SOURCE: Lucas, Peter J. “Judith and the Woman Hero.” Yearbook of English Studies 22 (1992): 17-27.

[In the following essay, Lucas maintains that the character of Judith in the Old English poem transcends interpretations of her as a seductress, virgin beauty, and figure of the church, claiming that she illustrates the theme of the power of faith that could not have been achieved in a male hero.]

Who yaf Judith corage or hardynesse
To sleen hym Olofernus in his tente,
And to deliveren out of wrecchednesse
The peple of God?(1)

According to Christina of Markyate Judith, the chaste widow celebrated for her victory over the devil of lust, was a particular favourite of the Virgin Mary,² and the story has proved popular amongst religious artists.³ The role of Judith has been interpreted in at least three ways.

(a) She is a seductress whose use of her feminine charms is a means to an end, the overthrow of the aggressive Assyrian general Holofernes, an end which justifies the means.

(b) She is a virgin beauty seen as a type of chastity overcoming Holofernes's lust.

(c) She is a figure of the Church representing the conquest of moral degradation and evil typified by Holofernes.

In this article I propose to show that the Judith of the Old English poem conforms to none of these interpretations but rather transcends them. Her ambiguous role as a seductress is eliminated. Although she is imbued with moral strength (a potential foundation for her as a type of chastity) and wisdom (a potential foundation for her as a figure of the Church) these qualities serve mainly to emphasize her binary opposition with Holofernes, who is portrayed as a male anti-hero. As an example of faith in action against evil and oppression Judith becomes an instrument in God's hands. But the poet is also careful to adopt a Germanic model for his heroine so that, although her characterization is thin, she has a role that seems to grow out of a conformity with ideal female behaviour in a heroic society. Finally I shall argue that the poet has exploited the story to illustrate a theme, the power of faith, in a way that could not have been achieved if the hero had been a man.

An inherent difficulty in the biblical story of Judith is the underlying moral principle that the end justifies the means. Although Judith is a pious widow motivated by the noble aim of saving her people she uses deceit, enticement to lust, and murder to accomplish it. From the way he treats the story the poet of the Old English Judith seems to have had some awareness of these weaknesses.⁴ While he could hardly dispense with the slaying of Holofernes his version does not include the first problematical element and he eliminates the second.⁵

In the Bible Holofernes orders a feast to which Judith is invited (Judith 12.10-14).⁶ At the feast Holofernes, overcome with desire to seduce Judith, drinks too much (12.16-20) and becomes ‘ebrietate sopitus’ (13.4) or ‘dead drunk’ as the New English Bible puts it. In the Old English poem Holofernes orders a feast at which he gets drunk. Once tipsy he orders Judith to be brought to him. In this way any possibility that Judith might be responsible even in a contributory fashion for making Holofernes drunk is removed. Moreover, his lust for her appears to come on in his state of drunkenness, as if caused by it. In this way the possibility that Judith might be guilty of enticement to lust in the Old English poem is avoided.⁷

In the Bible, before going to the feast Judith ‘ornauit se uestimentis suis et omni ornatu mulieri’, ‘arrayed herself in all her woman's finery’ (12.15), with the result that ‘inflammatum est cor Olofornis in ipsa, et turbata est anima eius, et erat concupiscens concumbere cum ea’, ‘Holofernes' heart was ravished with her [his mind in a daze] and he was moved with great desire to possess her’ (12.16). Previously, before setting out for the Assyrian camp Judith employed all the techniques of the beauty parlour ‘et inposuit … omnia ornamenta sua et conposuit se in rapinam uirorum quicumque uidissent eam’, ‘and made herself very beautiful, to entice the eyes of all men who might see her’ (10.4), the Vulgate adding the explanation that she did this for virtuous not lustful ends: ‘omnis ista compositio non ex libidine sed ex virtute pendebat’. In the Old English poem no mention is made of any overt preparations on Judith's part to be a femme fatale. Her wearing of jewelery, ‘beagum gehlæste, ¦ hringum gehrodene’ (36-37) becomes part of the Anglo-Saxon convention.⁸ Like Wealhþeow she can ‘gan under gyldnum beage’ (Beowulf, l. 1163).⁹ She returns to Bethulia still ‘ring-adorned’, as also is her maid (‘beahhrodene’, (pl.), l. 138), whose physical attractions are not at issue. If, as some commentators have suggested, Judith in the poem was a figure of the Church, as she certainly was in patristic exegesis,¹⁰ she becomes all the more convincing if not dressed to kill.

Only two words suggest Judith's sexual allure, ælfscinu and wundenlocc. The first, ælfscinu, is used just once, when Holofernes's feast is first announced:

                                                                                                    Þæt wæs þy feorðan dogore,
þæs ðe Iudith hyne                    gleaw on geðonce
ides ælfscinu                    ærest gesohte.

(l. 12)

Ides ælfscinu ‘a woman of elfin beauty’ suggests not so much an evil genius as a woman who had the effect of arousing the male libido.¹¹ In Genesis A the word is used of Sarah first when Abraham fears she will arouse the sexual desires of Egyptian men (l. 1827; Genesis 12.12), and secondly by Abimelech who did indeed fancy her (l. 2731; Genesis 20.2) and was only prevented from fulfilling his desires by the personal intervention of God (l. 2634). In none of these instances is there any suggestion that the lady is a vamp; on the contrary, in the first Genesis story Sarah's beauty is presented as a handicap which might endanger Abraham's life, so he has to say she is his sister.

The second word, wundenlocc, is applied twice to Judith, first when she takes Holofernes's sword with a view to decapitating him (l. 77), and secondly when she delivers the first blow (l. 103). Later, it is used of the Israelites in general (l. 325), a factor which led Stuart to the improbable claim that ‘the word merely signifies a racial feature’ (p. 23).¹² In Riddle 25, as earthy an Anglo-Saxon riddle as any to be found, to which the solution is ‘onion’, the word is used in the phrase ‘wif wundenlocc’ (l. 11) in a context of sexual innuendo. What is significant about the word applied to a woman is that the hair is described at all. In the Bible Judith ‘inpectinauit capillos capiti sui’, ‘combed her hair’ (10.3), as part of her grande toilette before setting out for the Assyrian camp. According to the Revised Standard Version she then ‘put on a tiara’, but in the Old Latin she ‘inposuit mitram super caput suum’. Latin mitra, the word used in both recensions of the Old Latin text and in the Vulgate too, means a ‘head-band’. In accordance with the teaching of the Church (see 1 Corinthians 11.5-6) it was customary in Anglo-Saxon England for women to cover their hair. ‘In Anglo-Saxon art, women's hair is almost always hidden except for the occasional suggestions at the forehead.’¹³ ‘The veil or head-rail … was indispensable; [it was] worn by all classes, even in bed, though sometimes discarded in intimate domestic life.’¹⁴ In the Old English poem there is no mention of Judith's covering her hair—on the contrary, we are told something about it: it is wunden, so it must be visible, at least in part. In his prose De Virginitate Aldhelm cites Judith in a section criticizing the wearing of adornments (Chapters 55-58), though he excuses her on the classic grounds that the end justified the means.¹⁵ Amongst his strictures he condemns hair-styling: ‘antiae frontis et temporum cincinni calamistro crispantur’, ‘the hair of their forelocks and the curls at their temples are crimped with a curling iron’ (Chapter 58). But Aldhelm's criticism is of artificial ‘glamorization’, a criticism that cannot apply to Judith in the Old English poem, as there is no hint that she has an elaborate coiffure. Her hair could be naturally curly or it could be like the ‘unique exception’ to the statement quoted above about women's hair in Anglo-Saxon art: ‘a depiction of the Virgin on an ivory book-cover shows what appears to be a plait of hair over the crown [top of forehead]’, the rest of the head being covered.¹⁶ What is perhaps of primary importance is the context where her hair is described: Holofernes's tent, where Holofernes is in bed and Judith is alone with him. It is a context appropriate for intimacy, or which would at least suggest the potential for intimacy to someone of Holofernes's inclination. Attractive, even sensual, as Judith may have been in this context, she was also vulnerable, as the possibility that Holofernes might wake up suggests (ll. 76b-77a), and as her prayer to God the Trinity confirms (ll. 83-94a).¹⁷

Although she is the hero of the Old English poem Judith is not a warrior woman. She is not shown as possessing physical strength. She is no wonderwoman with bionic powers. The poem shows no trace of the precedent established by Prudentius for the Virtues appearing as female warriors.¹⁸ Much as it might have disappointed Christina of Markyate Judith is not Chastity militant.¹⁹ Nor is she a forerunner of Joan of Arc assuming the male dress of a knight.²⁰ It cannot even be said of her, as it is of Grendel's mother,

efne swa micle
wiggryre wifes
                    Wæs se gryre læssa
swa bið mægþa cræft,
be wæpnedmen

(Beowulf, l. 1282)

‘The fear was less by just so much as women's strength, a woman's war-terror, is [less] as compared with a man's’.

Judith's practical difficulties in arranging Holofernes's sleeping body in order to decapitate him are almost pedantically spelt out (ll. 98-111). Even when she does succeed it is because Holofernes has rendered himself defenceless rather than because of her strength.²¹ Judith is invested with moral rather than physical strength, and nearly all the references to her character indicate either her moral purity or her wisdom and mental powers. Her moral purity is suggested by ‘seo halige meowle’ (l. 56), ‘ða beorhtan idese’ (l. 58), ‘haligre’ (l. 98), ‘seo halige’ (l. 160), ‘seo beorhte mægð’ (l. 254), ‘ða halgan mægð’ (l. 260), ‘beorhtan idese’ (l. 340);²² her wisdom and mental powers by ‘gleaw on geðonce’ (l. 13), ‘ferhðgleawe’ (l. 41), ‘þa snoteran idese’ (l. 55), ‘þearle gemyndig’ (l. 74), ‘seo snotere mægð’ (l. 125), ‘searoðoncol mægð’ (l. 145), ‘gleawhydig wif’ (l. 148), ‘seo gleawe’ (l. 171), ‘ðurh Iudithe gleawe lare’ (l. 333), ‘idese … georoþoncolre’ (ll. 340-41).²³ Unlike Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men in his hand (Beowulf, ll. 379-81), she wins a great victory not by brute strength but by her moral and mental prowess.

In a heroic poem the hero is expected to perform deeds of extraordinary proportions. But, as a woman, Judith cannot even order men to prepare for battle as a male commander would; rather she requests it.²⁴

þyssa burgleoda
                    Nu ic gumena gehwæne
biddan wylle

(l. 186)

Similarly Wealhþeow made her request of Beowulf: ‘doð swa ic bidde’ (Beowulf, l. 1231). Judith is more like Wealhþeow in this respect than, say, Elene, who as the emperor's mother leads the imperial army. Judith's authority is somewhat enhanced by the retention of her maid, the only character besides Judith and Holofernes not to be excised from the biblical account,²⁵ but as the one who, following Judith's instructions, carries the bag and shows Holofernes's head to the Israelites (in the Bible Judith does it, 13.15),²⁶ she is still a mere shadow against which to accentuate Judith's prominence.

As a woman Judith cannot be a Germanic chief with his comitatus. But she can be diametrically opposed to an example of how not to be one, thus gaining stature by contrast, negatively rather than positively. For Holofernes is almost a parody of what, in Germanic terms, a commander should be. Where the Bible uses the passive, saying that Holofernes's men at the feast were ‘fatigati a vino’, ‘weary [from the wine]’ (13.2), the Old English poem attributes responsibility for their drunken stupor directly to Holofernes: ‘oferdrencte his duguðe ealle’ (l. 31).²⁷ It goes further: Holofernes ‘manode geneahhe ¦ bencsittende, þæt hi gebærdon wel’ (ll. 26-27). The verb manian usually means ‘urge strongly’ and is generally used in contexts where what is urged is commendable. In heroic contexts it can mean ‘exhort (to fight bravely)’, as in Ælfwine's rallying of his comrades—‘Ongan þa winas manian’—in The Battle of Maldon (l. 228); its use here in Judith is notable.²⁸ Holofernes exhorts his men to wine rather than war. He is the antithesis of heroic. Moreover, he commands respect through fear (he is ‘egesful’, l. 21) rather than by example. Immured inside his ‘fleohnet’ (l. 47), through which he can see out but no-one can look in (a considerable elaboration of the biblical ‘conopeum’),²⁹ he is a sinister and remote figure.³⁰ It is almost as if he is a rival to God, unseen but powerful. Apparently, laying women was a regular part of Holofernes's activities, and his officers do not seem the least bit surprised that he is, as they think, sleeping in the next morning. Despite being ‘þearle gebylde’ (l. 268) they are terrified of waking him, and, like the Green Knight at the Camelot court, reduced to clearing their throats noisily (‘ongunnon cohhetan’, l. 270) in an effort to evoke a response.³¹ Unlike the Green Knight, however, they are abjectly faint-hearted rather than proudly scornful. Eventually one ‘niðheard’ warrior (l. 277) becomes ‘to ðam arod’, ‘sufficiently courageous’ (l. 275), to venture in. This mock-heroic presentation of Holofernes's men summoning up their courage to see their own commander when the enemy is pressing reflects on Holofernes himself as a leader who inspires fear rather than fighting spirit.³² On discovering his death they throw down their weapons and hasten to flee (ll. 290-91), a reaction which contrasts sharply with that of Byrhtnoð's ‘heorðwerod’ in Maldon.

In his approach to the biblical Judith-story the Judith-poet was selective, so that the number of characters has been drastically reduced, to the virtual exclusion of all except Judith and Holofernes. Their characterization is also somewhat different in emphasis from what it is in the Bible. In the Old English poem Judith and Holofernes are diametrically opposed, because they represent opposite codes of spiritual and moral behaviour. This opposition is reinforced by the alliteration: in line 98 Judith is halig and Holofernes is hæðen. The contrast is also indicated at the level of vocabulary.³³ Compounds are used to describe the characteristics of both Judith and Holofernes, compounds that are linked by a common element but contrasted by the other. Whereas Holofernes is heteþoncol, ‘thinking malicious thoughts’ (l. 105), Judith is searoþoncol, ‘thinking clever thoughts’ (l. 145) and gearoþoncol, ‘ready-witted’ (l. 342). While Holofernes is galferhð, ‘lecherous’ (l. 62), Judith is ferhðgleaw, ‘prudent’ (l. 41), and collenferhð, ‘bold-minded’ (l. 134). Similarly, while the Assyrians are werigferhðe, ‘mentally exhausted’ (ll. 249, 290), sweorcendferhðe, ‘sombre-minded’ (l. 269), and hreowigmode, ‘dejected’ (l. 289; see also l. 282a), the Israelites are stercedferhðe, ‘mentally determined’ (l. 227) and styrnmode, ‘stern-minded’ (l. 227). The range of descriptions given to Judith is relatively narrow, so a number of uncomplimentary epithets are applied to Holofernes which have no precise counterpart amongst those applied to Judith. Nevertheless, the character of Judith benefits from them by contrast. Thus Holofernes is inwidda, ‘malicious’ (l. 28), bealoful, ‘injurious’ (l. 48), unsyfre, ‘unclean’ (l. 76), womful, ‘foul’ (l. 77), feondsceaðan, ‘enemy wretch’ (l. 104), þone hæðenan hund, ‘the heathen hound’ (l. 110). Here is a veritable feondes bearn, oferhygda ful, flæsce bifongen (Vainglory, ll. 43-48). As a wærloga, ‘treaty-breaker’ (Modern English Warlock) and a leodhata, ‘people-hater’, Holofernes certainly has devilish overtones (ll. 71-72): he is deofolcunda (l. 61). Moreover, although called sinces brytta (l. 30), a complimentary term applicable to any Germanic chief, Holofernes is also called morðres brytta, ‘distributor of wicked acts’ (l. 90), a term usually employed in Old English poetry to refer to the devil.³⁴

As well as being an ironic echo of the earlier sinces brytta the phrase morðres brytta also relates to another similar phrase, tires brytta, ‘distributor of glory’ used of God (l. 93). This contrast, between Holofernes and God, is also important. They are comparable in that both are called þeoden (God, l. 3, Holofernes, l. 11) and both are called þearlmod ðeoden gumena (God, l. 91, Holofernes, l. 66). Yet, though linked in this way, they are clearly contrasted by the use of the word ‘highest’ in line 4, where þæs hehstan Deman, ‘the highest Judge’ refers to God and þæs hehstan brogan, ‘the greatest terror’ to Holofernes.³⁵ Moreover, Holofernes and Judith are contrasted with each other in their relationship to God. Whereas Holofernes is Nergende lað, ‘hateful to the Saviour’ (l. 45), and the Assyrians are Gode orfeorme, ‘lacking God’ (l. 271),³⁶ Judith is Nergendes ¦ þeowen þrymful, ‘glorious servant of the Saviour’ (ll. 73-74), and Scyppendes mægð (l. 78). In this respect she resembles the Virgin Mary, the ancilla Domini of the Magnificat (Luke 1. 38, 46-55).³⁷ This relationship to God is of crucial importance, for God is the most powerful force in the poem. He controls everything that happens or does not happen. When Holofernes fancied laying Judith, ‘Ne wolde þæt wuldres Dema ¦ geðafian’, ‘the Judge of glory had no intention of allowing that’ (ll. 59-60). When, in her first prayer, Judith asks God for ‘sigor and soðne geleafan’ (l. 89), ‘Hi ða se hehsta Dema ¦ ædre mid elne onbryrde’, ‘the highest Judge immediately inspired her with courage’ (ll. 94-95), the first time in the poem that Judith is described as possessing courage.³⁸ When Judith has overcome Holofernes

Hæfde ða gefohten
Iudith æt guðe,
swegles Ealdor,
          foremærne blæd
swa hyre God uðe,
þe hyre sigores onleah

(l. 122)

‘Judith had won by fighting in the combat preeminent fame, as God, Lord of the sky, allowed her, He who granted her the victory.’

It is God ‘þe hyre weorðmynde geaf’, ‘who gave her honour’ (l. 342). When the Israelites are winning the battle ‘him feng Dryhten God ¦ fægre on fultum’, ‘the Lord God gave them suitable help’ (ll. 299-300).

The stress on God's all-seeing power and direction of events, echoed later by Chaucer's Man of Law in the passage cited as the headnote to this article, is part of the particular way in which the biblical story is interpreted in the Old English poem. Now it can be seen why the range of descriptions given to Judith is so narrow. Praying to God aside, she expresses no emotion. Her personality in this respect is simply not developed.³⁹ The depth of characterization given to Judith is in inverse proportion to the emphasis on God's ubiquitous intervention. Judith is not personalized like the Judith of the Bible because in the Old English poem she is even more an instrument in the hands of God.⁴⁰ God imposes terms for the granting of his favour, as is made clear early in the poem:

                                                                                          Hyre ðæs Fæder on roderum
torhtmod tiðe gefremede,                    þe heo ahte trumne geleafan
a to ðam Ælmihtigan.

(l. 5)

‘The glorious Father in the heavens granted it (protection) to her because she always had firm belief in the Almighty.’

Thus the poem is not so much about the triumph of good over evil—indeed, the representative of evil is killed in the first third of the extant poem—as about the value of faith in God as exemplified by Judith.

Chaucer's Man of Law, quoted in the headnote to this article, cited Judith as an example of a woman who was ‘saved … out of meschaunce’ (Canterbury Tales, II, l. 944), as Constance was to be. But the Judith of the Old English poem differs from Constance. She is exemplary, not for her suffering or endurance, certainly not for the way she treats the man in her life, as ironically portrayed in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale (Canterbury Tales, IV, ll. 1366-68), but for her positive action in a crisis. As an illustration of faith in action (see James 2.20-24) Judith is quite different from the archetypal woman, Eve, who in Genesis B is seen as having had a ‘wacran hige’ (l. 590) ordained for her by God. Instead of a biblical role-model the poet suggests another. In his Germania Tacitus noted that Germanic women had an element of holiness and prophecy, and, true to form, ‘halig’ Judith foretells the Israelite victory (ll. 155-57, 195-97).⁴¹ She is an inspiration to her people, outstanding in that, together with her maid, she is ‘glædmod’, ‘glad at heart’ (l. 140), while the Bethulians are ‘geomormode’, ‘sad at heart’ (l. 144). According to Tacitus Germanic women were also notable for exhorting despondent armies to battle.⁴² Judith is just such an ideal woman, conforming most remarkably to the outstanding characteristics of Germanic women as described by Tacitus. She thus conforms to what might be expected of a woman in a heroic society. One of the poem's signal successes is the exploitation of this Germanic role-model in a religious poem.

From the above analysis it is reasonable to conclude that the treatment of theme is very important in Judith. The poet has used a story featuring a woman, a story whose potential is developed with particular appropriateness to illustrate the theme of the power of faith. If a male hero had the help of God it would be unfair, like Sir Bertilak's being aided by Morgan Le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. By having a woman hero who slays Holofernes with his own sword the poem avoids the potential inconsistency of having an armed warrior under the protection of God, an awkwardness present, for example, in the episodes concerning Abraham in the wars in Genesis A (ll. 1702-2172). Judith is not a fully heroic figure. She does not announce what she is going to do (as opposed to prophesying the general Israelite success), nor does she make vows about it. With a female rather than male hero as the central figure the poem is able to focus on the moral, even the didactic, aspects of that figure rather than the military and personal ones. From the point of view of portraying the triumph of good over evil the woman hero is an advantage. If the hero were a man much of the credit would accrue to himself, so that to a large extent it would be merely a personal victory. A male hero would diminish the efficacy of the help of God theme. The heroic element of the Israelite attack and rout of the Assyrian army, an element added in the Old English poem to the biblical account (15.4-5), is fully unleashed only after Judith's moral victory (though the Israelite attack begins before the Assyrians discover Holofernes's body). In no other Old English poem do we find a whole army fleeing as soon as they know their leader is dead.⁴³ So even the heroic element in the poem is subservient to the necessity for right to achieve an absolute triumph over wrong.

The overriding importance of the treatment of theme in Judith reflects an author who shows confidence in a stable and secure background. Just as the nineteenth-century hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful reflects a certitude of faith oblivious to handicap, hardship, and hunger, so the message of Judith, that even in the direst difficulty faith in God will bring deliverance, is an uplifting one, though, to another age, apparently complacent. Judith, after all, is as much fantasy as Wonderwoman, but differs from modern video entertainment in reflecting the seriousness of purpose, the ‘sincerity’, albeit blinkered, of an age sure of its belief.

Notes

1. The Riverside Chaucer, edited by L. D. Benson (Oxford, 1988), Canterbury Tales, II, ll. 939-42.

2. The Life of Christina of Markyate, edited by C. H. Talbot (Oxford, 1959), pp. 76-77. The Virgin Mary says to Christina in a dream: ‘introduxero te in thalamum meum. te et Judith una tecum.’ (‘I shall bring you into my chamber, you and Judith alone with you.’)

3. See, for example, Lexikon der Christlischen Ikonographie, 6 vols (Rome, 1968-76), II, 454-58, under Judith, article by J. Seibert; L. Réau, Iconographie de l'Art Chrétien, 3 vols (Paris, 1955-59), II. Part 1, 329-35; also P. Calvocoressi, Who's Who in the Bible (London, 1987), under Judith, pp. 135-37, and G. Duchet-Suchaux and M. Pastoureau, La Bible et les Saints: Guide iconographique (Paris, 1990), under Judith, pp. 195-96.

4. Textual citations from Judith and other Old English poetry refer to The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, edited by G. P. Krapp and E. v. K. Dobbie, 6 vols (New York, 1931-53); sometimes minor adjustments of capitalization and punctuation have been made. See also Judith, edited by B. J. Timmer, revised edition (Exeter, 1978), with bibliography to 1975. I have tried to acknowledge any indebtedness to the considerable secondary literature on Judith as appropriate.

5. The first problematical element, deceit, relates to Judith's stated reasons for entering Holofernes's camp: Judith 10.12-13. This part of the story is lacking as the poem is incomplete at the beginning. For a discussion leading to the conclusion that Judith is probably relatively complete in the form in which it survives see P.J. Lucas, ‘The Place of Judith in the Beowulf-Manuscript’, The Review of English Studies, n.s. 41 (1990), 463-78. See also R. Woolf, ‘The Lost Opening to the “Judith”’, Modern Language Review, 50 (1955), 168-72.

6. Biblical references are to the Clementina Vulgate. For two recensions of the Old Latin text of Judith see P.-M. Bogaert, ‘Recensions de la Vieille Version Latine de Judith’, Revue Bénédictine, 85 (1975), 7-37, 241-65; several quotations are taken from the ‘Monacensis’ or Munich recension. Unless otherwise indicated modern English renderings are from the Revised Standard Version; they are not translations of the Latin, which, in the Old Latin versions, is often more explicit. For the Greek text with an English translation see The Book of Judith, edited by M. S. Enslin and S. Zeitlin (Leiden, 1972). For some differences between the Greek text of the Septuagint and the Latin text of the Vulgate see T. G. Foster, Judith (Strassburg, 1892), Appendix I.A, p. 94. For some consideration of the treatment of the feast scene in Judith see H. Magennis, ‘Adaptation of Biblical Detail in the Old English Judith: the Feast Scene’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 84 (1983), 331-37. See also B. F. Huppé, The Web of Words (Albany, 1970), pp. 158-61. For an analysis of the Judith-poet's adaptation of his biblical source as a whole see Judith, edited by A. S. Cook (Boston, 1907), pp. xvii-xxiii. See also J. J. Campbell, ‘Schematic Technique in Judith’, English Literary History, 38 (1971), 155-72 (pp. 155-58).

7. For this point made with different emphasis see Cook, Judith, p. xx, and J. F. Doubleday, ‘The Principle of Contrast in Judith’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 72 (1971), 436-41 (p. 437).

8. A. Rapetti makes the additional point that Judith accepts her share of war-booty like a queen (334-41): ‘Three Images of Judith’, Etudes de Lettres (Université de Lausanne), 2-3 (1987), 155-65 (p. 160).

9. M. Swanton notes that Judith is unlike Wealhþeow in that she does not distribute the drink: English Literature before Chaucer (London, 1987), p. 157. But then Judith is a guest, not a hostess like Wealhþeow.

10. According to Hrabanus Maurus, ‘His … omnibus ornamentis se sancta Ecclesia ornat, quia omnium virtutum decore se illustrare certat’ (Expositio in librum Judith, c. x, in Patrologia Latina, Volume CIX, column 565. Hrabanus's argument here is very much an exegetical one and not really suitable for adoption in a narrative poem. For the contention that Judith undergoes ‘allegorical assimilation’ to the Church see A. W. Astell, ‘Holofernes's head: tacen and teaching in the Old English Judith’, Anglo-Saxon England, 18 (1989), 117-33 (p. 126).

11. For a different view see H. Stuart, ‘The Meaning of OE *ælfsciene’, Parergon, 2 (1977), 22-26. Huppé, Web of Words, p. 159, thinks the word suggests ‘both the allure and the danger of the beauty to the evil who desire to possess it’. His ‘distinction between Judith's natural beauty and her allure’ (p. 164) is, I think, misplaced. The distinction (and he was right to detect one) is rather between Judith's natural allure and the absence of any deliberate attempt to enhance it. On ides see A. L. Meaney, ‘The Ides of the Cotton Gnomic Poem’, Medium Ævum, 48 (1979), 23-37 (pp. 23-24).

12. Unlike women's, men's hair did not have to be covered, though only a little perhaps would have shown outside military head-gear. A contrast may have been intended between the Assyrian warrior who, having discovered Holofernes's body, ‘ongan his feax teran’, ‘proceeded to tear his hair’ (l. 281) and the Israelites, who keep their hair on.

13. G. R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 1986), p. 144 (in relation to the tenth and eleventh centuries); similarly for the seventh to ninth centuries, p. 102.

14. C. W. and P. Cunnington, Handbook of English Mediaeval Costume, second edition (London, 1969), p. 18. See also G. R. Owen, ‘Wynflæd's Wardrobe’, Anglo-Saxon England, 8 (1979), 195-222 (pp. 214-19).

15. In Aldhelmi Opera, edited by R. Ehwald, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), pp. 226-323 (p. 318), also Aldhelm: The Prose Works, translated by M. Lapidge and M. Herren (Ipswich, 1979), pp. 59-132 (pp. 127-28).

16. Owen-Crocker, Dress, quotation on p. 144, figure 129 on p. 134.

17. Judith's concern lest Holofernes wake up is noted by A. H. Olsen, ‘Inversion and Political Purpose in the Old English Judith’, English Studies, 63 (1982), 289-93 (p. 290). On Judith's prayer to the Trinity see T. D. Hill, ‘Invocation of the Trinity and the Tradition of the Lorica in Old English Poetry’, Speculum, 56 (1981), 259-67; for discussion see also Astell, ‘Holofernes's head’, pp. 127-28.

18. See D. H. Green, The Millstätter Exodus (Cambridge, 1966), p. 12. In Prudentius's Psychomachia Chastity invokes Judith in her speech following her victory over Lust: Psychomachia 58-65, in Prudentius, edited by H. J. Thomson, 2 vols (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969), 1, 282-83.

19. Swanton, Literature, notes that the Old English poem ‘nowhere mentions her chastity’; on the other hand he finds a ‘militant feminism’ in Judith (pp. 159-60).

20. See M. Warner, Joan of Arc (London, 1981), Chapter 8.

21. See R. J. Schrader, God's Handiwork: Images of Women in Early Germanic Literature (London, 1983), pp. 21-25 (p. 23). For the suggestion that Judith's arrangement of Holofernes's body (ll. 99b-103a) is described in terms appropriate to a man preparing to rape a woman (if the subject pronouns were male) see Olsen, ‘Inversion and Political Purpose’, pp. 291-92.

22. For the semantic field of beorht applied to persons see Bosworth-Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898), s.v., II. Only later did it come to mean, as Dr Johnson put it, ‘resplendent with charms’.

23. J. P. Hermann thinks Judith represents Ecclesia Magistra the Church as Teacher: ‘The Theme of Spiritual Warfare in the Old English Judith’, Philological Quarterly 55 (1976), 1–9. For some discussion of Judith's wisdom see M. Locherbie-Cameron, ‘Wisdom as a Key to Heroism in Judith’ Poetica 27 (1988), 70-75.

24. For a discussion of the scene beginning with line 186 see D. K. Fry, ‘The Heroine on the Beach in Judith’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 68 (1967), 168-84. See also by the same author, ‘Type-Scene Composition in Judith’, Annuale Medievale, 12 (1972), 100-19.

25. Bagoas (Vagao), the eunuch who is Holofernes's aide-de-camp, is reduced to a mere walk-on part, being the unnamed retainer who finds Holofernes's headless body and makes a speech telling the other retainers what he has found. In the Old English poem he is representative of Assyrian fears rather than giving the reaction of an individual; see Doubleday, ‘Contrast’, p. 436.

26. As noted by Huppé, Web of Words, p. 172.

27. Huppé, Web of Words, p. 161, suggests an association with poculum mortis ‘the bitter drink of death’, for which see C. Brown, ‘Poculum Mortis in Old English’, Speculum, 15 (1940), 389-99. The phrase was sometimes used of those routed in battle (Ludwigslied, ll. 53-54, quoted by Brown, p. 396), or by some phenomenal disaster, as at Andreas, l. 1533, and this sense could apply ironically in Judith.

28. For a range of instances see Bosworth-Toller, Dictionary, under manian. For a complete list see A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, compiled by R. Venezky and A. diP. Healey (Toronto, 1980), under manian, manode, monian, monode, etc.

29. For a discussion see C. T. Berkhout and J. F. Doubleday, ‘The Net in Judith 46b-54a’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 74 (1973), 630-34.

30. No particulars of Holofernes's physical appearance are given. Judith, on the other hand, is ælfscinu and wundenlocc, as noted above.

31. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, edited by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, revised by N. Davis (Oxford, 1967), line 307: ‘he coȝed ful hyȝe’.

32. For a discussion of this scene see F. J. Heinemann, ‘Judith 236-291a: A Mock Heroic Approach-to-Battle Type Scene’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 71 (1970), 83-96.

33. Some suggestive remarks in this direction are made by C. B. Hieatt, ‘Judith and the Literary Function of Old English Hypermetric Lines’, Studia Neophilologica, 52 (1980), 251-57 (p. 254). See also I. Pringle, ‘“Judith”: The Homily and the Poem’, Traditio, 31 (1975), 83-97 (pp. 92-93).

34. See R. Woolf, ‘The Devil in Old English Poetry’, The Review of English Studies, n.s. 4 (1953), 1-12 (p. 8); reprinted in Essential Articles for the Study of Old English Poetry, edited by J. B. Bessinger, Jr, and S. J. Kahrl (Hamden, Connecticut, 1968), pp. 164-79 (p. 171).

35. A contrast noted by Huppé, Web of Words, p. 158.

36. Cook's reading, supported by Vainglory, l. 49. Timmer reads gōde, adducing Andreas, l. 406.

37. As noted by Pringle, ‘Judith’, p. 96.

38. As noted by R. E. Kaske, ‘Sapientia et Fortitudo in the Old English Judith’, in The Wisdom of Poetry (Festschrift for M. W. Bloomfield), edited by L. D. Benson and S. Wenzel (Kalamazoo, 1982), pp. 13-29, 264-68 (pp. 21-22). There is a notable contrast here with the treatment of Juliana when she requests God's assistance (Juliana, ll. 272-88). God tells her to seize the devil, which she does in half a line, and then the poem ‘spends the next several hundred lines relating Juliana's tenacious interrogation of him’: C. Schneider, ‘Cynewulf's Devaluation of Heroic Tradition in Juliana’, Anglo-Saxon England, 7 (1978), 107-18 (p. 111).

39. See Huppé, Web of Words, p. 157.

40. From a consideration of the beheading scene Huppé finds that ‘Judith has the impersonality of an agent carrying out God's purpose’: Web of Words, p. 169. By different means Rapetti also concludes ‘that Judith was no more than his [God's] instrument’: ‘Images’, p. 159. See also Kaske, ‘Sapientia et Fortitudo’, p. 29.

41. Cornelii Taciti De Origine et Situ Germanorum, edited by J. G. C. Anderson (Oxford, 1938), Chapter 8, § 2. For other references to the characteristics noted by Tacitus see Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, edited by J. Hoops, 4 vols (Strassburg, 1911-19), IV, 504-05, under Weise Frauen, article by E. Mogk.

42. Germania, Chapter 8, § 1.

43. For some consideration of the battle scene see A. Renoir, ‘Judith and the Limits of Poetry’, English Studies, 43 (1962), 145-55.