A Citizen. 
Judith,
Pardon our ecstasy.  ’Tis time thou hadst
Our honour.  But first tell us all the event,
That in thy proper height thou with thy deed
May stand against our worship.

Judith. 
     Why do you stop
Your shouts, and glare upon me?  Have you need
Truly to hear my tale?  I think, not so. 
Ozias here, as he hath whiled at ease
Upon the walls my stay in the camp yonder,
Hath fairly fancied all that I have done,
And more exactly, and with a relishing gust,
All that was done to me.  Ask him, therefore;
If he hath not already entertained
Your tedious leisure with my story told
Pat to your liking, enjoyed, and glosst with praise.—­
And yet, why ask him?  Why go even so far
To hear it?  Ask but the clever libidinousness
Dwelling in each of your hearts, and it will surely
Imagine for you how I trained to my arms
Lewd Holofernes, and kept him plied with lust,
Until his wild blood in the end paused fainting,
And he lay twitching, drained of all his wits;—­
But there was wine as well working in him,
Feebling his sinews; ’twas not all my doing,
The snoring fit that came before his death,
The routing beastly slumber that was my time. 
You know it all!  Why ask me for the tale?

Ozias.  Comfort her:  praise her.  She is strangely ashamed Of Holofernes having evilly used her.

A Citizen.  We will contrive the triumph of our joy Into some tune of words, and bring thee on, Accompanied by singing, to thy house.

Judith.  I pray you, rather let me go alone.  You will do better to be searching out All sharpen’d steel that may take weapon-use.  The Assyrians are afraid:  it is your time.

     [They surround JUDITH and go with her.

CHORUS of Citizens praising JUDITH and
leading her to her house. 
Over us and past us go the years;
Like wind that taketh sound from jubilee
And aloud flieth ringing,
Over us goeth the speed of the years,
Like loud noise eternally bringing
The greatness women have done.

Deborah was great; with her singing
She hearten’d the men that the horses had dismayed;
Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth, alone
Stood singing where the men were horribly afraid,
Singing of God in the midst of fear;
When archers out of Hazor were
Eating the land like grasshoppers,
And darkness at noon was plundering the air
Of the light of the sun’s insulted fires,
Red darkness covering Sisera’s host
As Jewry was covered by the Canaanite’s boast: 
For the earth was broken into dust beneath
The force of his chariots’ thundering tyres,
Nine hundred chariots of iron.