Judith

Judith is a narrated poem, although the poem reveals its frame only infrequently. One such moment occurs at the opening of Part 4, when at dawn the Israelites, inspired by Judith and now “keen for the conflict” (Line 218), prepare for their surprise attack. The speaker observes in the woods along the periphery of what will soon be the bloody field of battle a “lank wolf” and a “wan raven” (211). The speaker notes the creatures “listened in joy” to the soldiers sharpening their weapons.

The wolf and the raven are symbols that foreshadow the massive slaughter that will be recounted in Part 5. Both creatures feed on carcasses. The raven is a fierce scavenger. Although it feeds on carrion, it will not actually attack. Rather, it relies on the kill instincts of the wolf. Once the wolf rips open a carcass, the raven secures its share of the slaughtered animal. That symbiotic relationship suggests what is about to unfold will be death on a dramatic scale. Both starving creatures—the wolf is thin, the raven weak—will be more than sated with the carcasses about to be piled up. Thus, the speaker suggests, even God’s meanest creatures sense that God’s Chosen, the Israelites, “the gallant people” (Line 213) will soon gift these carrion creatures with a “feast of the fated” (Line 214), that is, the bodies of doomed Assyrians.