The Captain
If they complain, strike them on the mouth.
The Chaldean
Captain, they are not complaining.
Another Chaldean
Watch them marching. They stride along like conquerors. Their eyes flash with joy.
The Chaldeans
What people are these?—Have they not been vanquished?—Can anyone have spread among them false tidings of liberation?—What are they chanting?—A strange people.—No one can understand them, whether in their dejection or in their exultation.—Their very gentleness is a danger, for it has a strength of its own.—This resembles rather the triumphal entry of a king, than the exodus of an enslaved people.—Saw the world ever such a nation?
[Here Jeremiah inconspicuously joins his tribe]