A PLAY IN THREE ACTS
Founded on the apocryphal book of "Judith"
BY
ARNOLD BENNETT
LONDON
1919
First published April 30, 1919
NOTE
This play was presented for the first time at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, on Monday, April 7th, 1919, with the following cast:
| Judith | LILLAH MCCARTHY |
| Haggith | ESMÉ HUBBARD |
| Rahel | MADGE MURRAY |
| Ozias | CAMPBELL GULLAN |
| Holofernes | CLAUDE KING |
| Bagoas | ERNEST THESIGER |
| Achior | GEOFFREY DOUGLAS |
| Chabris | E.H. PATERSON |
| Charmis | FEWLASS LLEWELLYN |
| Ingur | FREDERICK VOLPE |
| Messenger | FELIX AYLMER |
| Soldier | CLIFFORD MOLLISON |
| Attendant | EDWIN OXLEE |
The play was produced by WILFRED EATON
Hebrews
JUDITH
HAGGITH, her waiting-woman
RAHEL
OZIAS, Governor of Bethulia
CHABRIS, an elder
CHARMIS, an elder
A SOLDIER
A MESSENGER
Assyrians
HOLOFERNES, General of the Assyrian armies
BAGOAS, his chief eunuch
ACHIOR, a captain
INGUR, a soldier
AN ATTENDANT ON BAGOAS
ACT I
A street in the city of Bethulia.
ACT II
SCENE I. The valley near the Assyrian camp. Time, morning; two days later.
SCENE II. The tent of Holofernes. Time, later, the same morning.
SCENE III. The same. Time, the same night.
ACT III
SCENE I. Same as Act I. Time, later, the same night.
SCENE II.The same. Time, the next day.
A street in the city of Bethulia in Judea. Bethulia is in the hill country, overlooking the great plain of Jezreel to the south-west. Back, the gates of the city, hiding the view of the plain. Right, Judith's house, with a tent on the roof. Left, houses. The street turns abruptly, back left, along the wall of the city. Left centre, a built-up vantage-point, from which the plain can be seen over the gates.
TIME: Fifth century B.C.
Towards evening.
Ozias is standing alone in the street, drinking from a leathern bottle. Enter Chabris, back left.
OZIAS (quickly, but with perfect calmness, hiding the bottle in his garments). Old man! It is years since I saw you. How came you past the guard, old man?
CHABRIS. Old? Old? I am not yet a hundred. Who are you?
OZIAS. Ozias.
CHABRIS. Ah! So this is Ozias, the son of Ezbon. Before your father could walk I have nursed him on my knee; and he was filled like the full moon—with naughtiness.
OZIAS. What has brought you at last out of your house? Are you come to prophesy once more?
CHABRIS. I have given up prophesying.
OZIAS. A profession full of risks.
CHABRIS. I pass my endless days in meditation and solitude.
OZIAS. That sounds much safer. How comely is the wisdom of old men!
CHABRIS. And what do you do, sprig?
OZIAS. Has none told you?
CHABRIS. I see nobody but my daughter's granddaughter, and her I forbid to speak to me, because being a woman she has the tongue of a woman, and a woman's tongue is unfavourable to meditation. How should I be told?
OZIAS. I am the governor of this great city of Bethulia.
CHABRIS. You are responsible for this city?
OZIAS. I am.
CHABRIS. Now I understand my misfortune. And the truth was in me when I said to your mother as she lay dying: Better it is to die without children than to have them that are ungodly.
OZIAS. Oh! How comely a thing is the judgment of grey hairs!
CHABRIS. You ask me what has brought me at last out of my house. I will tell you. Thirst! Thirst has brought me out of my house. Every morning and every evening my great-grandchild serves me with pulse and water. For five days she has furnished less and less water, and this day—not a drop! Can one eat pulse without water to drink? Half an hour ago I went to her to reason with her, and she lay on her bed cracked, and raved that she herself had not drunk for three days and that there was no water left in all Bethulia. So I came at last out of my house into the streets of this city famous for its cool fountains which never fail. And lo! I meet the governor of this city, and he is Ozias! Ozias! Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead, but for an ungodly man all the days of his life! Why is there no water in Bethulia, sprig?
OZIAS. Old man, meditation is good and solitude is good, but think not because you sit staring all day at your own belly that the sun and stars have ceased to revolve round the earth and the kings of this world to make war. Is it possible that you do not know what has happened?
CHABRIS. I only know that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink.
OZIAS. Bethulia is besieged.
CHABRIS. Who is besieging Bethulia?
OZIAS. Holofernes.
CHABRIS. I have never heard his name. Who is he?
OZIAS. Never heard the name of the chief captain of Nebuchadnezzar? Have you heard the name of Nebuchadnezzar, by chance?
CHABRIS. I seem to remember it.
OZIAS. Come up here. (They go up the steps to the vantage-point.) Look! A hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers. Twelve thousand archers on horseback. Oxen and sheep for their provisions. Twenty thousand asses for their carriages. Camels without number. Infinite victuals; and very much gold and silver. The like was never seen before.
CHABRIS (stepping down.) Why has Nebuchadnezzar set about this thing? What harm has Bethulia done to him?
OZIAS. Much harm. Nebuchadnezzar has decided to be God. He has decreed that all nations and tribes shall call upon him as God. And he has conquered the whole earth, excepting only Judea; and Bethulia is the gate into Judea, and Bethulia has not listened to his decree, and I am the governor of Bethulia. So Nebuchadnezzar the great king is very angry and Holofernes is the tool of his wrath.
CHABRIS (going up the steps again and gazing.) How many did you say?
OZIAS. A hundred and twenty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse.
CHABRIS. At any rate this will be the last war.
OZIAS. Why?
CHABRIS. Why! Because plainly war cannot continue on such a scale. Or if it does, mankind is destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar has rendered war ridiculous.
OZIAS (laughs; then half to himself, sarcastically). What is heavier than lead, and what is the name thereof, but an aged fool?
CHABRIS (descending again, self-centred). It remains that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink. (To Ozias.) And surely Bethulia has more wells than any other city of Judea.
OZIAS. The wells are at the foot of the hills, and Holofernes has seized them all.
CHABRIS. That is not fighting.
OZIAS. It is war.
CHABRIS. No, no! In my time soldiers fought fairly.
OZIAS. And killed each other. Why should Holofernes sacrifice thousands of lives to take the heights when he can reach the same result by letting his men sit still and watch?
CHABRIS. I say this is not war. Once I travelled many days to Nineveh. It is a city of extravagance, and when I beheld its mad, new-fangled ways, I knew that the last day was nigh. I was right. Three thousand and five hundred years since Jehovah created Adam, and Eve from his rib ... Too long! Too long! And what is pulse without water? I must have water.
OZIAS. It is thirty-four days since Holofernes took the wells. If you have received water up to yesterday your great-grandchild must indeed have thirsted that you might drink. I have distributed water by measure, but now the cisterns are empty, and women and young men fall down in the streets, and there is no water in Bethulia. We are all in like case, the high and the lowly.
CHABRIS. Then give me your bottle.
OZIAS. What bottle?
CHABRIS. I saw you put it from your lips as I came.
OZIAS. It behoves you to understand, old man, that my solemn duty as governor is to maintain my own strength, for if I fell the city would fall. Without me to inspire them the populace would yield in a moment. What is the populace? Poltroons, animals, sheep, rabbits, insects, lice!
CHABRIS. Give me the bottle.
OZIAS. It is as empty as the cisterns.
CHABRIS. Give it to me, or I will cry through the streets that you are concealing water. (Ozias gives him the bottle. Chabris drinks. Ozias snatches the bottle away and conceals it.) Ah!
(A figure is glimpsed in the tent on the roof of Judith's house. Ozias starts.)
CHABRIS. What is that up yonder?
OZIAS. Nothing.
CHABRIS. Whose house is this?
OZIAS. It is the house of Judith, the daughter of Merari.
CHABRIS. Ah! Merari, the son of Ox, the son of Oziel—Oziel and I were little playful boys together—the son of Elcia, the son of Raphaim, the son of Eliab, the son of Nathanael, the son of——
OZIAS. Old man, your memory is terrible. Have pity!
CHABRIS. The draught has revived me. So Merari married and had a daughter. What manner of woman is she?
OZIAS. She is the widow of Manasses, who died of the heat in the barley harvest. And she is childless. And she is very rich; for Manasses left her gold and silver and menservants and maid-servants and cattle and lands. And she has remained a widow in her house three years and four months, and never has she come forth. And there is none to give her an ill word, for she fears the Lord greatly.
CHABRIS. Yes. But what manner of woman is she?
OZIAS. She is beautiful to behold.
CHABRIS (to himself). Oh! That manner of woman!
OZIAS. And she has fasted all the days of her widowhood, except the eves of the Sabbaths and the Sabbaths, and the eves of the new moons and the new moons, and the feasts and solemn days of the House of Israel.
CHABRIS. You are most deeply versed in her life. Is she exceeding beautiful?
OZIAS. She is exceeding beautiful.
CHABRIS. Then it was she who peeped (with a peculiar emphasis on the word) from the tent a moment since.
OZIAS. Old man, you have eyes.
CHABRIS. It is the draught of water.
OZIAS. She is said to take the air in her tent daily at this hour.
CHABRIS (accusingly). And that is why you are here, Ozias.
OZIAS. No! I come here to reflect upon my plans for the saving of the city, and because of this vantage-point, to view the army of the Assyrians.