infant as a precaution against infection. And since Mary has brought cloths and Joseph has a knife in his pack to cut the umbilical cord, unless Salome prefers to use her teeth, everything is ready for the birth. A stable, when all is said and done, is as good as a house, and anyone who has slept in a manger knows that it is almost as good as a cradle. And the donkey is not likely to notice any difference, for straw is the same in heaven as on earth. They reached the cave when the hovering twilight was still shedding gold on the hills. If their progress was slow, it was not because of the distance but because now that Mary had a place to rest, she could at last abandon herself to her suffering. She pleaded with them to slow down, for whenever the donkey lost its footing on a stone, she suffered agonizing pain. The waning light outside did not penetrate the darkness of the cave, but with a handful of straw, the live coals, much puffing and blowing, and some dry kindling, the slave soon had a fire blazing as bright as any dawn. Then she lit the oil lamp that was suspended from a rock jutting from the wall, and after helping Mary lie down, she went to fetch water from the nearby wells of Solomon. On returning, she found Joseph distracted with worry, but we must not be too hard on him, for a man is not expected to be able to cope in such a crisis, at most he can hold his wife's hand and hope that everything will be all right. Mary, however, is alone. The world would crumble if a Jewish man in those days attempted any such comforting gesture. The female slave came in, whispered a few words of encouragement, then knelt between Mary's legs, for a woman's legs should be kept apart whenever something goes in or comes out. Salome has lost count of the number of children she has helped bring into the world, and poor Mary's suffering is no different from that of any other woman, for as God warned Eve after she sinned, I will greatly multiply your suffering and your conception, in sorrow you will bring forth children, and after centuries of sorrow and suffering God is not yet appeased and the agony goes on. Joseph is no longer present, not even at the entrance to the cave, he has fled rather than listen to Mary's cries, but the cries follow him, as if the very earth were screaming. The noise is such that three shepherds who were passing with their flocks approached Joseph and asked, What's going on, the earth seems to be screaming, and he told them, My wife is giving birth in that cave. They asked, You're a stranger to these parts, aren't you. Yes, we've come from Nazareth, in Galilee, to register, and no sooner did we arrive than my wife started feeling worse and now she's in labor. The fading light made it difficult to see the faces of the four men, and soon their features would completely disappear, but their voices could still be heard. Have you any food, one of the shepherds said. A little, replied Joseph, and the same voice told him, Once the child is born, let me know, and I'll bring you some sheep's milk, and then a second voice said, And I'll give you cheese. Then a long silence, and the third shepherd spoke. In a voice that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth he said, I'll bring you bread.
The son of Joseph and Mary was born, like any other child, covered with his mother's blood, dripping with mucus, and suffering in silence. He cried because they made him cry, and he will cry for this one and only reason. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, he lies in the manger with the donkey standing nearby but unlikely to bite him because the animal is tethered and cannot move far. Salome is outside burying the afterbirth when Joseph approaches. She waits until he has gone into the cave, lingering there to inhale the cool night and feeling as exhausted as if she herself had just given birth, but this is something she can only imagine, never having had children of her own.
Three men come down the slope. They are the shepherds. They enter the cave together. Mary is reclining, and her eyes are closed. Seated on a stone, Joseph rests his arm on the edge of the manger and appears to be watching over his son. The first shepherd steps forward and says, Here's the milk from my sheep, which I drew with my own hands. Opening her eyes, Mary smiles. The second shepherd steps forward and says in his turn, I myself churned the milk that made this cheese. Mary nods and smiles again. Then the third shepherd, whose massive frame seems to fill the cave, steps forward and, without so much as glancing at the newborn infant's parents, says, I kneaded this bread with my own hands and baked it in the fire that burns beneath the earth. No sooner had he spoken than Mary recognized him.
...
SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN, FOR EVERY PERSON WHO IS BORN another dies. The person now close to death is King Herod, who in addition to all imaginable evils suffers from a horrible itch, which has almost driven him insane. He feels as if hundreds of thousands of ants are gnawing incessantly at his body with their tiny savage jaws. Having tried, to no avail, all the balsams known to man, remedies from Egypt and India, the royal physicians scratched their heads, or, to be more precise, were in grave danger of losing their heads, as they frantically tried ablutions and household potions, mixing with water or oil any and all herbs and powders reputed to do some good, however contrary their effect. The king, foaming at the mouth like a mad dog, beside himself with pain and fury, threatens to have them all crucified unless they can relieve his afflictions, which go beyond the unbearable burning in his skin and the convulsions that leave him exhausted and writhing on the floor, his eyes bulging from their sockets as the ants continue to multiply and gnaw beneath his robes. Worst of all is the gangrene that has set in during the last few days, and this mysterious affliction has started tongues wagging in the palace, as worms begin to ravage the genital organs of the royal person and truly devour him alive. Herod's screams echo through the halls and corridors of the palace, the eunuchs attending him are kept awake day and night, the slaves of lower rank flee in terror when they hear him approach. Dragging his body, which stinks of rot despite the perfumes sprinkled lavishly over his robes and rubbed into his dyed hair, Herod is being kept alive only by his own wrath. Carried around in a litter, accompanied by doctors and armed guards, he scours the palace from one end to another in search of traitors, whom he imagines to be lurking everywhere, an obsession he has had for some time. Without any warning he will suddenly point a finger, perhaps at the chief eunuch, accusing him of wielding too much influence, or at some stubborn Pharisee who has criticized those who disobey the law when they should be the first to respect it, there is no need to name names, and that finger was also pointed at his sons Alexander and Aristobulus, who were imprisoned and hastily sentenced to death by a tribunal of nobles convened for the purpose, what choice did the poor king have when in his delirium he saw those wicked sons advancing upon him with bared swords, when in the most terrifying nightmare of all he beheld in a mirror his own severed head. He has escaped that terrible end and can now quietly contemplate the corpses of those who a moment before were heirs to the throne, his own sons found guilty of conspiracy, misconduct, and arrogance and strangled to death.
From the murk of his troubled mind comes another nightmare to disturb the sporadic moments of sleep into which he falls from sheer exhaustion. The prophet Micah comes to haunt him, that prophet who lived at the time of Isaiah and witnessed the terrible wars that the Assyrians waged in Samaria and Judaea. Micah appears before him, denouncing the rich and powerful as befits a prophet, especially in this accursed age. Covered with the dust of battle and wearing a bloodstained tunic, Micah storms into his dream in a deafening blast from some other world. With hands of lightning he pushes open enormous bronze gates and gives solemn warning, The Lord will come down from His holy temple and tread upon the high places of the earth. Then he threatens, Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds, when the morning is light they practice it because it is in the power of their hand. And he denounces those who covet fields and take them by violence, and who take houses, oppressing a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. After repeating these words night after night, Micah, as if responding to a signal, vanishes into thin air. What causes Herod to wake up in a cold sweat is not so much the terror of those prophetic cries as the agonizing thought that this nightly visitor withdraws just as he is about to reveal something more. The prophet raises his hand and parts his lips, only to disappear, leaving the king filled with foreboding. Now, as everyone knows, Herod is not likely to be intimidated by threats when he does not feel the slightest remorse for all the deaths he ordered. For this is the man who had the brother of Mariamne, whom he loved more than any other woman, burned alive, the man who ordered her grandfather strangled and finally Mariamne herself, when he accused her of adultery. It is true that he later suffered a bit of madness and called for Mariamne as if she were still alive, but he recovered from it and discovered that his mother-in-law was hatching a plot, and not for the first time, to remove him from power. Instantly this viper was dispatched to the pantheon of the family into which Herod had married, with unfortunate consequences for all concerned, because the king's three sons became heirs to the throne, Alexander and Aristobulus, whose sad end we have already mentioned, and Antipater, who soon will meet a similar fate. But we must not forget, since there is more to life than tragedy and misfortune, that Herod had no fewer than ten comely wives to pamper him and arouse his lust, although by now they could do little for him and he even less for them. Therefore the nightly apparition of an irate prophet intent on haunting the powerful king of Judaea and Samaria, Peraea and Idumaea, Galilee and Gaulanitis, Trachanitis, Auranitis, and Batanaea, would make
