The story next gives the scene where Holofernes, dazzled by her beauty and enchanted by her manners, becomes entirely subject to her will, receives and entertains her as a sovereign princess. She easily persuades him to believe the story she tells him. This people, she says, are under the protection of their God so long as they do not violate the rules of their religion, but, under the pressure of famine, they are about to eat of forbidden articles and to consume the sacred offerings due to the temple. Then their God will turn against them and deliver them into his hands. She will remain with him, and go forth from time to time; and when the sacrilege is accomplished, she will let him know that the hour to fall upon them is come.
So Judith is installed in state and all honor near the court of the commander, and enjoys to the full the right to exercise the rites of her national religion,—nay, the infatuated Holofernes goes so far as to promise her that, in the event of her succeeding in her promises, he will himself adopt the God of Israel for his God. After a day or two spent in this way, in which she goes forth every night for prayer and ablutions at the fountain, there comes the attempt to draw her into the harem of the general. Holofernes, in conference with Bagoas, the chief of his eunuchs, seems to think that the beautiful Judæan woman would laugh him to scorn if he suffered such an opportunity to pass unimproved. Accordingly a private banquet is arranged, and the chief of the eunuchs carries the invitation in true Oriental style, as follows: "Let not this fair damsel fear to come unto my lord, and to be honored in his presence, and to drink wine and be merry, and to be made this day as one of the Assyrians that serve in the house of Nabuchodonosor." Judith graciously accepts the invitation, decks herself with all her jewelry, and comes to the banquet and ravishes the heart of the commandant with her smiles. Excited and flattered, he drinks, it is said, more wine than ever he drunk before; so that, at the close of the feast, when the servants departed and Judith was left alone in the tent with him, he was lying dead drunk with wine on the cushions of his divan.
The rest is told in the story: "Then all went out and there was none left in the bedchamber, neither little nor great. Then Judith, standing by the bed, said in her heart, O Lord God of all power, look, at this present, on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. For now is the time to help thy inheritance and to execute my enterprise to the destruction of the enemies that are risen up against us. Then came she to the pillow of the couch, and took down the fauchion from thence, and approached his bed, and took hold of the hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day, and she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him and went forth."
She returns to the city in the dim gray of the morning, bearing her trophy and the canopy and hangings of the bed whereon the enemy lay: "Then called Judith afar off to the watchmen, Open now the gates, for God, even our God, is with us to show his power yet in Israel and his strength against the enemy." A hasty midnight summons brings together the elders of the city. A fire is kindled, and they gather round her, as, radiant with triumphant excitement, she breaks forth in triumph: "Praise, praise, praise God, praise God, I say, for he has not taken away his mercy from the house of Israel, but hath destroyed the enemy by my hand this night." And she took the head out of the bag and showed it to them, and said: "Behold the head of Holofernes, the chief captain of the army of Assur, and behold the canopy where he did lie in his drunkenness, and the Lord hath smitten him by the hand of a woman. As the Lord liveth, who hath kept me in my way that I went, my countenance hath deceived him to his destruction, yet he hath not committed sin with me to defile and shame me."
Then Ozias said, "O daughter, blessed art thou among all the women of the earth, and blessed be the Lord God which created the heavens and the earth, which hath directed thee to the cutting off of the head of our chief enemy. For this thy confidence shall not depart from the hearts of men which remember the power of God forever. And God turn these things for a perpetual praise, because thou hast not spared thy life for the affliction of our nation, but hast avenged our ruin, walking in a straight way before our God. And all the people said, Amen, so be it."
The sequel of the story is, that the inspired prophetess directs her citizens to rush down upon the army in the first confusion of the loss of its general; and, this advice being followed, a general panic and rout of the hostile army follows, and the whole camp is taken and spoiled.
The story ends with a solemn procession of thanksgiving and worship, the men wreathed with flowers around their armor, and headed by Judith crowned with a garland of olive leaves, and leading forth a solemn rhythmic dance while she sings a hymn of victory. This song of Judith, evidently modeled on the victorious anthem of Deborah under the same circumstances, is less vigorous and fiery, but more polished and finished. Had it stood alone, it had been thought an unrivalled composition of its kind. The animus of it is, in some respects, the same with that of the song of Hannah,—it exults in the might of God as the protector of the weak and helpless. There is an intensely feminine exultation in the consciousness that she, though weak as a woman, has been made the means of overcoming this strength:—
"Assur came from the mountains of the north,
He came with ten thousands of armies.
The multitudes thereof stopped the torrents.
Their horsemen covered the hills.
He bragged that he would burn up my border,
That he would kill my young men with the sword,
That he would dash the sucking children against the ground,
And make the children a prey and the virgins a spoil;
But the Almighty Lord hath disappointed him by the hand of a woman!
The mighty one did not fall by young men,
Neither did the sons of Titans set upon him,
Nor did high giants set upon him;
But Judith, the daughter of Merari, weakened him with her beauty.
For the exaltation of the oppressed in Israel
She put off her garments of widowhood,
She anointed herself with ointment,
She bound her hair with a fillet,
She took a linen garment to deceive him;
Her sandals ravished his eyes,
Her beauty took his mind prisoner,
So the fauchion passed through his neck.
I will sing unto my God a new song:
O Lord, thou art great and glorious,
Wonderful in strength and invincible.
Let all creatures praise thee,
For thou speakest and they were made,
Thou sentest thy spirit and created them.
There is none can resist thy voice;
The mountains shall be moved from their foundations,
The rocks shall melt like wax at thy presence,
Yet art thou merciful to them that fear thee,
For all sacrifice is too little for a sweet savor unto thee,
All the fat is not enough for burnt-offerings;
But he that feareth the Lord is great at all times."
How magnificent is the conception of the woman here given! Lowly, devout, given up to loving memories of family life, yet capable in the hour of danger of rising to the highest inspirations of power. Poetess, prophetess, inspirer, leader, by the strength of that power by which the helpless hold the hand of Almighty God and triumph in his strength, she becomes the deliverer of her people.