OZIAS. Old man, meditation is good and solitude is good, but think not because you sit staring all day at your own belly that the sun and stars have ceased to revolve round the earth and the kings of this world to make war. Is it possible that you do not know what has happened? CHABRIS. I only know that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink. OZIAS. Bethulia is besieged. CHABRIS. Who is besieging Bethulia? OZIAS. Holofernes. CHABRIS. I have never heard his name. Who is he? OZIAS. Never heard the name of the chief captain of Nebuchadnezzar? Have you heard the name of Nebuchadnezzar, by chance? CHABRIS. I seem to remember it. OZIAS. Come up here. (_They go up the steps to the vantage-point_.) Look! A hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers. Twelve thousand archers on horseback. Oxen and sheep for their provisions. Twenty thousand asses for their carriages. Camels without number. Infinite victuals; and very much gold and silver. The like was never seen before. CHABRIS (_stepping down_.) Why has Nebuchadnezzar set about this thing? What harm has Bethulia done to him? OZIAS. Much harm. Nebuchadnezzar has decided to be God. He has decreed that all nations and tribes shall call upon him as God. And he has conquered the whole earth, excepting only Judea; and Bethulia is the gate into Judea, and Bethulia has not listened to his decree, and I am the governor of Bethulia. So Nebuchadnezzar the great king is very angry and Holofernes is the tool of his wrath. CHABRIS (_going up the steps again and gazing_.) How many did you say? OZIAS. A hundred and twenty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse. CHABRIS. At any rate this will be the last war. OZIAS. Why? CHABRIS. Why! Because plainly war cannot continue on such a scale. Or if it does, mankind is destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar has rendered war ridiculous. OZIAS _(laughs; then half to himself, sarcastically)._ What is heavier than lead, and what is the name thereof, but an aged fool? CHABRIS (_descending again, self-centred_). It remains that I cannot eat pulse without water to drink. (_To_ Ozias.) And surely Bethulia has more wells than any other city of Judea. OZIAS. The wells are at the foot of the hills, and Holofernes has seized them all. CHABRIS. That is not fighting. OZIAS. It is war. CHABRIS. No, no! In my time soldiers fought fairly. OZIAS. And killed each other. Why should Holofernes sacrifice thousands of lives to take the heights when he can reach the same result by letting his men sit still and watch? CHABRIS. I say this is not war. Once I travelled many days to Nineveh. It is a city of extravagance, and when I beheld its mad, new-fangled ways, I knew that the last day was nigh. I was right. Three thousand and five hundred years since Jehovah created Adam, and Eve from his rib ... Too long! Too long! And what is pulse without water? I must have water.