JUDITH. You have not done this thing?
HOLOFERNES. I have done it.
JUDITH. Would you forestall God, and would you speak the decrees of God
before they are uttered?
HOLOFERNES. Thou saidst thou wouldst pray to thy god this night and that
he would tell thee when the Israelites in Bethulia had committed their
sin, and that thou wouldst come to me to proclaim the hour of my
triumph.
JUDITH. I said: I will pray to God and _mayhap_ he will tell me.
HOLOFERNES. Thou hast prayed, and thy god hath not answered?
JUDITH. He has not answered.
HOLOFERNES (_with bravado_). He is no god, then, thy god. Let us drink.
JUDITH (_as_ Holofernes _moves towards her, solemnly_). Touch not your
handmaid, and touch not the goblet. (_She goes to the skins, R_.)
HOLOFERNES (_following_ Judith _gently_). Thou art offended.
JUDITH. Stand afar off, Holofernes, and meddle not with her that
communes with the Most High.
(Judith _kneels_. Holofernes _goes in the direction of the couch.
Silence_. Bagoas _has been seen once or twice in the porch of the tent,
his back turned. He has now gone again. Two half-veiled Assyrian women
appear through the hangings, R.
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