Word: bethulia
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...wish to assassinate." The Book of Judges describes how Ehud, acting in behalf of the defeated Israelites, assassinated Eglon, the King of Moab. There is the story of the widow Judith saving the Israelites by cutting off the head of Nebuchadnezzar's general, Holofernes, who was besieging Bethulia. Such killings, however, were defiant acts against a conqueror and thus not strictly foreign policy assassinations. Rome was sufficiently bloody with assassinations-the murders of Julius Caesar and Tiberius Gracchus, for example-but these were factional acts, intramural mayhem...
...JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES, by the 15th century Paduan, ANDREA MANTEGNA, treats a bloody drama with chill grace. (The story, told in a book of the Apocrypha: Nebuchadnezzar sent an army against Bethulia under Captain Holofernes, who laid siege to the city. Judith, a lovely, pious and patriotic widow of Bethulia, made her way into Holofernes' camp, tent, and affections. After three days' dalliance she caught him napping, removed his head, and stole back to town with her trophy. Soon afterwards the siege was lifted.) Mantegna's panel was probably one of a series on the theme...
...Jewess Judith beguiles the general Holofernes, comes from King Nebuchadnezzar to capture the city of Bethulia. She chops off his head, exhibits it proudly to her people...
...were Flemish, but he was born in Liverpool 36 years ago and schooled there. The violin is his favorite instrument. His taste inclines to creative modernism. Librettist Bennett, sticking close to his Bible, furnished the composer with a wieldy vehicle stressing only the orthodox characters-Judith, enchantress of besieged Bethulia; Holofernes, the lusty besieger, whom she beguiles and then beheads; Haggith, Judith's maid, who smuggles the bloody head into the town; Achior, lieutenant of Holofernes who is bound to a stake, and released by Judith, for his disinclination to storm Bethulia; Bagoas, the chief eunuch, who is captivated...
Griffith made her an old woman-the pinchfaced mother in Judith of Bethulia, Intolerance; he made her an outcast girl in Way Down East, Colonel Cameron's sweetheart in Birth of a Nation. She went with him from Biograph to Reliance, Majestic, Fine Arts, Artcraft, First National, United Artists. Somehow, no matter how bad the scenario was, her intelligence brought to certain moments and situations that reality which is the definition of great acting and which Miss Gish's famous frailty, her dimples, her soft, elliptical face, and her pale hair down to her waist could not keep...