Their outrage will be ornament upon her!

Out of the hands of the goblins she will come
Not markt with shame, but wearing their vile usage
Like one whom earthly reign covers with splendour.

The ignominy they thought of shall be turned
To shining, yea, to announcing through the world
How God hath used her to beguile the heathen. 
It begins!  Now it begins!  Lo, how dismay
Is fallen on the camp in a strange wind: 
The ground, that seemed as spread with yellow embers,
Leaps into blazing, and like cinders whirled
And scattered up among the flames, are black
Bands of frantic men flickering about!

Ozias! seest thou how our enemies
Are labouring in amazement?  How they run
Flinging fuel to light them against fear?

Now they begin to roar their terror:  now
They wave and beckon wordless desperate things
One to another.

Hear the iron and brass
Ringing above their voices, as they snatch
The arms that seem to fight among themselves,
Seized by their masters’ anguish; dost thou hear
The clumsy terror in the camp, the men
Hasting to arm themselves against our God,
Ozias?

Ozias. 
     Lions have taken a sentinel.

A Citizen.  Judith hath taken Holofernes.

Judith’s voice outside, under the gate. 
     Yea,
And brought him back with her.  Open the gates.

The Citizens.  Open the gates.  Bring torches.  Wake, ye Jews!  Hail, Judith, marvellously chosen woman!  How bringst thou Holofernes?  Show him to us.

Judith.  Dare you indeed behold him?

A Citizen. 
     Is he bound?

Judith. 
Drugged rather, with a medicine that God
Prepared for him and gave into my hands. 
Open the gates!  It is a harmless thing,
The Holofernes I have made your show;
You may gaze blithely upon him.  I have tamed
The man’s pernicious brain.  Open the gates! 
What, are your hands still nerveless?  But my hands,
The hands of a woman, have done notable work.

The Gates open.  JUDITH appears, standing against the night and the Assyrian fires.  Torches and shouting in the town.

Citizens.  Judith!  Judith alone!  Where is thy boast Of Holofernes captured?

Judith. 
     I am alone,
Indeed; and you are many; yet with me
Comes Holofernes, certainly a captive.

Ozias.  What trifle is this?

Judith. 
     Trifle?  It is the word. 
A trifle, a thing of mere weight, I have brought you
From the Assyrian camp.  My apron here
Is loaded now more heavily, but as meanly
As an old witch’s skirt, when she comes home
From seeking camel’s-dung for kindling; yet
My burden was, an hour ago, the world
Where you were ground to tortures; it was the brain
Inventing your destruction.—­Look you now!