MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS AS A WRITER OF TRAGEDY 121 



Stronger than her love for Herod, although it is of the sort which 

 "not time, absence, or age could ever touch," is the love she bears 

 her brother, who is more than flesh and blood to her, the incarnation 

 of the spirit of her ancient race, the crown of its past and hope of its 

 future : 



O thou art holy, child ; 

 About thee is the sound of rushing wings, 

 And a breathing as of angels thro' thy hair. 



So, when Herod, in submission to what seems to be irresistible politi- 

 cal need, causes the brother to be slain, her great love is quenched in 

 a greater grief: 



Herod, that love I did conceive for you, 

 And from you, it was even as a child — 

 More dear, indeed, than any child of flesh, 

 For all its blood was as a colour of dreams. 

 And it was veined with visions delicate. 

 Then came a sudden labour ere my time — 

 Terrible travail — and I bring it forth. 

 Dead, dead. And here I lay it at your feet. 



Then the goads of grief and jealousy skilfully utilized by Herod's 

 scheming mother and sister drive him to the deed which fulfils the 

 astrologer's prediction that Herod should kill the thing that most 

 he loved; for the dead brother demands his sister's death. Finally, 

 beneath the weight of sin and sorrow the king's mind is maddened, 

 and amid the wild foam of insanity he "clasps only this rock, that 

 Mariamne lives." As to wealth and dominion and power he has 

 achieved more than his wildest dreams; but he has "ransomed out- 

 ward victory with inward loss," and his last words before being 

 bound in catalepsy are a heart-rending cry that he will re-create his 

 beloved out of endless yearning. If Paolo seems to be punished for 

 his love, if the punishment of Lisle is real and heavy indeed, Herod 

 may be numbered with Othello and the few others whose retribution 

 has become a part of the world's moan of pain. 



In Ulysses we have still another phase of love; but it no longer 

 fills the stage as in the preceding plays. It is true that the storied 



