HOLOFERNES.  Where is this woman?

BAGOAS.  Woman, Prince?

HOLOFERNES (impatient).  This Hebrew woman, I say!  One Ingur has run among the tents chattering, and the rumour of her has spread through the camps like a plague.  By Nebuchadnezzar the one god, where is she, for it has been told to me that her beauty excels the beauty of all the women of the East and ravishes the eye exceedingly?

BAGOAS.  Ah!  It is of Judith that the Prince deigns to speak.  Lo!  I had caught her and was bringing her to your highness. (To attendants.) Stand aside, dogs.

(Judith is revealed to Holofernes. She prostrates herself and then rises.  Holofernes gazes at her, entranced.)

HOLOFERNES.  So thou hast escaped out of Bethulia to find water for thy thirst?

JUDITH.  To find water, and to have speech with the most illustrious Prince.

HOLOFERNES.  Woman (approaching her a step, and then standing still), be of good comfort, and fear not in thy heart, for I never hurt any that was willing to serve Nebuchadnezzar, the god of all the earth.  And if thy people that dwell in the mountains had not held me lightly, I would not have lifted up my spear against them, but they have done these things to themselves.

BAGOAS (aside, to Holofernes).  Terrible master, she is full of guile and deceitfulness, and came not at all for water, but for a hidden purpose against you.  Therefore enquire of her closely.

HOLOFERNES (to Bagoas).  Chastise thy tongue, ere it overthrow thee, fiend.  There is no guile in that face. (To Judith.) Tell me now thy message and wherefore in truth thou art come.  And tremble not, for thou shalt live this night.

JUDITH.  Great prince, receive the words of your servant and suffer your handmaid to speak in your presence, and I will declare no lie to my lord.

HOLOFERNES.  Speak.

JUDITH.  I will speak to my lord alone.

BAGOAS (aside to Holofernes).  It is a device against my lord.

HOLOFERNES (to Judith).  Speak now, I command thee.

JUDITH.  My message concerns the fate of Bethulia, and of all the Assyrians, and of my lord.  Life and death are in it, for I have communed with heaven.

HOLOFERNES.  Which heaven?  Thine or mine?

JUDITH.  There is but one God.

HOLOFERNES (roughly).  And he is Nebuchadnezzar.  Speak thy tale.

JUDITH.  I will speak to my lord alone.

BAGOAS (aside to Holofernes).  It is a device.

HOLOFERNES (angrily).  Speak out all thy heart, and quickly!

JUDITH.  I will speak to my lord in my lord’s tent.

HOLOFERNES (furious).  In my tent!  Who art thou who defiest me, and what is thy licence, heathen slave, to defile the tent of Holofernes?  Bind her.  Take her away, and twist the cords about her neck, and strangle her, and cast her insolence into the lake.