your mother, the Queen?

JORAM.
Sir, you are ever wise and they ever respectful. They feel that a foreign influence is not for your people’s good, nor for justice in your people’s causes.

JEZEBEL.
My son, speak openly, for the people’s good.

AHAB.
What do they demand?

JORAM.
They bid me say, sir, that they cannot doubt that you would care only for your people’s good, were it made apparent.

JEZEBEL.
Make it apparent.

JORAM.
Sire, I would that the prince, my brother, might have had this task.

JEZEBEL.
I, too, wish that, my son. Is not banishment enough, then? Do they ask for my death?

JORAM.
Sir, those are their feelings.

AHAB.
They hate my Queen and wish her gone?

JORAM.
Sir, truth cannot be hidden from you.

AHAB.
And if I ignore their feelings, or crush their mutterings?

JORAM.
Sir, they think you too great a man, for either way.

AHAB.
But if they err, and I do?

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