Holofernes

“ OZIAS. My hand is terrible.
ACHIOR. Thus it happened. When the children of Israel had shut up the passages of the hill country and had fortified all the tops of the high hills, Holofernes was very angry. And he called the captains of Ammon and said to them: Tell me now, ye sons of Chanaan, who these Israelites are that dwell in the hill country, and wherein is their power and strength, and why they have determined not to come and meet me, more than all the inhabitants of the west? And I, Achior, answered the question of Holofernes. ”

“ There is not such a woman upon earth in sight, in fairness, and in wit of words. And Holofernes said to her: God hath done well that he hath sent thee hither for to let me have knowledge, and if thy God do to me these things he shall be my God, and thou and thy name shall be great in the house of Nebuchadnezzar. Then commanded Holofernes her to go in where his treasure lay, and to abide there, and to give to her meat from his feast, to whom she said that she might not eat of his meat, but that she had brought meat with her for to eat. ”

“ But Mother Holofernes was not to be deceived by the demon, nor disconcerted by orations, nor imposed upon by honeyed words; she took charge of the bottle and its contents, and went off to a mountain. The old lady vigorously climbed to the summit of this mountain, and there, on its most elevated crest, in a rocky and secluded spot, deposited [155] the phial, taking leave of her son-in-law with a shake of her closed fist as a farewell greeting.
And there his lordship remained for ten years. What years those ten were! The world was as quiet as a pool of oil. ”

“ In either type of scene, the first gray and silver, the other painted with Paul Veronese splendor, Judith moves with a delicate deliberation. Over her face the emotions play like winds on a meadow lake. Holofernes is the composite picture of all the Biblical heathen chieftains. His every action breathes power. He is an Assyrian bull, a winged lion, and a god at the same time, and divine honors are paid to him every moment.
Nathan and Naomi are two Arcadian lovers. In their shy meetings they express the life of the normal Bethulia. ”

“ Thou hast saved thy life by taking this resolution, to come down to our lord.
10:16. And be assured of this, that when thou shalt stand before him, he will treat thee well, and thou wilt be most acceptable to his heart. And they brought her to the tent of Holofernes, telling him of her.
10:17. And when she was come into his presence, forthwith Holofernes was caught by his eyes.
10:18. And his officers said to him: Who can despise the people of the Hebrews, who have such beautiful women, that we should not think it worth our while for their sakes to fight against them? ”

“ ARMADO.
Sir, it is the King’s most sweet pleasure and affection to congratulate the Princess at her pavilion in the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.
HOLOFERNES.
The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable, congruent, and measurable for the afternoon. The word is well culled, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure. ”

“ The character of Holofernes, however, while it caricatures the peculiar folly and ostentation of Florio, holds up to ridicule, at the same time, the general pedantry and literary affectations of the age; and amongst these very particularly the absurd innovations which Lilly had introduced. Sir Nathaniel, praising the specimen of alliteration which Holofernes exhibits in his "extemporal epitaph," calls it "a rare talent;" ”

“ Chapter 3 1 So they sent ambassadors to him to entreat him for peace, saying, 2 "Behold, we, the servants of Nebuchadnezzar the great king, lie before you; use us as it seems good in your sight. 3 Behold, our houses and all our places, and all our fields of wheat, and flocks and herds, and all the lodges of our tents lie before your face; use them as it pleases you. 4 Behold, even our cities and their inhabitants are your servants; come and deal with them as it seems good to you." 5 So the men came to Holofernes and made declaration before him in this way. ”

“ They will burn thy entrails, they are so long; and yet thou wilt never come up with me. It would be much better that we should both serve one master."
Taigarot perceived this, and the next time Holofernes stuck the spurs in him, he threw the Flame-king. As they were very high up in the air, (in fact, they were as high as the stars) , Holofernes fell to the ground with such force, that he broke his neck. As for Argilius, he brought Kavadiska back to her castle, where they again celebrated their nuptials, lived very happy; and, if they have not died since, they live there to this very day. ”

“ Warburton's conjecture, inclined to doubt. Every man adheres as long as he can to his own pre-conceptions. Before I read this note I considered the character of Holofernes as borrowed from the Rhombus of sir Philip Sidney, who, in a kind of pastoral entertainment, exhibited to queen Elizabeth, has introduced a school-master so called, speaking a leash of languages at once, and puzzling himself and his auditors with a jargon like that of Holofernes in the present play. ”

“ I have spoken it, and none of my words shall be in vain.
10 Then Holofernes commanded his servants, that waited in his tent, to take Achior, and bring him to Bethulia, and deliver him into the hands of the children of Israel.
11 So his servants took him, and brought him out of the camp into the plain, and they went from the midst of the plain into the hill country, and came unto the fountains that were under Bethulia. ”

“ But this gentleman, despite his reputation for wisdom, had met with a mother-in-law who knew more than he did; and Mother Holofernes was not the only specimen of that genus. Therefore, scarcely had his lordship entered into the keyhole, congratulating himself upon having, as usual, discovered a method of escape, than he found himself in a phial, which his foreseeing mother-in-law had ready on the other side of the door ”

“ May the demon meddle
In all she tries to do!”
The sound outside being more attractive for Panfila than the caldron within, she did not hasten to her mother, but went to the window. Mother Holofernes, meanwhile, seeing that her daughter did not come, and that time was passing, attempted to lift the caldron by herself, in order to pour the water upon the linen; and [152] as the good woman was small, and not very strong, it turned over, and burnt her foot. On hearing the horrible groans Mother Holofernes made, her daughter went to her. ”

“ Brave warriors-with-shields, though the mighty weened not of it,20
Awful lord of earls. Thén was Holofernes,
Gold-friend of men, full of wine-joy:
He laughed and clamored, shouted and dinned,
That children of men from afar might hear
How the strong-minded both stormed and yelled,25
Moody and mead-drunken, often admonished
The sitters-on-benches to bear themselves [2] well. ”

“ Then Holofernes called the captains, and officers of the power of the Assyrians: and he mustered men for the expedition, and the king commanded him, a hundred and twenty thousand fighting men on foot, and twelve thousand archers, horsemen. ”

“ By the pass of Jenîn, Holofernes led his army in triumph until he met Judith of Bethulia and [page 222] lost his head. Yonder in the corner to the northward, at the base of Mount Tabor, Deborah and Barak gathered the tribes against the Canaanites under Sisera. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Gauls and Britons, he says, placed the ornament on the middle finger, whereas, in his day at Rome, that was the only finger on which it was not carried. In the seventeenth century a fashion prevailed in England of having a skull cut on the stone, a mode dictated by the same feeling, one would think, that induces a tobacco-smoker to have the bowl of his hookah carved in the shape of a grinning caput mortuum. Among the whimsical figures to which the countenance of the pedant Holofernes is likened by the merry lords in “Love’s Labour Lost,” is a death’s face in a ring. ”

“ The knight's carrying off the maid, lifting her on to his horse in many copies, may well come from a misunderstanding of elevaverunt in Judith x, 20: Et cum in faciem ejus intendisset, adoravit eum, prosternens se super terram. Et elevaverunt eam servi Holofernis, jubente domino suo. [86]
In German A Gert Olbert and Helena are said to ride three days and nights, and in Danish D the ride is for three days; and we may remember that Judith killed Holofernes the fourth day after her arrival in his camp. ”

“ An elliptical and proverbial expression: if we plant weeds, we shall not reap corn; unless we make the proper preparations, we shall not gain the desired results.
V. i. 22. to speak 'dout,' fine, when he should say, 'doubt.' Holofernes belongs to the pedantic group which sought during the Renaissance to bring the spelling and pronunciation of English words as close as possible to the real or fancied Latin original. Thus the earlier doute was written and sounded doubt on the authority of Latin dubitum, and the earlier dette made into debt on the analogy of Latin debitum. ”

“ The four chief subjects painted by Holbein in 1521-22 were— (1) Charondas of Catanea, the law-giver of the city of the Thurii, who had issued a decree forbidding the wearing of arms in the public assembly under pain of death, but himself inadvertently broke the law. Hurrying to the council chamber from a journey, he forgot to leave his weapons behind him; and on attention being called to this by one of his enemies, he immediately cried out, “By Zeus! the law shall be master,” and ran himself through with his sword. (2) Zaleucus of Locris, whose laws punished adultery by the loss of both eyes. ”

“ Wolsey and the great and quietly-handled Archbishop Warham hang here together in strange posthumous amity, parted only by the panel of Anne, Bluebeard's fourth Queen, which Holbein went to Cleves to-53- paint. A very undistinguished person No. 108 must have been, quite worthy of her safe suburban pensioner's life, and the humorous commuting title of the King's Sister. All her forerunners and successors are here to the life, limned by Holbein's brush and pencil. The dearth of female beauty, from 1509 to 1547, was truly extraordinary, if we are to believe the believable pigments before us. ”

“ This is the striking design representing the Banner-bearer of the Urseren Valley, in the Uri district—the valley watered by the Reuss, in which Andermatt is the chief village. This drawing, which is in the Royal Print Room, Berlin, is mentioned by Woltmann, ii. p. 120, as, in his opinion, not by Holbein, but by some “good Swiss master.” The landsknecht, a bearded man, stands full-face, with legs stretched wide apart, and the banner held aloft in his right hand. His left rests on his hip, and he carries a great sword. This animated, vigorously drawn figure is evidently a portrait. ”

“ In it, nearly a decade after he had pointed Erasmus's satire on the unworthy prelate or the unclean friar, may plainly be read that reverence for the true priest which Holbein shared with all his best friends. In the quaint, quiet street this solemn procession is too familiar a sight to draw any spectator from the hearth where the fire of the Living is blazing so cheerily. The good Father, very lovingly drawn, casts his kind glance around as he passes on his Office with the veiled Pyx carried reverently. ”

“ In Holbein we have a complete contrast to the great Franconian of whom I have just spoken; a man not prone to theorise, not steeped in speculation, a dreamer of no dreams; without passion, but full of joyous fancies, he looked out with serene eyes upon the world around him; accepting Nature without preoccupation or afterthought, but with a keen sense of all her subtle beauties, loving her simply and for herself. As a draughtsman he displayed a flow, a fullness of form, and an almost classic restraint which are wanting in the work of Dürer, and are, indeed, not found elsewhere in German Art. ”

“ He can even fit a new head-dress on the lovely hair, and add the puffed sleeves below the short ones. He is a painter now; not a lover. And lest there should be one doubt as to his purpose, he flings a heap of gold where "Cupid's" little hand would now seem desecrated, and inscribes beneath it the name that fits her beauty and his contempt. The plague was raging in Basel all through that spring and summer, but I doubt if Holbein shuddered at its contact as at the loveliness he painted. ”

“ Unhappy Holbein, indeed! The temper of Xantippe herself, if she be but the decent mother of one's children, might work less havoc with a life than this embroidered cestus. But "the German Apelles" was no Greek voluptuary, ambitious in heathen vices, such as that other Apelles whose painting of Venus was said to be his masterpiece. And when Holbein inscribed his second portrait of Dorothea with the words Laïs Corinthiaca, the midsummer madness must have been already a matter of scorn and wonder to himself. His whole life and the works of his life are the negation of the groves of Corinth. ”