hile I live, to
question the meaning of life?... Maybe death is already within me;
perchance the questioner is no longer life, but death.

FIRST SOLDIER. You are only tormenting yourself about nothings.

SECOND SOLDIER. God has given us a heart precisely that it may torment
us.

Jeremiah and Baruch appear on the ramparts. Jeremiah leans over the
parapet and gazes down. All that he is now looking at, these fires,
these myriad tents, this first night of the siege, are things with which
he is already familiar from his visions. There is not a star in heaven
which he has not seen in this place. He can no longer deny that God has
chosen him. He must give his message to the king, for he knows the end;
he sees it; he describes it in prophetic verses.

King Zedekiah, full of fear, making his rounds with Abimelech, hears the
voice of Jeremiah, and recognises it as the voice of the one who wished
to hold him back on the threshold of the declaration of war. He would
pay heed now, could the decision be made over again. Jeremiah assures
him that it is never too late to ask peace. Zedekiah is unwilling to be
the first to move. What if his proposals were rejected?

JEREMIAH. Happy are they who are rejected for justice' sake.

But what if people laugh at him? asks Zedekiah.

JEREMIAH. It is better to be followed by the laughter of fools than by
the tears of widows.

Zedekiah refuses. He would rather die than humble himself. Jeremiah
curses him and calls him the murderer of his people. The soldiers wish
to throw him from the wall. Zedekiah restrains them. His calm, his
forbearance, perplex Jeremiah, who lets the king depart without making
any further effort to save him. The decisive moment has been lost.
Jeremiah accuses himself of weakness; he feels himself impotent, and he
despairs; he knows only how to cry aloud and to utter curses. He does
not know how to do good. Baruch consoles him. At Jeremiah's suggestion,
Baruch decides to climb down the walls into the Chaldean camp, that he
may parley with Nebuchadnezzar.

SCENE FIVE

THE PROPHET'S ORDEAL.

Jeremiah's mother is dying. The sick woman knows nothing of what is
happening outside. Since she drove her son from home she has been
suffering and waiting. Both mother and son are proud, and neither will
make the first advance. Ahab, the old servitor, has taken it upon
himself to fetch Jeremiah. The sick woman awakens and calls her son. He
appears, but dares not draw near, b