the decadent moon

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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. One might fancy she was looking for dead things.
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SALOME
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. She has the beauty of a virgin. Yes, she is a virgin. She has never defiled herself. She has never abandoned herself to men, like the other goddesses.
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HEROD
The moon has a strange look to-night. Has she not a strange look? She is like a mad woman, 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?
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HERODIAS
No; the moon is like the moon, that is all, Let us go within . . . . We have nothing to do here.
THE VOICE OF IOKANAAN
In that day the sun shall become black like sackcloth of hair, and the moon shall become like blood, and the stars of the heaven 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.
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HERODIAS
How these men weary me! They are ridiculous! They are altogether ridiculous! [To the Page.] 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 Page with her fan.]
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HERODIAS
Those men are mad. They have looked too long on the moon. Command them to be silent.