Another. 
     But in five days
Either our God will turn his mind to us,
Or, if he careth not for us nor his honour,
Ozias will let open the main gate
And let the Assyrians end our dreadful lives.

Judith. 
O I belong to a nation utterly lost! 
God! thou hast no tribe on the earth; thy folk
Are helpless in the living places like
The ghosts that grieve in the winds under the earth. 
Remember now thy glory among the living,
And let the beauty of thy renown endure
In a firm people knitted like the stone
Of hills, no mischief harms of frost or fire;
But now dust in a gale of fear they are. 
They have blasphemed thee; but forgive them, God;
And let my life inhabit to its end
The spirit of a people built to God.—­
So you have given God five days to come
And help you?  You would make your souls as wares
Merchants hold up to bidders, and say, “God,
Pay us our price of comfort, or we sell
To death for the same coin”?  Five days God hath
To find the cost of Jewry, or death buys you?

A Citizen.  Here comes Ozias:  ask him.

Judith. 
     Hold him there.

     [JUDITH comes down into the street.

Ozias.  Judith, I came to speak with thee.

Judith. 
     And I
Would speak with thee.  What tale is this they tell That thou hast sworn to give this people death?

Ozias.  In five days those among us who still live Will have no souls but the fierce anguish of thirst.  If God ere then relieves us, well.  If not, We give ourselves away from God to death.

Judith.  Darest thou do this wickedness, and set Conditions to the mercy of our God?

Ozias. 
Death hath a mercy equal unto God’s.—­
Look at the air above thee; is there sign
Of mercy in that naked splendour of fire? 
Too Godlike!  We are his:  he covers us
With golden flame of air and firmament
Of white-hot gold, marvellous to see. 
But whom, what heathen land hated of God,
Do his grey clouds shadow with comfort of rain? 
Over our chosen heads his glory glows: 
And in five days the torment in his city
Will be beyond imagining.  We will go
Through swords into the quiet and cloud of death.

Judith. 
Ozias, wilt thou be an infamy? 
Bethulia fallen, all Judea lies
Open to the feet and hoofs of Assyria.

Ozias.  Yea, and what doth Judea but cower down Behind us?  There’s no rescue comes from there.  We are alone with Holofernes’ power.

Judith. 
But if we hold him off, will he not grant
The meed of a brave fight, captivity?—­
Or we may treat with him, make terms for yielding.

Ozias. 
We know his mind:  he hath written it plain
In the torn flesh of our ambassadors. 
His mind to us is death; we can but choose
Between sharp swords and the slow slaying of thirst.