- Salomé leans over the cistern and listens. She wonders why Jokanaan does not cry out. If anyone tried to kill me, she says, I would cry out and struggle.
- Something falls to the ground. She worries that Naaman the executioner is too scared to kill Jokanaan. She orders the soldiers to go down and bring her the head.
- The arm of the Executioner comes out from the cistern bearing the head of Jokanaan on a silver platter.
- Salomé grabs it.
- Herod hides his face with his cloak (373).
- Herodias smiles and fans herself (373).
- The Nazarenes fall to their knees and begin to pray (373).
- Salomé addresses the head. She taunts him: even though you wouldn't let me kiss your mouth, she says; now I will. "I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit" (373).
- Whoa. Whoa.
- She thinks Jokanaan is looking at her funny. Are you afraid of me? she says. You rejected me, she says. Well, she says, now I'm alive and you're dead, and I can do what I want with you.
- Whoa this is messed up.
- She tells him how much she loved him. How he was beautiful. How his body was like a column of ivory, like a garden full of doves and lilies of silver. How black his hair was, how red his mouth, how wonderful his voice was.
- She asks him why he never looked at her, why he could see God but never saw her. If you had seen me, she says, you would have loved me. I still love you, she says. I still want your body, she says. I was a princess, virgin, she says, and still you would have nothing to do with me. "I was chaste," she says, "but thou didst fill my veins with fire" (373).
- Herod is super creeped out. He calls Salomé monstrous (yes, we agree). He is sure she's committed a crime, a "crime against an unknown God" (374).
- Herodias is pleased with Salomé.
- Herod rises. He can't stand to stay. He instructs his servants to put out the torches. He doesn't want to look at things or to be looked at. He wants to hide himself away in his palace.
- The torches are put out. The stage goes dark. Herod begins to climb the stairs to his palace.
- In the darkness, we hear the voice of Salomé. "I have kissed thy mouth, Jokanaan," she says. "There was a bitter taste on my lips. Was it the taste of blood?…Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love…They say that love hath a bitter taste. But what matter? What matter? I have kissed thy mouth" (377).
- Ugh! Make it stop! Make it stop!
- Herod orders his soldiers to kill Salomé. They "rush forward and crush Salomé beneath their shields" (378).