SAMSON AGONISTES
(1667-1671)
THE ARGUMENT.—SAMSON, made captive, blind, and now in the prison at Gaza, there to labour as in a common workhouse, on a festival day, in the general cessation from labour, comes forth into the open air, to a place nigh, somewhat retired, there to sit awhile and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which make the Chorus, who seek to comfort him what they can; then by his old father, Manoa, who endeavours the like, and withal tells him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom; lastly, that this feast was proclaimed by the Philistines as a day of thanksgiving for their deliverance from the hands of Samson—which yet more troubles him. Manoa then departs to prosecute his endeavour with the Philistian lords for Samson's redemption: who, in the meanwhile, is visited by other persons, and, lastly, by a public officer to require his strength in their presence. He at first refuses, dismissing the public officer with absolute denial to come; at length, persuaded inwardly that this was from God, he yields to go along with him, who came now the second time with great threatenings to fetch him. The Chorus yet remaining on the place, Manoa returns full of joyful hope to procure ere long his son's deliverance; in the midst of which discourse an Ebrew comes in haste, confusedly at first, and afterwards more distinctly, relating the catastrophe—what Samson had done to the Philistines, and by accident to himself; wherewith the Tragedy ends.
THE PERSONS
SAMSON. MANOA， the father of Samson. DALILA, his wife.
HARAPHA of Gath. Public Officer. Messenger. Chorus of Danites.
The Scene, before the Prison in Gaza.
SAMSON. A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade.
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,Daily in the common prison else enjoined me,Where I, a prisoner chained, scarce freely draw
The air, imprisoned also, close and damp,Unwholesome draught. But here I feel amends—
The breath of Heaven fresh blowing, pure and sweet,With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn feast the people hold
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works. Unwillingly this rest
Their superstition yields me; hence, with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease—
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
Oh, wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at last, in sight
Of both my parents, all in flames ascended
From off the altar where an offering burned,As in a fiery column charioting
His godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit revealed to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,Designed for great exploits, if I must die
Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out,Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze,To grind in brazen fetters under task
With this heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength,Put to the labour of a beast, debased
Lower than bond-slave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver!
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.
Yet stay; let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine prediction. What if all foretold
Had been fulfilled but through mine own default?
Whom have I to complain of but myself,Who this high gift of strength committed to me,In what part lodged, how easily bereft me,Under the seal of silence could not keep,But weakly to a woman must reveal it,O'ercome with importunity and tears?
O impotence of mind in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldly, burdensome,Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties; not made to rule,But to subserve where wisdom bears command.
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But peace! I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation, which herein
Haply had ends above my reach to know.
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,And proves the source of all my miseries—
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail. But, chief of all,O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies! O worse than chains,Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm, the vilest here excel me:
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,Within doors, or without, still as a fool,In power of others, never in my own—
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,Irrecoverábly dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first-created Beam, and thou great Word,“Let there be light, and light was over all,”
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
The Sun to me is dark
And silent as the Moon,When she deserts the night,Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,She all in every part, why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,So obvious and so easy to be quenched,And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light,As in the land of darkness, yet in light,To live a life half dead, a living death,And buried; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave;Buried, yet not exempt,By privilege of death and burial,From worst of other evils, pains, and wrongs;But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet steering this way;Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult—
Their daily practice to afflict me more.
Chor. This, this is he; softly a while;Let us not break in upon him.
O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,With languished head unpropt,As one past hope, abandoned,And by himself given over,In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O'er-worn and soiled.
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,That heroic, that renowned,Irresistible Samson? whom, unarmed,No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand;Who tore the lion as the lion tears the kid;Ran on embattled armies clad in iron,And, weaponless himself,Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery
Of brazen shield and spear, the hammered cuirass,Chalybean-tempered steel, and frock of mail
Adamantean proof:
But safest he who stood aloof,When insupportably his foot advanced,In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite
Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors turned
Their plated backs under his heel,Or grovelling soiled their crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone,A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine,In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day:
Then by main force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore,The gates of Azza, post and massy bar,Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old—
No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so—
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven.
Which shall I first bewail—
Thy bondage or lost sight,Prison within prison
Inseparably dark?
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)
The dungeon of thyself; thy soul
(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)
Imprisoned now indeed,In real darkness of the body dwells,Shut up from outward light
To incorporate with gloomy night;For inward light, alas!
Puts forth no visual beam.
O mirror of our fickle state,Since man on earth, unparalleled,The rarer thy example stands,By how much from the top of wondrous glory,Strongest of mortal men,To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen.
For him I reckon not in high estate
Whom long descent of birth,Or the sphere of fortune, raises;But them whose strength, while virtue was her mate,Might have subdued the Earth,Universally crowned with highest praises.
Sams. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air
Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear.
Chor. He speaks: let us draw nigh. Matchless in might,The glory late of Israel, now the grief!
We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown.
From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale,To visit or bewail thee; or, if better,Counsel or consolation we may bring,Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage
The tumours of a troubled mind,And are as balm to festered wounds.
Sams. Your coming, friends, revives me; for I learn
Now of my own experience, not by talk,How counterfeit a coin they are who “friends”
Bear in their superscription (of the most
I would be understood). In prosperous days
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head,Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends,How many evils have enclosed me round;Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,Blindness; for, had I sight, confused with shame,How could I once look up, or heave the head,Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwrecked
My Vessel trusted to me from above,Gloriously rigged, and for a word, a tear,Fool! have divulged the secret gift of God
To a deceitful woman? Tell me, friends,Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool
In every street? Do they not say, “How well
Are come upon him his deserts”? Yet why?
Immeasurable strength they might behold
In me; of wisdom nothing more than mean.
This with the other should at least have paired;These two, proportioned ill, drove me transverse.
Chor. Tax not divine disposal. Wisest men
Have erred, and by bad women been deceived;And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wise.
Deject not, then, so overmuch thyself,Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides.
Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou should'st wed Philistian women rather
Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair,At least of thy own nation, and as noble.
Sams. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased
Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed
The daughter of an Infidel. They knew not
That what I motioned was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urged
The marriage on, that, by occasion hence,I might begin Israel's deliverance—
The work to which I was divinely called.
She proving false, the next I took to wife
(O that I never had! found wish too late!)
Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila,That specious monster, my accomplished snare.
I thought it lawful from my former act,And the same end, still watching to oppress
Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I myself,Who, vanquished with a peal of words, (O weakness!)
Gave up my fort of silence to a woman.
Chor. In seeking just occasion to provoke
The Philistine, thy country's enemy,Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness;Yet Israel still serves with all his sons.
Sams. That fault I take not on me, but transfer
On Israel's governors and heads of tribes,Who, seeing those great acts which God had done
Singly be me against their conquerors,Acknowledged not, or not at all considered,Deliverance offered. I, on the other side,Used no ambition to commend my deeds;The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.
But they persisted deaf, and would not seem
To count them things worth notice, till at length
Their lords, the Philistines, with gathered powers,Entered Judea, seeking me, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham was retired—
Not flying, but forecasting in what place
To set upon them, what advantaged best.
Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent
The harass of their land, beset me round;I willingly on some conditions came
Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me
To the Uncircumcised a welcome prey,Bound with two cords. But cords to me were threads
Touched with the flame: on their whole host I flew
Unarmed, and with a trivial weapon felled
Their choicest youth; they only lived who fled.
Had Judah that day joined, or one whole tribe,They had by this possessed the Towers of Gath,And lorded over them whom now they serve.
But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,And by their vices brought to servitude,Than to love bondage more than liberty—
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty—
And to despise, or envy, or suspect,Whom God hath of his special favour raised
As their deliverer? If he aught begin,How frequent to desert him and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds!
Chor. Thy words to my remembrance bring
How Succoth and the fort of Penuel
Their great deliverer contemned,The matchless Gideon, in pursuit
Of Madian, and her vanquished kings;And how ingrateful Ephraim
Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,Not worse than by his shield and spear,Defended Israel from the Ammonite,Had not his prowess quelled their pride
In that sore battle when so many died
Without reprieve, adjudged to death
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.
Sams. Of such examples add me to the roll.
Me easily indeed mine may neglect,But God's proposed deliverance not so.
Chor. Just are the ways of God,And justifiable to men,Unless there be who think not God at all.
If any be, they walk obscure;For of such doctrine never was there school,But the heart of the Fool,And no man therein doctor but himself.
Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just,As to his own edicts found contradicting;Then give the reins to wandering thought,Regardless of his glory's diminution,Till, by their own perplexities involved,They ravel more, still less resolved,But never find self-satisfying solution.
As if they would confine the Interminable,And tie him to his own prescript,Who made our laws to bind us, not himself,And hath full right to exempt
Whomso it pleases him by choice
From national obstriction, without taint
Of sin, or legal debt;For with his own laws he can best dispense.
He would not else, who never wanted means,Nor in respect of the enemy just cause,To set his people free,Have prompted this heroic Nazarite,Against his vow of strictest purity,To seek in marriage that fallacious bride,Unclean, unchaste.
Down, Reason, then; at least, vain reasonings down;Though Reason here aver
That moral verdict quits her of unclean:
Unchaste was subsequent; her stain, not his.
But see! here comes thy reverend sire,With careful step, locks white as down,Old Manoa: advise
Forthwith how thou ought'st to receive him.
Sams. Ay me! another inward grief, awaked
With mention of that name, renews the assault.
Man. Brethren and men of Dan (for such ye seem
Though in this uncouth place), if old respect,As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend,My son, now captive, hither hath informed
Your younger feet, while mine, cast back with age,Came lagging after, say if he be here.
Chor. As signal now in low dejected state
As erst in highest, behold him where he lies.
Man. O miserable change! Is this the man,That invincible Samson, far renowned,The dread of Israel's foes, who with a strength
Equivalent to Angels' walked their streets,None offering fight; who, single combatant,Duelled their armies ranked in proud array,Himself an Army—now unequal match
To save himself against a coward armed
At one spear's length? O ever-failing trust
In mortal strength! and, oh, what not in man
Deceivable and vain? Nay, what thing good
Prayed for, but often proves our woe, our bane?
I prayed for children, and thought barrenness
In wedlock a reproach; I gained a son,And such a son as all men hailed me happy:
Who would be now a father in my stead?
Oh, wherefore did God grant me my request,And as a blessing with such pomp adorned?
Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt
Our earnest prayers, then, given with solemn hand
As graces, draw a scorpion's tail behind?
For this did the Angel twice descend? for this
Ordained thy nurture holy, as of a plant
Select and sacred? glorious for a while,The miracle of men; then in an hour
Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound,Thy foes' derision, captive, poor and blind,Into a dungeon thrust, to work with slaves!
Alas! methinks whom God hath chosen once
To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err,He should not so o'erwhelm, and as a thrall
Subject him to so foul indignities,Be it but for honour's sake of former deeds.
Sams. Appoint not heavenly disposition, father
Nothing of all these evils hath befallen me
But justly; I myself have brought them on;Sole author I, sole cause. If aught seem vile,As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned
The mystery of God, given me under pledge
Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman,A Canaanite, my faithless enemy.
This well I knew, nor was at all surprised,But warned by oft experience. Did not she
Of Timna first betray me, and reveal
The secret wrested from me in her highth
Of nuptial love professed, carrying it straight
To them who had corrupted her, my spies
And rivals? In this other was there found
More faith, who, also in her prime of love,Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold,Though offered only, by the scent conceived
Her spurious first-born, Treason against me?
Thrice she assayed, with flattering prayers and sighs,And amorous reproaches, to win from me
My capital secret, in what part my strength
Lay stored, in what part summed, that she might know;Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport
Her importunity, each time perceiving
How openly and with what impudence
She purposed to betray me, and (which was worse
Than undissembled hate) with what contempt
She sought to make me traitor to myself.
Yet, the fourth time, when, mustering all her wiles,With blandished parleys, feminine assaults,Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night
To storm me, over-watched and wearied out,At times when men seek most repose and rest,I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart,Who, with a grain of manhood well resolved,Might easily have shook off all her snares;But foul effeminacy held me yoked
Her bond-slave. O indignity, O blot
To Honour and Religion! servile mind
Rewarded well with servile punishment!
The base degree to which I now am fallen,These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude, ignoble,Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,True slavery; and that blindness worse than this,That saw not how degenerately I served.
Man. I cannot praise thy marriage-choices, son—
Rather approved them not; but thou didst plead
Divine impulsion prompting how thou might'st
Find some occasion to infest our foes.
I state not that; this I am sure—our foes
Found soon occasion thereby to make thee
Their captive, and their triumph; thou the sooner
Temptation found'st, or over-potent charms,To violate the sacred trust of silence
Deposited within thee—which to have kept
Tacit was in thy power. True; and thou bear'st
Enough, and more, the burden of that fault,Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying;That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains:
This day the Philistines a popular feast
Here celebrate in Gaza, and proclaim
Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud,To Dagon, as their god who hath delivered
Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands—
Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a slain.
So Dagon shall be magnified, and God,Besides whom is no god, compared with idols,Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn
By the idolatrous rout amidst their wine;Which to have come to pass by means of thee,Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest,Of all reproach the most with shame that ever
Could have befallen thee and thy father's house.
Sams. Father, I do acknowledge and confess
That I this honour, I this pomp, have brought
To Dagon, and advanced his praises high
Among the Heathen round—to God have brought
Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths
Of idolists and atheists; have brought scandal
To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt
In feeble hearts, propense enough before
To waver, or fall off and join with idols:
Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow,The anguish of my soul, that suffers not
Mine eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest.
This only hope relieves me, that the strife
With me hath end. All the contest is now
'Twixt God and Dagon. Dagon hath presumed,Me overthrown, to enter lists with God,His deity comparing and preferring
Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure,Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked,But will arise, and his great name assert.
Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive
Such a discomfit as shall quite despoil him
Of all these boasted trophies won on me,And with confusion blank his Worshipers.
Man. With cause this hope relieves thee; and these words
I as a prophecy receive; for God
(Nothing more certain) will not long defer
To vindicate the glory of his name
Against all competition, nor will long
Endure it doubtful whether God be Lord
Or Dagon. But for thee what shall be done?
Thou must not in the meanwhile, here forgot,Lie in this miserable loathsome plight
Neglected. I already have made way
To some Philistian lords, with whom to treat
About thy ransom. Well they may by this
Have satisfied their utmost of revenge,By pains and slaveries, worse than death, inflicted
On thee, who now no more canst do them harm.
Sams. Spare that proposal, father; spare the trouble
Of that solicitation. Let me here,As I deserve, pay on my punishment,And expiate, if possible, my crime,Shameful garrulity. To have revealed
Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend,How heinous had the fact been, how deserving
Contempt and scorn of all—to be excluded
All friendship, and avoided as a blab,The mark of fool set on his front!
But I God's counsel have not kept, his holy secret
Presumptuously have published, impiously,Weakly at least and shamefully—a sin
That Gentiles in their parables condemn
To their Abyss and horrid pains confined.
Man. Be penitent, and for thy fault contrite;But act not in thy own affliction, son.
Repent the sin; but, if the punishment
Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids;Or the execution leave to high disposal,And let another hand, not thine, exact
Thy penal forfeit from thyself. Perhaps
God will relent, and quit thee all his debt;Who ever more approves and more accepts
(Best pleased with humble and filial submission)
Him who, imploring mercy, sues for life,Than who, self-rigorous, chooses death as due;Which argues over-just, and self-displeased
For self-offence more than for God offended.
Reject not, then, what offered means who knows
But God hath set before us to return thee
Home to thy country and his sacred house.
Where thou may'st bring thy offerings, to avert
His further ire, with prayers and vows renewed.
Sams. His pardon I implore; but, as for life,To what end should I seek it? When in strength
All mortals I excelled, and great in hopes,With youthful courage, and magnanimous thoughts
Of birth from Heaven foretold and high exploits,Full of divine instinct, after some proof
Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond
The sons of Anak, famous now and blazed,Fearless of danger, like a petty god
I walked about, admired of all, and dreaded
On hostile ground, none daring my affront—
Then, swollen with pride, into the snare I fell
Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains,Softened with pleasure and voluptuous life
At length to lay my head and hallowed pledge
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful Concubine, who shore me,Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece,Then turned me out ridiculous, despoiled,Shaven, and disarmed among my enemies.
Chor. Desire of wine and all delicious drinks,Which many a famous warrior overturns,Thou could'st repress; nor did the dancing ruby,Sparkling out-poured, the flavour or the smell,Or taste, that cheers the heart of gods and men,Allure thee from the cool crystal'lin stream.
Sams. Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed
Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure
With touch æthereal of Heaven's fiery rod,I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying
Thirst, and refreshed; nor envied them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
Chor. O madness! to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,When God with these forbidden made choice to rear
His mighty Champion, strong above compare,Whose drink was only from the liquid brook!
Sams. But what availed this temperance, not complete
Against another object more enticing?
What boots it at one gate to make defence,And at another to let in the foe,Effeminately vanquished? by which means,Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonoured, quelled,To what can I be useful? wherein serve
My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed?
But to sit idle on the household hearth,A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,Or pitied object; these redundant locks,Robustious to no purpose, clustering down,Vain monument of strength; till length of years
And sedentary numbness craze my limbs
To a contemptible old age obscure.
Here rather let me drudge, and earn my bread,Till vermin, or the draff of servile food,Consume me, and oft-invocated death
Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.
Man. Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that gift
Which was expressly given thee to annoy them?
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle,Inglorious, unimployed, with age outworn.
But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer
From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay
After the brunt of battel, can as easy
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring,Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast.
And I persuade me so. Why else this strength
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?
His might continues in thee not for naught,Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.
Sams. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend—
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,Nor the other light of life continue long,But yield to double darkness nigh at hand;So much I feel my genial spirits droop,My hopes all flat: Nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself;My race of glory run, and race of shame,And I shall shortly be with them that rest.
Man. Believe not these suggestions, which proceed
From anguish of the mind, and humours black
That mingle with thy fancy. I, however,Must not omit a father's timely care
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance
By ransom or how else: meanwhile be calm,And healing words from these thy friends admit.
Sams. Oh, that torment should not be confined
To the body's wounds and sores,With maladies innumerable
In heart, head, breast, and reins,But must secret passage find
To the inmost mind,There exercise all his fierce accidents,And on her purest spirits prey,As on entrails, joints, and limbs,With answerable pains, but more intense,Though void of corporal sense!
My griefs not only pain me
As a lingering disease,But, finding no redress, ferment and rage;Nor less than wounds immedicable
Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,To black mortification.
Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings,Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise
Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb
Or medicinal liquor can assuage,Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.
Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er
To death's benumbing opium as my only cure;Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,And sense of Heaven's desertion.
I was his nursling once and choice delight,His destined from the womb,Promised by heavenly message twice descending.
Under his special eye
Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain;He led me on to mightiest deeds,Above the nerve of mortal arm,Against the Uncircumcised, our enemies:
But now hath cast me off as never known,And to those cruel enemies,Whom I by his appointment had provoked,Left me all helpless, with the irreparable loss
Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated
The subject of their cruelty or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope;Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless.
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,No long petition—speedy death,The close of all my miseries and the balm.
Chor. Many are the sayings of the wise,In ancient and in modern books enrolled,Extolling patience as the truest fortitude,And to the bearing well of all calamities,All chances incident to man's frail life,Consolatories writ
With studied argument, and much persuasion sought,Lenient of grief and anxious thought.
But with the afflicted in his pangs their sound
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint,Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above,Secret refreshings that repair his strength
And fainting spirits uphold.
God of our fathers! what is Man,That thou towards him with hand so various—
Or might I say contrarious?—
Temper'st thy providence through his short course:
Not evenly, as thou rul'st
The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute,Irrational and brute?
Nor do I name of men the common rout,That, wandering loose about,Grow up and perish as the summer fly,Heads without name, no more remembered;But such as thou hast solemnly elected,With gifts and graces eminently adorned
To some great work, thy glory,And people's safety, which in part they effect.
Yet toward these, thus dignified, thou oft,Amidst their highth of noon,Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard
Of highest favours past
From thee on them, or them to thee of service
Nor only dost degrade them, or remit
To life obscured, which were a fair dismission,But throw'st them lower than thou didst exalt them high—
Unseemly falls in human eye,Too grievous for the trespass or omission;Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword
Of heathen and profane, their carcasses
To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived,Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude.
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty
With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,Painful diseases and deformed,In crude old age;Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering
The punishment of dissolute days. In fine,Just or unjust alike seem miserable,For oft alike both come to evil end.
So deal not with this once thy glorious Champion,The image of thy strength, and mighty minister.
What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already!
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn
His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end.
But who is this? what thing of sea or land—
Female of sex it seems—
That, so bedecked, ornate, and gay,Comes this way sailing,Like a stately ship
Of Tarsus, bound for the isles
Of Javan or Gadire,With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,Sails filled, and streamers waving,Courted by all the winds that hold them play;An amber scent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger, a damsel train behind?
Some rich Philistian matron she may seem;And now, at nearer view, no other certain
Than Dalila thy wife.
Sams. My wife! my traitress! let her not come near me.
Chor. Yet on she moves; now stands and eyes thee fixed,About to have spoke; but now, with head declined,Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps,And words addressed seem into tears dissolved,Wetting the borders of her silken veil.
But now again she makes address to speak.
Dal. With doubtful feet and wavering resolution
I came, I still dreading thy displeasure, Samson;Which to have merited, without excuse,I cannot but acknowledge. Yet, if tears
May expiate (though the fact more evil drew
In the perverse event than I foresaw),My penance hath not slackened, though my pardon
No way assured. But conjugal affection,Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt,Hath led me on, desirous to behold
Once more thy face, and know of thy estate,If aught in my ability may serve
To lighten what thou suffer'st, and appease
Thy mind with what amends is in my power—
Though late, yet in some part to recompense
My rash but more unfortunate misdeed.
Sams. Out, out, Hyæna! These are thy wonted arts,And arts of every woman false like thee—
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray;Then, as repentant, to submit beseech,And reconcilement move with feigned remorse,Confess, and promise wonders in her change—
Not truly penitent, but chief to try
Her husband, how far urged his patience bears,His virtue or weakness which way to assail:
Then, with more cautious and instructed skill,Again transgresses, and again submits;That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled,With goodness principled not to reject
The penitent, but ever to forgive,Are drawn to wear out miserable days,Entangled with a poisonous bosom-snake,If not by quick destruction soon cut off,As I by thee, to ages an example.
Dal. Yet hear me, Samson; not that I endeavour
To lessen or extenuate my offence,But that, on the other side, if it be weighed
By itself, with aggravations not surcharged,Or else with just allowance counterpoised,I may, if possible, thy pardon find
The easier towards me, or thy hatred less.
First granting, as I do, it was a weakness
In me, but incident to all our sex,Curiosity, inquisitive, importune
Of secrets, then with like infirmity
To publish them—both common female faults—
Was it not weakness also to make known
For importunity, that is for naught,Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety?
To what I did thou shew'dst me first the way.
But I to enemies revealed, and should not!
Nor should'st thou have trusted that to woman's frailty:
Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel.
Let weakness, then, with weakness come to parle,So near related, or the same of kind;Thine forgive mine, that men may censure thine
The gentler, if severely thou exact not
More strength from me than in thyself was found.
And what if love, which thou interpret'st hate,The jealousy of love, powerful of sway
In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee,Caused what I did? I saw thee mutable
Of fancy; feared lest one day thou would'st leave me
As her at Timna; sought by all means, therefore,How to endear, and hold thee to me firmest:
No better way I saw than my importuning
To learn thy secrets, get into my power
Thy key of strength and safety. Thou wilt say,“Why, then, revealed?” I was assured by those
Who tempted me that nothing was designed
Against thee but safe custody and hold.
That made for me; I knew that liberty
Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises,While I at home sat full of cares and fears,Wailing thy absence in my widowed bed;Here I should still enjoy thee, day and night,Mine and love's prisoner, not the Philistines',Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad,Fearless at home of partners in my love.
These reasons in Love's law have passed for good,Though fond and reasonless to some perhaps;And love hath oft, well meaning, wrought much woe,Yet always pity or pardon hath obtained.
Be not unlike all others, not a stere
As thou art strong, inflexible as steel.
If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed,In uncompassionate anger do not so.
Sams. How cunningly the Sorceress displays
Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine!
That malice, not repentance, brought thee hither
By this appears. I gave, thou say'st, the example,I led the way—bitter reproach, but true;I to myself was false ere thou to me.
Such pardon, therefore, as I give my folly
Take to thy wicked deed; which when thou seest
Impartial, self-severe, inexorable,Thou wilt renounce thy seeking, and much rather
Confess it feigned. Weakness is thy excuse,And I believe it—weakness to resist
Philistian gold. If weakness may excuse,What murtherer, what traitor, parricide,Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it?
All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore,With God or Man will gain thee no remission.
But love constrained thee! Call it furious rage
To satisfy thy lust. Love seeks to have love;My love how could'st thou hope, who took'st the way
To raise in me inexpiable hate,Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betrayed?
In vain thou striv'st to cover shame with shame,Or by evasions thy crime uncover'st more.
Dal. Since thou determin'st weakness for no plea
In man or woman, though to thy own condemning,Hear what assaults I had, what snares besides,What sieges girt me round, ere I consented;Which might have awed the best-resolved of men,The constantest, to have yielded without blame.
It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay'st,That wrought with me. Thou know'st the Magistrates
And Princes of my country came in person,Solicited, commanded, threatened, urged,Adjured by all the bonds of civil duty
And of religion—pressed how just it was,How honourable, how glorious, to entrap
A common enemy, who had destroyed
Such numbers of our nation: and the Priest
Was not behind, but ever at my ear,Preaching how meritorious with the gods
It would be to ensnare an irreligious
Dishonourer of Dagon. What had I
To oppose against such powerful arguments?
Only my love of thee held long debate,And combated in silence all these reasons
With hard contest. At length, that grounded maxim,So rife and celebrated in the mouths
Of wisest men, that to the public good
Private respects must yield, with grave authority
Took full possession of me, and prevailed;Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty, so enjoining.
Sams. I thought where all thy circling wiles would end—
In feigned religion, smooth hypocrisy!
But, had thy love, still odiously pretended,Been, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee
Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds.
I, before all the daughters of my tribe
And of my nation, chose thee from among
My enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knew'st;Too well; unbosomed all my secrets to thee,Not out of levity, but overpowered
By thy request, who could deny thee nothing;Yet now am judged an enemy. Why, then,Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband—
Then, as since then, thy country's foe professed?
Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave
Parents and country; nor was I their subject,Nor under their protection, but my own;Thou mine, not theirs. If aught against my life
Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly,Against the law of nature, law of nations;No more thy country, but an impious crew
Of men conspiring to uphold their state
By worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends
For which our country is a name so dear;Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee;To please thy gods thou didst it! Gods unable
To acquit themselves and prosecute their foes
But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction
Of their own deity, Gods cannot be—
Less therefore to be pleased, obeyed, or feared.
These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear!
Dal. In argument with men a woman ever
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause.
Sams. For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath!
Witness when I was worried with thy peals.
Dal. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken
In what I thought would have succeeded best.
Let me obtain forgiveness, of thee Samson;Afford me place to shew what recompense
Towards thee I intend for what I have misdone,Misguided. Only what remains past cure
Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist
To afflict thyself in vain. Though sight be lost,Life yet hath many solaces, enjoyed
Where other senses want not their delights—
At home, in leisure and domestic ease,Exempt from many a care and chance to which
Eyesight exposes, daily, men abroad.
I to the Lords will intercede, not doubting
Their favourable ear, that I may fetch thee
From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide
With me, where my redoubled love and care,With nursing diligence, to me glad office,May ever tend about thee to old age,With all things grateful cheered, and so supplied
That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss.
Sams. No, no; of my condition take no care;It fits not; thou and I long since are twain;Nor think me so unwary or accursed
To bring my feet again into the snare
Where once I have been caught. I know thy trains,Though dearly to my cost, thy gins, and toils.
Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms,No more on me have power; their force is nulled;So much of adder's wisdom I have learned,To fence my ear against thy sorceries.
If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men
Loved, honoured, feared me, thou alone could hate me,Thy husband, slight me, sell me, and forgo me,How would'st thou use me now, blind, and thereby
Deceivable, in most things as a child
Helpless, thence easily contemned and scorned,And last neglected! How would'st thou insult,When I must live uxorious to thy will
In perfect thraldom! how again betray me,Bearing my words and doings to the lords
To gloss upon, and, censuring, frown or smile!
This gaol I count the house of Liberty
To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter.
Dal. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand.
Sams. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake
My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint.
At distance I forgive thee; go with that;Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable
Among illustrious women, faithful wives;Cherish thy hastened widowhood with the gold
Of matrimonial treason: so farewell.
Dal. I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To prayers than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages,Eternal tempest never to be calmed.
Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing
For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate,Bid go with evil omen, and the brand
Of infamy upon my name denounced?
To mix with thy concernments I desist
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own.
Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed,And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;On both his wings, one black, the other white,Bears greatest names in his wild aerie flight.
My name, perhaps, among the Circumcised
In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering Tribes,To all posterity may stand defamed,With malediction mentioned, and the blot
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced.
But in my country, where I most desire,In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,I shall be named among the famousest
Of women, sung at solemn festivals,Living and dead recorded, who, to save
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the faith of wedlock bands; my tomb
With odours visited and annual flowers;Not less renowned than in Mount Ephraim
Jael, who, with inhospitable guile,Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nailed.
Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy
The public marks of honour and reward
Conferred upon me for the piety
Which to my country I was judged to have shewn.
At this whoever envies or repines,I leave him his lot, and like my own.
Chor. she's gone—a manifest Serpent by her sting
Discovered in the end, till now concealed.
Sams. So let her go. God sent her to debase me,And aggravate my folly, who committed
To such a viper his most sacred trust
Of secrecy, my safety, and my life.
Chor. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,After offence returning, to regain
Love once possessed, nor can be easily
Repulsed, without much inward passion felt,And secret sting of amorous remorse.
Sams. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end;Not wedlock-treachery endangering life.
Chor. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,That woman's love can win, or long inherit;But what it is, hard is to say,Harder to hit,Which way soever men refer it,(Much like thy riddle, Samson) in one day
Or seven though one should musing sit.
If any of these, or all, the Timnian bride
Had not so soon preferred
Thy Paranymph, worthless to thee compared,Successor in thy bed,Nor both so loosely disallied
Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.
Is it for that such outward ornament
Was lavished on their sex, that inward gifts
Were left for haste unfinished, judgment scant,Capacity not raised to apprehend
Or value what is best,In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-love mixed,Of constancy no root infixed,That either they love nothing, or not long?
Whate'er it be, to wisest men and best,Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil,Soft, modest, meek, demure,Once joined, the contrary she proves—a thorn
Intestine, far within defensive arms
A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue
Adverse and turbulent; or by her charms
Draws him awry, enslaved
With dotage, and his sense depraved
To folly and shameful deeds, which ruin ends.
What pilot so expert but needs must wreck,Embarked with such a steers-mate at the helm?
Favoured of Heaven who finds
One virtuous, rarely found,That in domestic good combines!
Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth:
But virtue which breaks through all opposition,And all temptation can remove,Most shines and most is acceptáble above.
Therefore God's universal law
Gave to the man despotic power
Over his female in due awe,Nor from that right to part an hour,Smile she or lour:
So shall he least confusion draw
On his whole life, not swayed
By female usurpation, nor dismayed.
But had we best retire? I see a storm.
Sams. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
Chor. But this another kind of tempest brings.
Sams. Be less abstruse; my riddling days are past.
Chor. Look now for no inchanting voice, nor fear
The bait of honeyed words; a rougher tongue
Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride,The giant Harapha of Gath, his look
Haughty, as is his pile high-built and proud.
Comes he in peace? What wind hath blown him hither
I less conjecture than when first I saw
The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.
Sams. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes.
Chor. His fraught we soon shalt know: he now arrives.
Har. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance,As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been,Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath;Men call me Harapha, of stock renowned
As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old
That Kiriathaim held. Thou know'st me now,If thou at all art known. Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats performed,Incredible to me, in this displeased,That I was never present on the place
Of those encounters, where we might have tried
Each other's force in camp or listed field;And now am come to see of whom such noise
Hath walked about, and each limb to survey,If thy appearance answer loud report.
Sams. The way to know were not to see, but taste.
Har. Dost thou already single me? I thought
Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. O that fortune
Had brought me to the field where thou art famed
To have wrought such wonders with an ass' jaw!
I should have forced thee soon with other arms,Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown;So had the glory of prowess been recovered
To Palestine, won by a Philistine
From the unforeskinned race, of whom thou bear'st
The highest name for valiant acts. That honour,Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee,I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.
Sams. Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do
What then thou would'st; thou seest it in thy hand.
Har. To combat with a blind man I disdain,And thou hast need much washing to be touched.
Sams. Such usage as your honourable Lords
Afford me, assassinated and betrayed;Who durst not with their whole united powers
In fight withstand me single and unarmed,Nor in the house with chamber-ambushes
Close-banded durst attack me, no, not sleeping,Till they had hired a woman with their gold,Breaking her marriage-faith, to circumvent me.
Therefore, without feign'd shifts, let be assigned
Some narrow place enclosed, where sight may give thee,Or rather flight, nor great advantage on me;Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet
And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon,Vant-brass and greaves and gauntlet; add thy spear,A weaver's beam, and seven-times-folded shield:
I only with an oaken staff will meet thee,And raise such outcries on thy clattered iron,Which long shall not withhold me from thy head,That in a little time, while breath remains thee,Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath, to boast
Again in safety what thou would'st have done
To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more.
Har. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms
Which greatest heroes have in battle worn,Their ornament and safety, had not spells
And black inchantments, some magician's art,Armed thee or charmed thee strong, which thou from Heaven
Feign'dst at thy birth was given thee in thy hair,Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs
Were bristles ranged like those that ridge the back
Of chafed wild boars or ruffled porcupines.
Sams. I know no spells, use no forbidden arts;My trust is in the Living God, who gave me,At my nativity, this strength, diffused
No less through all my sinews, joints, and bones,Than thine, while I preserved these locks unshorn,The pledge of my unviolated vow.
For proof hereof, if Dagon be thy god,Go to his temple, invocate his aid
With solemnest devotion, spread before him
How highly it concerns his glory now
To frustrate and dissolve these magic spells,Which I to be the power of Israel's God
Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test,Offering to combat thee, his Champion bold,With the utmost of his godhead seconded:
Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow
Soon feel, whose God is strongest, thine or mine.
Har. Presume not on thy God. Whate'er he be,Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off
Quite from his people, and delivered up
Into thy enemies' hand; permitted them
To put out both thine eyes, and fettered send thee
Into the common prison, there to grind
Among the slaves and asses, thy comrades,As good for nothing else, no better service
With those thy boisterous locks; no worthy match
For valour to assail, nor by the sword
Of noble warrior, so to stain his honour,But by the barber's razor best subdued.
Sams. All these indignities, for such they are
From thine, these evils I deserve and more,Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon,Whose ear is ever open, and his eye
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant;In confidence whereof I once again
Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight,By combat to decide whose god is God,Thine, or whom I with Israel's sons adore.
Har. Fair honour that thou dost thy God, in trusting
He will accept thee to defend his cause,A murtherer, a revolter, and a robber!
Sams. Tongue-doughty giant, how dost thou prove me these?
Har. Is not thy nation subject to our Lords?
Their magistrates confessed it when they took thee
As a league-breaker, and delivered bound
Into our hands; for hadst thou not committed
Notorious murder on those thirty men
At Ascalon, who never did thee harm,Then, like a robber, stripp'dst them of their robes?
The Philistines, when thou hadst broke the league,Went up with armed powers thee only seeking,To others did no violence nor spoil.
Sams. Among the daughters of the Philistines
I chose a wife, which argued me no foe,And in your city held my nuptial feast;But your ill-meaning politician lords,Under pretence of bridal friends and guests,Appointed to await me thirty spies,Who, threatening cruel death, constrained the bride
To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret,That solved the riddle which I had proposed.
When I perceived all set on enmity,As on my enemies, wherever chanced,I used hostility, and took their spoil,To pay my underminers in their coin.
My nation was subjected to your lords!
It was the force of conquest; force with force
Is well ejected when the conquered can.
But I, a private person, whom my country
As a league-breaker gave up bound, presumed
Single rebellion, and did hostile acts!
I was no private, but a person raised,With strength sufficient, and command from Heaven,To free my country. If their servile minds
Me, their Deliverer sent, would not receive,But to their masters gave me up for nought,The unworthier they; whence to this day they serve.
I was to do my part from Heaven assigned,And had performed it if my known offence
Had not disabled me, not all your force.
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant,Though by his blindness maimed for high attempts,Who now defies thee thrice to single fight,As a petty enterprise of small enforce.
Har. With thee, a man condemned, a slave enrolled,Due by the law to capital punishment?
To fight with thee no man of arms will deign.
Sams. Cam'st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me,To descant on my strength, and give thy verdict?
Come nearer; part not hence so slight informed;But take good heed my hand survey not thee.
Har. O Baal-zebub! can my ears unused
Hear these dishonours, and not render death?
Sams. No man withholds thee; nothing from thy hand
Fear I incurable; bring up thy van;My heels are fettered, but my fist is free.
Har. This insolence other kind of answer fits.
Sams. Go, baffled coward, lest I run upon thee,Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast,And with one buffet lay thy structure low,Or swing thee in the air, then dash thee down,To the hazard of thy brains and shattered sides.
Har. By Astaroth, ere long thou shalt lament
These braveries, in irons loaden on thee.
Chor. His Giantship is gone somewhat crest-fallen,Stalking with less unconscionable strides,And lower looks, but in a sultry chafe.
Sams. I dread him not, nor all his giant brood,Though fame divulge him father of five sons,All of gigantic size, Goliah chief.
Chor. He will directly to the lords, I fear,And with malicious counsel stir them up
Some way or other yet further to afflict thee.
Sams. He must allege some cause, and offered fight
Will not dare mention, lest a question rise
Whether he durst accept the offer or not;And that he durst not plain enough appeared.
Much more affliction than already felt
They cannot well impose, nor I sustain,If they intend advantage of my labours,The work of many hands, which earns my keeping,With no small profit daily to my owners.
But come what will; my deadliest foe will prove
My speediest friend, by death to rid me hence;The worst that he can give to me the best.
Yet so it may fall out, because their end
Is hate, not help to me, it may with mine
Draw their own ruin who attempt the deed.
Chor. O, how comely it is, and how reviving
To the spirits of just men long oppressed,When God into the hands of their deliverer
Puts invincible might,To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor,The brute and boisterous force of violent men,Hardy and industrious to support
Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue
The righteous, and all such as honour truth!
He all their ammunition
And feats of war defeats,With plain heroic magnitude of mind
And celestial vigour armed;Their armouries and magazins contemns,Renders them useless, while
With wingèd expedition
Swift as the lightning glance he executes
His errand on the wicked, who, surprised,Lose their defence, distracted and amazed.
But patience is more oft the exercise
Of saints, the trial of their fortitude,Making them each his own deliverer,And victor over all
That tyranny or fortune can inflict.
Either of these is in thy lot,Samson, with might endued
Above the sons of men; but sight bereaved
May chance to number thee with those
Whom Patience finally must crown.
This Idol's day hath been to thee no day of rest,Labouring thy mind
More than the working day thy hands.
And yet, perhaps, more trouble is behind;For I descry this way
Some other tending; in his hand
A sceptre or quaint staff he bears,Comes on amain, speed in his look.
By his habit I discern him now
A public officer, and now at hand.
His message will be short and voluble.
Off. Ebrews, the prisoner Samson here I seek.
Chor. His manacles remark him; there he sits.
Off. Samson, to thee our Lords thus bid me say:
This day to Dagon is a solemn feast,With sacrifices, triumph, pomp, and games;Thy strength they know surpassing human rate,And now some public proof thereof require
To honour this great feast, and great assembly.
Rise, therefore, with all speed, and come along,Where I will see thee heartened and fresh clad,To appear as fits before the illustrious Lords.
Sams. Thou know'st I am an Ebrew; therefore tell them
Our law forbids at their religious rites
My presence; for that cause I cannot come.
Off. This answer, be assured, will not content them.
Sams. Have they not sword-players, and every sort
Of gymnic artists, wrestlers, riders, runners,Jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics,But they must pick me out, with shackles tired,And over-laboured at their public mill,To make them sport with blind activity?
Do they not seek occasion of new quarrels,On my refusal, to distress me more,Or make a game of my calamities?
Return the way thou cam'st; I will not come.
Off. Regard thyself; this will offend them highly.
Sams. Myself! my conscience, and internal peace.
Can they think me so broken, so debased
With corporal servitude, that my mind ever
Will condescend to such absurd commands?
Although their drudge, to be their fool or jester,And, in my midst of sorrow and heart-grief,To shew them feats, and play before their god—
The worst of all indignities, yet on me
Joined with extreme contempt! I will not come.
Off. My message was imposed on me with speed,Brooks no delay: is this thy resolution?
Sams. So take it with what speed thy message needs.
Off. I am sorry what this stoutness will produce.
Sams. Perhaps thou shalt have cause to sorrow indeed.
Chor. Consider, Samson; matters now are strained
Up to the highth, whether to hold or break.
He's gone and who knows how he may report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Expect another message, more imperious,More lordly thundering than thou well wilt bear.
Sams. Shall I abuse this consecrated gift
Of strength, again returning with my hair
After my great transgression—so requite
Favour renewed, and add a greater sin
By prostituting holy things to idols,A Nazarite, in place abominable,Vaunting my strength in honour to their Dagon?
Besides how vile, contemptible, ridiculous,What act more execrably unclean, profane?
Chor. Yet with this strength thou serv'st the Philistines,Idolatrous, uncircumcised, unclean.
Sams. Not in their idol-worship, but by labour
Honest and lawful to deserve my food
Of those who have me in their civil power.
Chor. Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not.
Sams. Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds:
But who constrains me to the temple of Dagon,Not dragging? The Philistian Lords command:
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them,I do it freely, venturing to displease
God for the fear of Man, and Man prefer,Set God behind; which, in his jealousy,Shall never, unrepented, find forgiveness.
Yet that he may dispense with me, or thee,Present in temples at idolatrous rites
For some important cause, thou need'st not doubt.
Chor. How thou wilt here come off surmounts my reach.
Sams. Be of good courage; I begin to feel
Some rousing motions in me, which dispose
To something extraordinary in my thoughts.
I with this messenger will go along—
Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour
Our Law, or stain my vow of Nazarite.
If there be aught of presage in the mind,This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last.
Chor. In time thou hast resolved: the man returns.
Off. Samson, this second message from our Lords
To thee I am bid say: Art thou our slave,Our captive, at the public mill our drudge,And dar'st thou, at our sending and command,Dispute thy coming? Come without delay;Or we shall find such engines to assail
And hamper thee, as thou shalt come of force,Though thou wert firmlier fastened than a rock.
Sams. I could be well content to try their art,Which to no few of them would prove pernicious;Yet, knowing their advantages too many,Because they shall not trail me through their streets
Like a wild beast, I am content to go.
Masters' commands come with a power resistless
To such as owe them absolute subjection;And for a life who will not change his purpose?
(So mutable are all the ways of men!)
Yet this be sure, in nothing to comply
Scandalous or forbidden in our Law.
Off. I praise thy resolution. Doff these links:
By this compliance thou wilt win the Lords
To favour, and perhaps to set thee free.
Sams. Brethren, farewell. Your company along
I will not wish, lest it perhaps offend them
To see me girt with friends; and h w the sight
Of me, as of a common enemy,So dreaded once, may now exasperate them
I know not. Lords are lordliest in their wine;And the well-feasted priest then soonest fired
With zeal, if aught religion seem concerned;No less the people, on their holy days,Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable.
Happen what may, of me expect to hear
Nothing dishonourable, impure, unworthy
Our God, our Law, my nation, or myself;The last of me or no I cannot warrant.
Chor. Go, and the Holy One
Of Israel be thy guide
To what may serve his glory best, and spread his name
Great among the Heathen round;Send thee the Angel of thy birth, to stand
Fast by thy side, who from thy father's field
Rode up in flames after his message told
Of thy conception, and be now a shield
Of fire; that Spirit that first rushed on thee
In the camp of Dan,Be efficacious in thee now at need!
For never was from Heaven imparted
Measure of strength so great to mortal seed,As in thy wondrous actions hath been seen.
But wherefore comes old Manoa in such haste
With youthful steps? Much livelier than erewhile
He seems: supposing here to find his son,Or of him bringing to us some glad news?
Man. Peace with you, brethren! My inducement hither
Was not at present here to find my son,By order of the Lords new parted hence
To come and play before them at their feast.
I heard all as I came; the city rings,And numbers thither flock: I had no will,Lest I should see him forced to things unseemly.
But that which moved my coming now was chiefly
To give ye part with me what hope I have
With good success to work his liberty.
Chor. That hope would much rejoice us to partake
With thee. Say, reverend sire; we thirst to hear.
Man. I have attempted, one by one, the Lords,Either at home, or through the high street passing,With supplication prone and father's tears,To accept of ransom for my son, their prisoner.
Some much averse I found, and wondrous harsh,Contemptuous, proud, set on revenge and spite;That part most reverenced Dagon and his priests:
Others more moderate seeming, but their aim
Private reward, for which both God and State
They easily would set to sale: a third
More generous far and civil, who confessed
They had enough revenged, having reduced
Their foe to misery beneath their fears;The rest was magnanimity to remit,If some convenient ranson were proposed.
What noise or shout was that? It tore the sky.
Chor. Doubtless the people shouting to behold
Their once great dread, captive and blind before them,Or at some proof of strength before them shown.
Man. His ransom, if my whole inheritance
May compass it, shall willingly be paid
And numbered down. Much rather I shall choose
To live the poorest in my tribe, than richest
And he in that calamitous prison left.
No, I am fixed not to part hence without him.
For his redemption all my patrimony,If need be, I am ready to forgo
And quit. Not wanting him, I shall want nothing.
Chor. Fathers are wont to lay up for their sons;Thou for thy son art bent to lay out all:
Sons wont to nurse their parents in old age;Thou in old age car'st how to nurse thy son,Made older than thy age through eye-sight lost.
Man. It shall be my delight to tend his eyes,And view him sitting in his house, ennobled
With all those high exploits by him achieved,And on his shoulders waving down those locks
That of a nation armed the strength contained.
And I persuade me God hath not permitted
His strength again to grow up with his hair
Garrisoned round about him like a camp
Of faithful soldiery, were not his purpose
To use him further yet in some great service—
Not to sit idle with so great a gift
Useless, and thence ridiculous, about him.
And, since his strength with eye-sight was not lost,God will restore him eye-sight to his strength.
Chor. Thy hopes are not ill founded, nor seem vain,Of his delivery, and thy joy thereon
Conceived, agreeable to a father's love;In both which we, as next, participate.
Man. I know your friendly minds, and .. O, what noise!
Mercy of Heaven! what hideous noise was that?
Horribly loud, unlike the former shout.
Chor. Noise call you it, or universal groan,As if the whole inhabitation perished?
Blood, death, and deathful deeds, are in that noise,Ruin, destruction at the utmost point.
Man. Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise.
Oh! it continues; they have slain my son.
Chor. Thy son is rather slaying them: that outcry
From slaughter of one foe could not ascend.
Man. Some dismal accident it needs must be.
What shall we do—stay here, or run and see?
Chor. Best keep together here, lest, running thither,We unawares, run into danger's mouth.
This evil on the Philistines is fallen:
From whom could else a general cry be heard?
The sufferers, then, will scarce molest us here;From other hands we need not much to fear.
What if, his eye-sight (for to Israel's God
Nothing is hard) by miracle restored,He now be dealing dole among his foes,And over heaps of slaughtered walk his way?
Man. That were a joy presumptuous to be thought.
Chor. Yet God hath wrought things as incredible
For his people of old; what hinders now?
Man. He can, I know, but doubt to think he will;Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief.
A little stay will bring some notice hither.
Chor. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner;For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
And to our wish I see one hither speeding—
An Ebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe.
Messenger. O, whither shall I run, or which way fly
The sight of this so horrid spectacle,Which erst my eyes beheld, and yet behold?
For dire imagination still, pursues me.
But providence or instinct of nature seems,Or reason, though disturbed and scarce consulted,To have guided me aright, I know not how,To thee first, reverend Manoa, and to these
My countrymen, whom here I knew remaining,As at some distance from the place of horror,So in the sad event too much concerned.
Man. The accident was loud, and here before thee
With rueful cry; yet what it was we hear not.
No preface needs; thou seest we long to know.
Mess. It would burst forth; but I recover breath,And sense distract, to know well what I utter.
Man. Tell us the sum; the circumstance defer.
Mess. Gaza yet stands; but all her sons are fallen,All in a moment overwhelmed and fallen.
Man. Sad! but thou know'st to Israelites not saddest
The desolation of a hostile city.
Mess. Feed on that first; there may in grief be surfeit.
Man. Relate to whom.
Mess.By Samson.
Man. That still lessens
The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy.
Mess. Ah! Manoa, I refrain too suddenly
To utter what will come at last too soon,Lest evil tidings, with too rude irruption
Hitting thy aged ear, should pierce too deep.
Man. Suspense in news is torture; speak them out.
Mess. Then take the worst in brief: Samson is dead.
Man. The worst indeed! O, all my hope's defeated
To free him hence! but Death, who sets all free,Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge.
What windy joy this day had I conceived,Hopeful of his delivery, which now proves
Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring
Nipt with the lagging rear of winter's frost!
Yet, ere I give the reins to grief, say first
How died he; death to life is crown or shame.
All by him fell, thou say'st; by whom fell he?
What glorious hand gave Samson his death's wound?
Mess. Unwounded of his enemies he fell.
Man. Wearied with slaughter, then, or how? explain.
Mess. By his own hands.
Man. Self-violence! What cause
Brought him so soon at variance with himself
Among his foes?
Mess. Inevitable cause—
At once both to destroy and be destroyed.
The edifice, where all were met to see him,Upon their heads and on his own he pulled.
Man. O lastly over-strong against thyself!
A dreadful way thou took'st to thy revenge.
More than enough we know; but, while things yet
Are in confusion, give us, if thou canst,Eye-witness of what first or last was done,Relation more particular and distinct.
Mess. Occasions drew me early to this city;And, as the gates I entered with sun-rise,The morning trumpets festival proclaimed
Through each high street. Little I had dispatched,When all abroad was rumoured that this day
Samson should be brought forth, to shew the people
Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games.
I sorrowed at his captive state, but minded
Not to be absent at that spectacle.
The building was a spacious theatre,Half round on two main pillars vaulted high,With seats where all the Lords, and each degree
Of sort, might sit in order to behold;The other side was open, where the throng
On banks and scaffolds under sky might stand:
I among these aloof obscurely stood.
The feast and noon grew high, and sacrifice
Had filled their hearts with mirth, high cheer, and wine,When to their sports they turned. Immediately
Was Samson as a public servant brought,In their state livery clad: before him pipes
And timbrels; on each side went armèd guards;Both horse and foot before him and behind,Archers and slingers, cataphracts, and spears.
At sight of him the people with a shout
Rifted the air, clamouring their god with praise,Who had made their dreadful enemy, their thrall.
He patient, but undaunted, where they led him,Came to the place; and what was set before him,Which without help of eye might be assayed,To heave, pull, draw, or break, he still performed
All with incredible, stupendious force,None daring to appear antagonist.
At length, for intermission sake, they led him
Between the pillars; he his guide requested
(For so from such as nearer stood we heard),As over-tired, to let him lean a while
With both his arms on those two massy pillars,That to the arched roof gave main support.
He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson
Felt in his arms, with head a while enclined,And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed,Or some great matter in his mind revolved:
At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud:—
“Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed
I have performed, as reason was, obeying,Not without wonder or delight beheld;Now, of my own accord, such other trial
I mean to shew you of my strength yet greater
As with amaze shall strike all who behold.”
This uttered, straining all his nerves, he bowed;As with the force of winds and waters pent
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars
With horrible convulsion to and fro
He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests,Their choice nobility and flower, not only
Of this, but each Philistian city round,Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.
Samson, with these immixed, inevitably
Pulled down the same destruction on himself;The vulgar only scaped, who stood without.
Chor. O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious!
Living or dying thou has fulfilled
The work for which thou wast foretold
To Israel, and now liest victorious
Among thy slain self-killed;Not willingly, but tangled in the fold
Of dire Necessity, whose law in death conjoined
Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more
Than all thy life had slain before.
Semichor. While their hearts were jocund and sublime,Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine
And fat regorged of bulls and goats,Chaunting their idol, and preferring
Before our Living Dread, who dwells
In Silo, his bright sanctuary,Among them he a spirit of phrenzy sent,Who hurt their minds,And urged them on with mad desire
To call in haste for their destroyer.
They, only set on sport and play,Unweetingly importuned
Their own destruction to come speedy upon them.
So fond are mortal men,Fallen into wrath divine,As their own ruin on themselves to invite,Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,And with blindness internal struck.
Semichor. But he, though blind of sight,Despised, and thought extinguished quite,With inward eyes illuminated,His fiery virtue roused
From under ashes into sudden flame,And as an evening Dragon came,Assailant on the perchèd roosts
And nests in order ranged
Of tame villatic fowl, but as an Eagle
His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads.
So Virtue, given for lost,Depressed and overthrown, as seemed,Like that self-begotten bird
In the Arabian woods embost,That no second knows nor third,And lay erewhile a holocaust,From out her ashy womb now teemed,Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed;And, though her body die, her fame survives,A secular bird, ages of lives.
Man. Come, come; no time for lamentation now,Nor much more cause. Samson hath quit himself
Like Samson, and heroicly hath finished
A life heroic, on his enemies
Fully revenged—hath left them years of mourning,And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor
Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel
Honour hath left and freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion;To himself and father's house eternal fame;And, which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,But favouring and assisting to the end.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair,And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Let us go find the body where it lies
Soaked in his enemies' blood, and from the stream
With lavers pure, and cleansing herbs, wash off
The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while
(Gaza is not in plight to say us nay),Will send for all my kindred, all my friends,To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend,With silent obsequy and funeral train,Home to his father's house. There will I build him
A monument, and plant it round with shade
Of laurel ever green and branching palm,With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled
In copious legend, or sweet lyric song.
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,And from his memory inflame their breasts
To matchless valour and adventures high;The virgins also shall, on feastful days,Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing
His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice,From whence captivity and loss of eyes.
Chor. All is best, though we oft doubt
What the unsearchable dispose
Of Highest Wisdom brings about,And ever best found in the close.
Oft He seems to hide his face,But unexpectedly returns,And to his faithful Champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns,And all that band them to resist
His uncontrollable intent.
His servants He, with new acquist
Of true experience from this great event,With peace and consolation hath dismissed,And calm of mind, all passion spent.