In another aspect Longfellow is perhaps unfairly kind to Judas. Henry V, as Shakespeare drew him, was something of a braggadocio. But the dramatist might almost have been thinking of Judas when he makes his Henry exclaim before Agincourt: “I pray thee, wish not one man more.” Judas, too, knew that much of the glory of victory depended upon the success of the few over the many, “the fewer men the greater share of honour.” Judas, unlike Henry, would have meant the more signal would be the revelation of God’s power, if the human means by which the battle was won were weaker. On the other hand, the Books of the Maccabees do not, so far as one’s memory goes, indicate that Judas, any more than Henry, was chivalrous in the narrower sense. The Jewish exemplar of the chivalrous warrior is David not Judas. Longfellow, however, presents Judas as the chivalrous knight. One hesitates what to think of the third scene in Act III of Longfellow’s play. In “mysterious guise,” Nicanor enters the Jewish camp, a herald “unheralded,” gliding “like a serpent silently” into the very presence of Judas. Nicanor discovers himself. _Judas_: Thou art indeed Nicanor. I salute thee. What brings thee hither to this hostile camp Thus unattended? _Nicanor_: Confidence in thee. Thou hast the noble virtues of thy race, Without the failings that attend those virtues. Thou can’st be strong, and yet not tyrannous, Can’st righteous be and not intolerant. Let there be peace between us. _Judas_: What is peace? Is it to bow in silence to our victors? Is it to see our cities sacked and pillaged? Our people slain, or sold as slaves, or fleeing At night-time by the blaze of burning towns; Jerusalem laid waste; the Holy Temple Polluted with strange gods? Are these things peace? This is cleverly conceived. Nicanor’s degrading compliments as well as his false offer of peace are rejected with due scorn. Longfellow probably got the idea for this scene from the story told of Mattathias, to whom the Syrian envoys made overtures, which the dour father of the Maccabee knew how to treat. But what one doubts is whether Nicanor would have trusted himself to the Maccabean camp. The scene ends: _Judas_: Go to thy tents. _Nicanor_: Shall it be war or peace? _Judas_: War, war, and only war. Go to thy tents That shall be scattered, as by you were scattered The torn and trampled pages of the Law, Blown through the windy streets. _Nicanor_: Farewell brave foe! _Judas_: Ho, there, my captains! Have safe conduct given Unto Nicanor’s herald through the camp, And come yourselves to me.--Farewell, Nicanor!