid Him to do that. I suffer no man to raise the dead. This Man must be found and told that I forbid Him to raise the dead. Where is this man at present? SECOND NAZARENE. He is in every place, my lord, but it is hard to find him. FIRST NAZARENE. It is said that He is now in Samaria. A JEW. It is easy to see that this is not the Messiah, if He is in Samaria. It is not to the Samaritans that The Messiah shall come. The Samaritans are accursed. They bring no offerings to the Temple. SECOND NAZARENE. He left Samaria a few days since. I think that at the present moment He is in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. FIRST NAZARENE. No; he is not there. I have just come from jerusalem. For two months they have had no tidings of Him. HEROD. No matter! But let them find Him, and tell Him, thus saith Herod the King, “I will not suffer Thee to raise the dead!” To change water into wine, to heal the lepers and the blind.... He may do these things if He will. I say nothing against these things. In truth I hold it a kindly deed to heal a leper. But no man shall raise the dead. It would be terrible if the dead came back. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. Ah! the wanton one! The harlot! Ah! the daughter of Babylon with her golden eyes and her gilded eyelids! Thus saith the Lord God, Let there come up against her a multitude of men. Let the people take stones and stone her.... HERODIAS. Command him to be silent. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. Let the captains of the hosts pierce her with their swords, let them crush her beneath their shields. HERODIAS. Nay, but it is infamous. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. It is thus that I will wipe out all wickedness from the earth, and that all women shall learn not to imitate her abominations. HERODIAS. You hear what he says against me? You suffer him to revile her who is your wife? HEROD. He did not speak your name. HERODIAS. What does that matter? You know well that it is I whom he seeks to revile. And I am your wife, am I not? HEROD. Of a truth, dear and noble Herodias, you are my wife, and before that you were the wife of my brother. HERODIAS. It was thou didst snatch me from his arms. HEROD. Of a truth I was stronger than he was.... But let us not talk of that matter. I do not desire to talk of it. It is the cause of the terrible words that the prophet has spoken. Peradventure on account of it a misfortune will come. Let us not speak of this matter. Noble Herodias, we are not mindful of our guests. Fill thou my cup, my well-beloved. Ho! fill with wine the great goblets of silver, and the great goblets of glass. I will drink to Cæsar. There are Romans here, we must drink to Cæsar. ALL. Cæsar! Cæsar! HEROD. Do you not see your daughter, how pale she is? HERODIAS. What is that to you if she be pale or not? HEROD. Never have I seen her so pale. HERODIAS. You must not look at her. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. In that day the sun shall become black like sackcloth of hair, and the moon shall become like blood, and the stars of the heavens shall fall upon the earth like unripe figs that fall from the fig-tree, and the kings of the earth shall be afraid. HERODIAS. Ah! Ah! I should like to see that day of which he speaks, when the moon shall become like blood, and when the stars shall fall upon the earth like unripe figs. This prophet talks like a drunken man... but I cannot suffer the sound of his voice. I hate his voice. Command him to be silent. HEROD. I will not. I cannot understand what it is that he saith, but it may be an omen. HERODIAS. I do not believe in omens. He speaks like a drunken man. HEROD. It may be he is drunk with the wine of God. HERODIAS. What wine is that, the wine of God? From what vineyards is it gathered? In what wine-press may one find it? HEROD (from this point he looks all the while at SALOMÉ). Tigellinus, when you were at Rome of late, did the Emperor speak with you on the subject of... ?  TIGELLINUS. On what subject, my lord? HEROD. On what subject? Ah! I asked you a question, did I not? I have forgotten what I would have asked you. HERODIAS. You are looking again at my daughter. You must not look at her. I have already said so. HEROD. You say nothing else. HERODIAS. I say it again. HEROD. And that restoration of the Temple about which they have talked so much, will anything be done? They say the veil of the sanctuary has disappeared, do they not? HERODIAS. It was thyself didst steal it. Thou speakest at random and without wit. I will not stay here. Let us go within. HEROD. Dance for me, Salomé. HERODIAS. I will not have her dance. SALOMÉ. I have no desire to dance, Tetrarch. HEROD. Salomé, daughter of Herodias, dance for me. HERODIAS. Peace! let her alone. HEROD. I command thee to dance, Salomé. SALOMÉ. I will not dance, Tetrarch. HERODIAS (laughing). You see how she obeys you. HEROD. What is it to me whether she dance or not? It is naught to me. To- night I am happy, I am exceeding happy. Never have I been so happy. FIRST SOLDIER. The Tetrarch has a sombre look. Has he not a sombre look? SECOND SOLDIER. Yes, he has a sombre look. HEROD. Wherefore should I not be happy? Cæsar, who is lord of the world, Caesar, who is lord of all things, loves me well. He has just sent me most precious gifts. Also he has promised me to summon to Rome the King of Cappadocia, who is my enemy. It may be that at Rome he will crucify him, for he is able to do all things that he has a mind to. Verily, Caesar is lord. Therefore I do well to be happy. There is nothing in the world that can mar my happiness.  THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. He shall be seated on his throne. He shall be clothed in scarlet and purple. In his hand he shall bear a golden cup full of his blasphemies. And the angel of the Lord shall smite him. He shall be eaten of worms. HERODIAS. You hear what he says about you. He says that you will be eaten of worms. HEROD. It is not of me that he speaks. He speaks never against me. It is of the King of Cappadocia that he speaks; the King of Cappadocia who is mine enemy. It is he who shall be eaten of worms. It is not I. Never has he spoken word against me, this prophet, save that I sinned in taking to wife the wife of my brother. It may be he is right. For, of a truth, you are sterile. HERODIAS. I am sterile, I? You say that, you that are ever looking at my daughter, you that would have her dance for your pleasure? You speak as a fool. I have borne a child. You have gotten no child, no, not on one of your slaves. It is you who are sterile, not I. HEROD. Peace, woman! I say that you are sterile. You have borne me no child, and the prophet says that our marriage is not a true marriage. He says that it is a marriage of incest, a marriage that will bring evils.... I fear he is right; I am sure that he is right. I would be happy at this. Of a truth, I am happy. There is nothing I lack. HERODIAS. I am glad you are of so fair a humour tonight. It is not your custom. But it is late. Let us go within. Do not forget that we hunt at sunrise. All honours must be shown to Cæsar’s ambassadors, must they not? SECOND SOLDIER. The Tetrarch has a sombre look. FIRST SOLDIER. Yes, he has a sombre look. HEROD. Salomé, Salomé, dance for me. I pray thee dance for me. I am sad to-night. Yes; I am passing sad to-night. When I came hither I slipped in blood, which is an evil omen; also I heard in the air a beating of wings, a beating of giant wings. I cannot tell what they mean.... I am sad to-night. Therefore dance for me. Dance for me, Salomé, I beseech thee. If thou dancest for me thou mayest ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee, even unto the half of my kingdom. SALOMÉ (rising). Will you indeed give me whatsoever I shall ask of thee, Tetrarch? HERODIAS. Do not dance, my daughter.  HEROD. Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, even unto the half of my kingdom. SALOMÉ. You swear it, Tetrarch? HEROD. I swear it, Salomé. HERODIAS. Do not dance, my daughter. SALOMÉ. By what will you swear this thing, Tetrarch? HEROD. By my life, by my crown, by my gods. Whatsoever thou shalt desire I will give it thee, even to the half of my kingdom, if thou wilt but dance for me. O Salomé, Salomé, dance for me! SALOMÉ. You have sworn an oath, Tetrarch. HEROD. I have sworn an oath. HERODIAS. My daughter, do not dance. HEROD. Even to the half of my kingdom. Thou wilt be passing fair as a queen, Salomé, if it please thee to ask for half of my kingdom. Will she not be fair as a queen? Ah! it is cold here! There is an icy wind, and I hear... wherefore do I hear in the air this beating of wings? Ah! one might fancy a huge black bird that hovers over the terrace. Why can I not see it, this bird? The beat of its wings is terrible. The breath of the wind of its wings is terrible. It is a chill wind. Nay, but it is not cold, it is hot. I am choking. Pour water on my hands. Give me snow to eat. Loosen my mantle. Quick! quick! loosen my mantle. Nay, but leave it. It is my garland that hurts me, my garland of roses. The flowers are like fire. They have burned my forehead. (He tears the wreath from his head and throws it on the table.) Ah! I can breathe now. How red those petals are! They are like stains of blood on the cloth. That does not matter. It is not wise to find symbols in everything that one sees. It makes life too full of terrors. It were better to say that stains of blood are as lovely as rose petals. It were better far to say that.... But we will not speak of this. Now I am happy. I am passing happy. Have I not the right to be happy? Your daughter is going to dance for me. Wilt thou not dance for me, Salomé? Thou hast promised to dance for me. HERODIAS. I will not have her dance. SALOMÉ. I will dance for you, Tetrarch. HEROD. You hear what your daughter says. She is going to dance for me. Thou doest well to dance for me, Salomé. And when thou hast danced for me, forget not to ask of me whatsoever thou hast a mind to ask. Whatsoever thou shalt desire I will give it thee, even to the half of my kingdom. I have sworn it, have I not? SALOMÉ. Thou hast sworn it, Tetrarch. HEROD. And I have never broken my word. I am not of those who break their oaths. I know not how to lie. I am the slave of my word, and my word is the word of a king. The King of Cappadocia had ever a lying tongue, but he is no true king. He is a coward. Also he owes me money that he will not repay. He has even insulted my ambassadors. He has spoken words that were wounding. But Cæsar will crucify him when he comes to Rome. I know that Cæsar will crucify him. And if he crucify him not, yet will he die, being eaten of worms. The prophet has prophesied it. Well! wherefore dost thou tarry, Salomé? SALOMÉ. I am waiting until my slaves bring perfumes to me and the seven veils, and take from off my feet my sandals. (Slaves bring perfumes and the seven veils, and take off the sandals of SALOMÉ.) HEROD. Ah, thou art to dance with naked feet. ‘Tis well! Tis well. Thy little feet will be like white doves. They will be like little white flowers that dance upon the trees.... No, no, she is going to dance on blood. There is blood spilt on the ground. She must not dance on blood. It were an evil omen. HERODIAS. What is it to thee if she dance on blood? Thou hast waded deep enough in it.... HEROD. What is it to me? Ah! look at the moon! She has become red. She has become red as blood. Ah! the prophet prophesied truly. He prophesied that the moon would become as blood. Did he not prophesy it? All of ye heard him prophesying it. And now the moon has become as blood. Do ye not see it? HERODIAS. Oh, yes, I see it well, and the stars are falling like unripe figs, are they not? and the sun is becoming black like sackcloth of hair, and the kings of the earth are afraid. That at least one can see. The prophet is justified of his words in that at least, for truly the kings of the earth are afraid.... Let us go within. You are sick. They will say at Rome that you are mad. Let us go within, I tell you. THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN. Who is this who cometh from Edom, who is this who cometh from Bozra, whose raiment is dyed with purple, who shineth in the beauty of his garments, who walketh mighty in his greatness? Wherefore is thy raiment stained with scarlet?  HERODIAS. Let us go within. The voice of that man maddens me. I will not have my daughter dance while he is continually crying out. I will not have her dance while you look at her in this fashion. In a word, I will not have her dance. HEROD. Do not rise, my wife, my queen, it will avail thee nothing. I will not go within till she hath danced. Dance, Salomé, dance for me. HERODIAS. Do not dance, my daughter. SALOMÉ. I am ready, Tetrarch. (SALOMÉ dances the dance of the seven veils.) HEROD. Ah! wonderful! wonderful! You see that she has danced for me, your daughter. Come near, Salomé, come near, that I may give thee thy fee. Ah! I pay a royal price to those who dance for my pleasure. I will pay thee royally. I will give thee whatsoever thy soul desireth. What wouldst thou have? Speak. SALOMÉ (kneeling). I would that they presently bring me in a silver charger... HEROD (laughing). In a silver charger? Surely yes, in a silver charger. She is charming, is she not? What is it thou wouldst have in a silver charger, 0 sweet and fair Salomé, thou art fairer than all the daughters of Judæa? What wouldst thou have them bring thee in a silver charger? Tell me. Whatsoever it may be, thou shalt receive it. My treasures belong to thee. What is it that thou wouldst have, Salomé? SALOMÉ (rising). The head of Jokanaan. HERODIAS. Ah! that is we