- Enter Herod, Herodias, and everyone else in the court.
- Herod demands to know where Salomé is.
- Herodias tells him to stop looking at Salomé.
- Herod looks up at the moon. He thinks it looks strange, like a "mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers" (173). She is naked, he says, and will not let the clouds clothe her; she reels like a drunk, he says, like a mad woman.
- Herodias tells him that the moon is the moon and nothing more. (Finally, someone's telling it like it is.) She wants to get out of there.
- Herod insists on staying there. He tells a servant to lay down some carpets, put down a table, and light some torches. He wants to entertain the ambassadors of Caesar, he says, but Herodias knows that's not really what he wants to do.
- While calling out to Herodias, Herod slips in blood. Suddenly, he notices the body of the Syrian, which is just lying there.
- He flips out and demands to know what's going on.
- The soldiers explain that it's the body of their captain. Herod doesn't understand; he didn't ask for the guy to be killed.
- The soldiers explain that he killed himself for…reasons.
- Herod is confused. He was under the impression that only "Roman philosophers" killed themselves. He turns to Tigellinus, one of the Roman ambassadors, for confirmation.
- Tigellinus explains that, yes, the Stoic philosophers sometimes kill themselves, but that they're just ridiculous people.
- Herod agrees; it's ridiculous to kill yourself. Tigellinus continues, saying that everyone in Rome laughs at the Stoics, and that the Emperor has even written a satire making fun of them.
- Herod eats this up; he loves Caesar. Still, he's peeved by the Syrian's suicide; he's sorry to hear that he's killed himself. He recalls the Syrian being very attractive, and that he often looked longingly at Salomé…perhaps too longingly.
- Herodias says that she knows some others who look too longingly at Salomé. Hint hint.
- Herod tells them that the Syrian's father was a king, a king that he, Herod, deposed; his mother became Herodias' slave, and the Syrian himself became Herod's guest.
- After going on a bit longer, he tells the soldiers to remove the body. Isn't it windy here? he says.
- No, it's not windy at all, Herodias says.
- Herod insists that it's windy; he even hears something that sounds like the "beating of vast wings" (171).
- Herodias tells him that it's nothing, that he must be ill, and asks him to go back inside.
- Herod tells her that he's not the one that's ill; Salomé is the one who looks pale and sick.
- Herodias tells Herod to stop looking at Salomé.
- Herod calls Salomé over and asks her to have some wine; she tells him she's not thirsty. When he asks her to have some fruit, she says she's not hungry.
- Herod accuses Herodias of bringing her daughter up poorly. Herodias tells Herod she and her daughter come from royal stock and that he was the son of a camel driver. They squabble.
- Herod tells Salomé to come sit next to him.
- Jokanaan cries out. "That which I foretold," he says, "has come to pass" (211).
- Herodias tells Herod to shut Jokanaan up. Herod tells her that he is a great prophet, and that he has done nothing against her.
- Herodias says that she doesn't believe in prophets. Men can't tell the future, she says. Also, he insults her all the time. She doesn't like that. She accuses Herod of being afraid of Jokanaan.
- Herod tells her he isn't.
- Then why haven't you turned him over to the Jews, she asks, who have been "clamouring for him?" (216).
- A Jew confirms that, yeah, he and his people think it would be best if they had custody of Jokanaan.
- Herod tells them to quiet down; he's already made his decision and he's sticking to it. Anyway, he's a kind man, a man "who has seen God" (218).
- The Jew isn't so sure about that. No man, he says, has seen God since the prophet Elias. These days God doesn't show himself, he says.
- Another Jew comes over and adds that nobody really knows if Elias even saw God; heck, some people think he only saw God's shadow.
- A third Jew comes over and says his piece. God, he thinks, is never hidden, is in fact always showing himself everywhere.
- A fourth Jew says that kind of talk is dangerous, based on Greek thought—and the Greeks aren't circumcised, let alone Jewish.
- A fifth Jew comes over and says, well, nobody knows how God works. Nobody knows what's evil or good; no one knows anything at all really, except that God is strong, and that he has power over every man, strong and weak.
- The first Jew agrees: God is terrible, terribly strong. But no man has seen God, he adds, not since the prophet Elias.
- Herodias tells Herod to make them all shut up.
- Herod tells them that he has heard that Jokanaan really is Elias.
- The Jew says, no way, the prophet Elias was around 300 years ago.
- Yes, Herod says, but there are some who claim he's the prophet Elias.
- A Nazarene—a guy from the town of Nazareth—comes over. He's sure Jokanaan is the prophet Elias.
- Jokanaan cries out again: the day of the Lord is at hand, he says. "I heard upon the mountains," he says, "the feet of Him who shall be the Saviour of the world" (231).
- Herod doesn't understand the meaning of the phrase "Saviour of the world."
- Tigellinus tells him that Caesar uses that title.
- Herod is confused. He hasn't heard anything about Caesar coming to Judæa, either by letter or from Tigellinus.
- Tigellinus has no answers.
- Herod is still confused. Caesar is too gouty to come all the way to Judæa; and he can't leave Rome if he wants to stay in power. As much as he'd like to see Caesar, there's no way he's coming to visit.
- The Nazarene tells them that Jokanaan isn't talking about Caesar. Herod is still confused. The Nazarene explains that Jokanaan is talking about the Messiah.
- The Messiah hasn't come, says a Jew. Yes he has, says, the Nazarene, and he's been working miracles.
- Herodias scoffs at him. She doesn't believe in miracles. She asks her page to bring her fan.
- The Nazarene claims to have seen some first hand. He's heard that the Messiah turned water into wine at a wedding in Galilee, and that he healed two lepers in Capernaum.
- Another Nazarene says he heard it was two blind people he cured, not lepers. He's done both, says the first Nazarene, and he's talked with angels on a mountaintop.
- Angels don't exist, says a Sadducee—a man belonging to a particular sect of Judaism.
- Angels do exist, says a Pharisees—the Pharisees and the Sadducees didn't agree about most things—but there's no way this "Messiah" has spoken to them.
- The first Nazarene claims that a bunch of people have seen Him talking with angels.
- Herodias is overwhelmed by all this talk of miracles. The page brings the fan. Herodias hits her because she has a "dreamer's look" (251). Only sick people dream, she says.
- The Nazarenes talk of another miracle: the resurrection of Jairus' daughter. Herod is appalled by this. He forbids this Messiah from doing that. He doesn't want anybody raising the dead. He asks to know where this Man is at the moment.
- "He is in every place, my lord," says the second Nazarene, "but it is hard to find Him" (261). The first Nazarene has heard he's in Samaria.
- A Jew takes this to mean that this Messiah isn't the real deal, since the Samaritans aren't Jewish, and the real Messiah wouldn't have anything to do with them.
- The second Nazarene says he's heard that the Messiah has left Samaria and is now somewhere around Jerusalem. No, says the first Nazarene, He's definitely not there—the Nazarene has just come from Jerusalem.
- Herod tells them to stop arguing. He just wants somebody to find Him and tell Him to stop raising the dead; he's fine with all the other miracles, but raising the dead is definitely not okay.
- Jokanaan cries out again. This time he curses "the wanton one! The harlot! […] the daughter of Babylon with her golden eyes and her gilded eyelids" (266).
- Herodias tells Herod to make Jokanaan shut up.
- Jokanaan cries out again. "Let the captains of the hosts pierce her with their swords," he says, "let them crush her beneath their shields" (268).
- Herodias is shocked and appalled. Jokanaan continues to call for her bloody death, but Herod doesn't do anything. He hasn't said your name, he tells Herodias.
- I'm your wife, Herodias says, and shouldn't you defend your wife? Herod agrees this is true. Didn't you steal me from your brother? asks Herodias.
- Yes, that's true, says Herod, but he'd rather not talk about it. He changes the subject: we're ignoring our guests, he says; why don't you fill my cup? He makes a toast to Caesar.
- Hey, Herod says, isn't Salomé looking pale?
- So what? says Herodias.
- I've never seen her looking so pale, says Herod.
- Stop looking at her, Herodias says.
- Jokanaan cries out again. That day—when "that day" is, he doesn't say—the sun will turn black and the moon will turn the color of blood and the stars will fall from the sky like "unripe figs" and "the kings of the earth will be afraid" (282).
- I'd like to see that day, says, Herodias, but I really can't stand all his yelling. She tells Herod to shut him up.
- Herod won't shut up. He thinks maybe what Jokanaan is saying is an omen.
- Herodias doesn't believe in omens. She thinks he sounds drunk.
- Maybe he's drunk on the wine of God, Herod says.
- What does that mean? Herodias asks.
- Herod turns to Tigellinus and asks him a question—but forgets what he wants to ask halfway through. He's looking at Salomé again.
- Herodias tells him to stop staring.
- He asks no one in particular about the Restoration of the Temple—the Temple being the center of Jewish worship in Jerusalem. He's heard that the veil of the sanctuary—which the Jews use to cover their Torah scrolls—has been stolen.
- You were the one that had it stolen, says Herodias.