No More Learning

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.