It suffices if the whole drama be found7325 not produced7326 beyond the fifth act, of the style and uniformity, and that7327 commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such economy7328 or disposition7329 of the fable7330 as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum. They only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Aeschulus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavor to write tragedy. The circumscription7331 of time wherein the whole drama begins and ends is, according to ancient rule and best example, within the space of 24 hours.
THE ARGUMENT
Samson (made captive, blind, and now in the prison at Gaza, there to labor as in a common work-house), on a festival day, in the general cessation from labor, comes forth into the open air, to a place nigh,7332 somewhat retired,7333 there to sit a while and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which make7334 the chorus, who seek to comfort him what7335 they can, then7336 by his old father, Manoa, who endeavors the like, and withal7337 tells him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom, [and] 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 prosecute7338 his endeavor 7339 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 coming to the feast, before7340 the lords and people, to play7341 or show 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 Hebrew comes in haste, confusedly at first, and afterward more distinctly, relating the catastrophe: what Samson had done to the Philistines, and by accident to himself, wherewith the tragedy ends.
THE PERSONS
Samson.
Harapha of Gath.
Manoa, the father of Samson.
Public officer.
Messenger.
Dalila, his wife.
Chorus of Danites.7342
The scene: before the prison in Gaza.
SAM. A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on,
For yonder bank7343 hath choice of sun or shade.
There I am wont 7344 to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile7345 toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoined7346 me,
Where I, a prisoner chained, scarce freely draw7347
The air—imprisoned also, close and damp,
Unwholesome7348 draught.7349 But here I feel amends,7350
The breath of Heav’n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born. Here leave me to respire.7351
This day a solemn feast the people hold
To Dagon7352 their sea-Idol, and forbid
Laborious7353 works. Unwillingly this rest
Their superstition7354 yields me. Hence with leave7355
Retiring from the popular7356 noise, I seek
This unfrequented7357 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,7358 and present7359
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heav’n foretold
Twice, by an Angel, who at last in sight
Of both my parents all in flames ascended
From off the altar, where an off ’ring 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 breeding7360 ordered and prescribed
As of a person separate7361 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 grind7362 in brazen7363 fetters7364 under task7365
With this Heav’n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labor of a beast, debased
Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver.
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill7366 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 but7367 through mine own default,7368
Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Who this high gift of strength, committed to me,
In what part lodged, how easily bereft 7369 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, unwieldy,7370 burdensome,
Proudly secure,7371 yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties, not made to rule
But to subserve7372 where wisdom bears7373 command.
God, when He gave me strength, to show withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But peace! I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation,7374 which herein
Happ’ly7375 had ends7376 above my reach to know.
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,7377
And proves the source of all my miseries,
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask7378 a life to wail—but 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,7379 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, still7380 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, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all 7381 hope of day!
O first created beam, and thou great Word,
“Let there be light, and light was over all,”7382
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime7383 decree?
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon
When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant7384 interlunar cave.7385
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 th’ eye confined?7386
So obvious7387 and so easy to be quenched,7388
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused
That she might look at will7389 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 sepulcher,7390 a moving grave,
Buried, yet not exempt
By privilege of death and burial
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious7391 more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
But who are these? For with joint 7392 pace7393 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,7394
With languished7395 head unpropped,
As one past hope, abandoned
And by himself given over,
In slavish habit,7396 ill-fitted weeds7397
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 embattled7398 armies clad in iron,
And weaponless himself
Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery7399
Of brazen7400 shield and spear, the hammered cuirass,7401
Chalybean7402 tempered steel, and frock7403 of mail
Adamantean proof?
But safest he who stood aloof,
When insupportably7404 his foot advanced
In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurned7405 them to death—by troops! The bold Ascalonite7406
Fled from his lion ramp,7407 old warriors turned7408
Their plated7409 backs under his heel
Or, grov’ling, soiled 7410 their crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what7411 trivial 7412 weapon came to hand—
The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone—
A thousand fore-skins7413 fell, the flower of Palestine,
In Ramath-lechi,7414 famous to this day.
Then by main7415 force pulled up, and on his shoulders bore
The Gates of Azza7416 —post7417 and massy bar—7418
Up to the hill by Hebron,7419 seat of giants old,7420
No journey of a sabbath day,7421 and7422 loaded so:
Like7423 whom7424 the gentiles feign7425 to bear up Heav’n.7426
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
T’ incorporate7427 with gloomy night,
For inward light alas
Puts forth no visual beam.
O mirror of our fickle7428 state,
Since man7429 on earth unparalleled!
The rarer7430 thy example stands
By how much from the top of wondrous glory,
Strongest of mortal men,
To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall’n.
For him I reckon not in high estate
Whom long descent of birth
Or the sphere of fortune raises,
But thee whose strength, while virtue was her mate,
Might have subdued the earth,
Universally crowned with highest praises.
SAM. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air
Dissolves unjointed7431 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 vale7432
To visit or bewail thee or, if better,
Counsel or consolation we may bring,
Salve to thy sores. Apt words have power to suage
The tumors7433 of a troubled mind,
And are as balm to festered wounds.
SAM. 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 superscription7434 (of the most,7435
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 heave7436 the head,
Who like a foolish pilot have shipwracked
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.7437
This with the other should, at least, have paired;7438
These two, proportioned ill, drove me transverse.7439
CHOR. Tax7440 not divine disposal.7441 Wisest men
Have erred, and by bad women been deceived,
And shall again, pretend they ne’re 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.
SAM. The first I saw at Timna,7442 and she pleased
Me (not my parents), that7443 I sought to wed,
The daughter of an infidel. They7444 knew not
That what I motioned7445 was of God; I knew
From intimate7446 impulse,7447 and therefore urged7448
The marriage on, that by occasion7449 hence7450
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! fond7451 wish, too late)
Was in the Vale of Sorec, Dalila,7452
That specious7453 monster, my accomplished7454 snare.
I thought it lawful, from7455 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 peal7456 of words (O weakness!),
Gave up7457 my fort of silence to a woman.
CHOR. In seeking just occasion to provoke7458
The Philistine, thy country’s enemy,
Thou never wast remiss:7459 I bear thee witness.
Yet Israel still serves,7460 with all his sons.
SAM. 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
Singly7461 by me against their conquerors
Acknowledged not, or not at all considered
Deliverance offered. I on th’ other side
Used7462 no ambition7463 to commend7464 my deeds:
&
nbsp; The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.
But they7465 persisted deaf, and would not seem
To count them things worth notice, till at length
Their lords the Philistines with gathered7466 powers
Entered Judea, seeking me, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham7467 was retired,
Not flying,7468 but fore-casting7469 in what place
To set upon them, what advantaged7470 best.
Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent
The harass of their land, beset 7471 me round.
I willingly (on some7472 conditions) came
Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me
To the uncircumcised, a welcome prey,7473
Bound with two cords7474 —but cords to me were threads
Touched with the flame. On their whole host I flew,
Unarmed, and with a trivial7475 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,7476
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 than7477 strenuous liberty,
And to despise, or envy, or suspect
Whom God hath of his special favor 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 Penuel7478
Their great deliverer contemned,
The matchless Gideon, in pursuit
Of Madian and her vanquished kings.
And how ungrateful Ephraim7479
Had dealt with Jephtha,7480 who by argument
Not worse than by his shield and spear,
Defended Israel from the Ammonite,7481
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.”7482
SAM. Of such examples add me to the roll.
Me easily indeed mine may neglect,7483
The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Page 70
