Speaker 1: Preface to Samson Agonistes. This is a LibriVox recording. All
Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
Speaker 1: Martin Geeson. Samson Agonistes by John Milton, the preface of
Speaker 1: that sort of dramatic poem which is called Tragedy. Tragedy,
Speaker 1: as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the
Speaker 1: gravest moralist and most profitable of all other poems. Therefore
Speaker 1: said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity
Speaker 1: and fear or terror, to purge the mind of those
Speaker 1: and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them,
Speaker 1: to just measure with a kind of delight stirred up
Speaker 1: by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is
Speaker 1: nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion.
Speaker 1: For so in physic things of melancholic hue and quality
Speaker 1: are used against melancholy sour, against sour salt, to remove
Speaker 1: salt humors. Hence, philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch,
Speaker 1: and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets both to
Speaker 1: adorn and illustrate their discourse. The apostle Paul himself thought
Speaker 1: it not unworthy to insert a verse of unipides into
Speaker 1: the text of Holy Scripture One Corinthians, Chapter fifteen, verse
Speaker 1: thirty three, and Paaus, commenting on the revelation, divides the
Speaker 1: whole book as a tragedy into acts, distinguished each by
Speaker 1: a chorus of heavenly harpings and song. Between here two
Speaker 1: four men in highest dignity have labored not a little
Speaker 1: to be thought able to compose a tragedy of that honor.
Speaker 1: Dionysius the Elder was no less ambitious than before of
Speaker 1: his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Caesar also had begun
Speaker 1: his ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with
Speaker 1: what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca the philosopher
Speaker 1: is by some thought the author of those tragedies, at
Speaker 1: least the best of them that go under that name.
Speaker 1: Gregory Natziansen, a father of the church, thought it not
Speaker 1: unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy,
Speaker 1: which he entitled Christ Suffering. This is mentioned to vindicate
Speaker 1: tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy which in
Speaker 1: the account of many it undergoes at this day with
Speaker 1: other common interludes happening through the poets error of intermixing
Speaker 1: comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity, or introducing trivial
Speaker 1: and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted
Speaker 1: absurd and brought in without discretion corruptly to gratify the people.
Speaker 1: And though ancient tragedy, use no prologue, yet using sometimes
Speaker 1: in case of self defense or explanation, that which Marshal
Speaker 1: calls an epistle in behalf of this tragedy coming forth
Speaker 1: after the ancient manner, much different from what among us
Speaker 1: passes for best. Thus, much beforehand may be epistled that
Speaker 1: chorus is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only,
Speaker 1: but modern and still in use among the Italians. In
Speaker 1: the modeling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the
Speaker 1: Ancients and Italians are rather followed as of much more
Speaker 1: authority and fame. The measure of verse used in the
Speaker 1: chorus is of all sorts called by the Greeks monostrophic
Speaker 1: or rather apoleluminon without regard had to strophe and dystrophe,
Speaker 1: or epart which were a kind of stanzas framed only
Speaker 1: for the music then used with the chorus that sung
Speaker 1: not essential to the poem, and therefore not material. Or
Speaker 1: being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be called aliostropha.
Speaker 1: Division into act and scene, referring chiefly to the stage
Speaker 1: to which this work never was intended, is here omitted.
Speaker 1: It suffices if the whole drama be found not produced
Speaker 1: beyond the fifth act of the style and uniformity, and
Speaker 1: that commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit, which
Speaker 1: is nothing, indeed, but such economy or disposition of the
Speaker 1: fable as may stand best with very similitude and decorum.
Speaker 1: They only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Esculus, Sophocles,
Speaker 1: and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequaled yet by any
Speaker 1: and the best rule to all who endeavor to write tragedy.
Speaker 1: The circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins and ends, is,
Speaker 1: according to ancient rule and best example, within the space
Speaker 1: of twenty four hours. The argument Sampson made captive, blind
Speaker 1: and now in the prison at Gaza, there to labor
Speaker 1: as in a common workhouse on a festival day, in
Speaker 1: the general cessation from labor, comes forth into the open
Speaker 1: air to a place nigh somewhat retired, there to sit
Speaker 1: awhile and bemoan his condition, where he happens at length
Speaker 1: to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe,
Speaker 1: which make the chorus, who seek to comfort him what
Speaker 1: they can. Then by his old father man Noah, who
Speaker 1: endeavors the like and withal tells him his purpose to
Speaker 1: procure his liberty by ransom. Lastly that this feast was
Speaker 1: proclaimed by the Philistines as a day of thanksgiving for
Speaker 1: their deliverance from the hands of Sampson, which yet more
Speaker 1: troubles him. Manoah then departs to prosecute his endeavor with
Speaker 1: the Philistian lords for Samson's redemption, who, in the meanwhile
Speaker 1: is visited by other persons, and lastly by a public
Speaker 1: officer to require coming to the feast before the lords
Speaker 1: and people to play or show his strength in their presence.
Speaker 1: He at first refuses, dismissing the public off with absolute
Speaker 1: denial to come. At length, persuaded inwardly that this was
Speaker 1: from God, he yields to go along with him, who
Speaker 1: came now the second time, with great threatenings to fetch him.
Speaker 1: The chorus, yet remaining on the place, Manah returns, full
Speaker 1: of joyful hope, to procure ere long his son's deliverance.
Speaker 1: In the midst of which discourse an ebrew comes in haste,
Speaker 1: confusedly at first, and afterward more distinctly, relating the catastrophe
Speaker 1: what Samson had done to the Philistines, and by accident
Speaker 1: to himself. Wherewith the tragedy ends the purse Samson, Manoah,
Speaker 1: the father of Samson, Dalilah, his wife, Arafa of Gath,
Speaker 1: public officer messenger, Chorus of Danit, end of the preface
Speaker 1: recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere, Surrey, Section one, The
Speaker 1: scene before the prison in Gaza, Samson the chorus, A
Speaker 1: little onward, lend thy guiding hand to these dark steps.
Speaker 1: A little further on for yonder bank, hath choice of
Speaker 1: sun or shade. There I am wont to sit when
Speaker 1: any chance relieves me from my task of servile toil
Speaker 1: daily in the common prison. Else enjoin'd me, where I
Speaker 1: a prisoner, chain'd scarce freely draw the air imprisoned also
Speaker 1: close and damp unwholesome draft. But here I feel amends,
Speaker 1: the breath of heaven, fresh, blowing, pure and sweet with
Speaker 1: day spring born. Here leave me to respire this day
Speaker 1: a solemn feast. The people hold to dug on their
Speaker 1: sea idol and forbid laborious works unwillingly. This rest, their superstition,
Speaker 1: yields me. Hence, with leave, retiring from the popular noise,
Speaker 1: I seek this unfrequented place to find some ease, ease
Speaker 1: to the body, some none to the mind, from restless
Speaker 1: thoughts that, like a deadly swarm of hornets armed no
Speaker 1: sooner found alone, but rush upon me thronging and present
Speaker 1: times past. What once I was? And what am now? Oh?
Speaker 1: Wherefore was my birth from heaven? Foretold twice by an
Speaker 1: angel who, at last, in sight of both my parents,
Speaker 1: all in fla lames ascended from off the altar, where
Speaker 1: an offering burn'd as in a fiery column, charioting his
Speaker 1: godlike presence, and from some great act or benefit reveal'd
Speaker 1: to Abraham's race. Why was my breeding ordered and prescrib'd
Speaker 1: as of a person separate to God design'd for great exploits?
Speaker 1: If I must die betrayed captiv'd and both my eyes
Speaker 1: put out, made of my enemies, the scorn and gaze
Speaker 1: to grind in brazen fetters und a task with this
Speaker 1: heaven gifted strength, Oh, glorious strength, put to the labor
Speaker 1: of a beast debased lower than slave. Promise was that
Speaker 1: I should Israel from Filistian yoke, deliver. Ask for this
Speaker 1: great deliverer now and find him eyeless in Gaza at
Speaker 1: the mill with slaves, himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.
Speaker 1: Yet stay, Let me not rashly call in doubt divine prediction.
Speaker 1: What if all foretold had been fulfill'd but through mine
Speaker 1: own default? Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Speaker 1: Who this high gift of strength committed to me in
Speaker 1: what part lodg'd, how easily bereft me under the seal
Speaker 1: of silence, could not keep but weakly to a woman
Speaker 1: must reveal it or come with importunity and tears, Oh
Speaker 1: impotence of mind in body strong? But what is strength
Speaker 1: without a double share of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensome, proudly secure,
Speaker 1: yet liable to fall by weakest subtleties, not made to
Speaker 1: rule but to subserve, Where wisdom bears command God, when
Speaker 1: he gave me strength, to show withal how slight the
Speaker 1: gift was hung it in my hair. But peace, I
Speaker 1: must not quarrel with the will of highest dispensation, which
Speaker 1: herein haply had ends above my reach. To know suffices
Speaker 1: that to me strength is my bane, and proves the
Speaker 1: source of all my miseries, so many and so huge,
Speaker 1: that each a part would ask a life to wail.
Speaker 1: But chief of all, oh, loss of sight of thee
Speaker 1: I most complain. Blind among enemies, Oh, worse than chains, dungeon,
Speaker 1: or beggary or decrepit age. Light, the prime work of
Speaker 1: God to me is extinct, and all her various objects
Speaker 1: of delight a gnault which might impart my grief. Have
Speaker 1: EA's inferior to the vilest now become of man or
Speaker 1: worm the violest here excel me, they creep, Yet see
Speaker 1: aye dark in light, exposed to daily fraud, contempt, abuse,
Speaker 1: and wrong within doors or without, still as a fool
Speaker 1: in power of others. Never in my own scarce. Half
Speaker 1: I seem to live dead more than half.
Speaker 2: Oh dark dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, irrecoverably dark,
Speaker 2: total eclipse, without all hope of day, Oh first created beam,
Speaker 2: and thou great word, let there be light and light
Speaker 2: over all?
Speaker 1: Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? The sun
Speaker 1: to me is dark and silent, as the moon when
Speaker 1: she deserts the night hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Speaker 1: Since light so necessary is to life, and almost life itself.
Speaker 1: If it be true that light is in the soul,
Speaker 1: she all in every part, Why was the sight to
Speaker 1: such a tender ball as the eye confin'd, so obvious
Speaker 1: and so easy to be quench'd, and not as feeling
Speaker 1: through all parts diffus'd that she might look at will,
Speaker 1: through every pore. Then had I not been thus exil'd
Speaker 1: from light, as in the land of darkness, yet in
Speaker 1: light to live a life half dead, a living death,
Speaker 1: and buried, But oh yet more miserable myself, my sepulcher,
Speaker 1: a moving grave, buried, yet not exempt by privilege of
Speaker 1: death and burial from worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
Speaker 1: but made hereby obnoxious more to all the miseries of life,
Speaker 1: life in captivity among inhuman foes. But who are these?
Speaker 1: For with joint pace I hear the tread of many
Speaker 1: feet steering this way, Perhaps my enemies who come to
Speaker 1: stare at my affliction, and perhaps to insult their daily practice,
Speaker 1: to afflict me more. This this is he, softly awhile
Speaker 1: let us not break in upon him. Oh, change beyond report,
Speaker 1: thought or belief. See how he lies at random, carelessly,
Speaker 1: diffus'd with languish'd head, unpropp'd as one past hope, abandon'd,
Speaker 1: and by himself given over in slavish habit, ill fitted
Speaker 1: weeds or worn and soil'd. What do my eyes misrepresent?
Speaker 1: Can this be he that heroic that renown'd irresistible sampson, whom, unarm'd,
Speaker 1: no strength of man, or the fiercest wild beast could withstand,
Speaker 1: who tore the lion as the lion tears the kid
Speaker 1: ran on embattled armies clad in iron and weaponless himself
Speaker 1: made arms ridiculous, useless, the forgery of brazen shield and spear,
Speaker 1: the hammered cuirass, chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail
Speaker 1: Adamantean proof. But safest he who stood aloof when insupportably
Speaker 1: his foot advanced in scorn of their proud arms and
Speaker 1: warlike tools, spanned them to death, by troops. The bold
Speaker 1: Ascalonite fled from his lion. Ramp old warriors turned their
Speaker 1: plated backs under his heel, or groveling soil'd their crested
Speaker 1: helmets in the dust. Then with what trivial weapon came
Speaker 1: to hand the jaw of a dead ass, his sword
Speaker 1: of bone. A thousand foreskins fell the flower of Palestine
Speaker 1: in ramath Lechi, famous to this day. Then by main
Speaker 1: force pull'd up and on his shoulders bore the gates
Speaker 1: of Aza Post and massy Bah up to the hill
Speaker 1: by hebron seat of giants, oul'd no journey of a
Speaker 1: sabbath day, and loaded so like whom the gentiles fagin
Speaker 1: to bear up heav'n which shall I first bewail thy
Speaker 1: bondage or lost sight? Prison within prison inseparably dark thou
Speaker 1: art become o worst imprisonment, the dungeon of thyself, thy soul,
Speaker 1: which men enjoying sight oft without course complain imprison'd. Now indeed,
Speaker 1: in real darkness of the body dwells shut up from
Speaker 1: outward light to incorporate with gloomy night, For inward light
Speaker 1: alas puts forth no visual beam o mirror of our
Speaker 1: fickle state. Since man on earth unparallel'd the rarer thy
Speaker 1: example stands by how much from the top of wondrous glory,
Speaker 1: strong guest of mortal men, to lowest pitch of abject fortune,
Speaker 1: thou art fallen for him? I reckon not in high
Speaker 1: estate whom long descent of birth or the sphere of
Speaker 1: fortune raises. But thee whose strength, while virtue was her mate,
Speaker 1: might have subdu'd thee Earth universally crown'd with highest praises.
Speaker 1: I hear the sound of words their sense. The air
Speaker 1: dissolves unjointed. Ere it reach my ear? He speaks. Let
Speaker 1: us draw nigh much less in might the glory late
Speaker 1: of Israel. Now the grief we come thy friends and
Speaker 1: neighbors not are known from Estal and Zora's fruitful veil
Speaker 1: to visit or bewail thee, or if better counsel or consolation,
Speaker 1: we may bring salve to thy sores. Apt words have
Speaker 1: power to suage the tumors of a troubled mind, and
Speaker 1: are as balm to festered wounds. End of Section one,
Speaker 1: Section two, Samson. The chorus your coming Friends revives me,
Speaker 1: for I learn now of my own experience, not by talk,
Speaker 1: how counterfeit a coin. They are, who friends bear in
Speaker 1: their superscription of the most I would understood. In prosperous
Speaker 1: days they swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head, not
Speaker 1: to be found those sought we see, o, friends, how
Speaker 1: many evils having closed me round? Yet that which was
Speaker 1: the worst now least afflicts me blindness? For had I
Speaker 1: sight confused with shame, how could I once look up
Speaker 1: or heave the head, Who, like a foolish pilot, have
Speaker 1: shipwreck'd my vessel trusted to me from above, gloriously rigg'd,
Speaker 1: and for a word a tear fool have divulged the
Speaker 1: secret gift of God to a deceitful woman. Tell me, friends,
Speaker 1: am I not sung and proverbed for a fool in
Speaker 1: every street? Do they not say? How well are come
Speaker 1: upon him his deserts? Yet why immeasurable strength they might
Speaker 1: behold in me of wisdom? Nothing more than mean this
Speaker 1: with the other. Should at least have pair'd these two
Speaker 1: proportioned ill drove me transverse tax not divine disposal. Wisest
Speaker 1: men have erred and by bad women been deceived, and
Speaker 1: shall again pretend they ne'er so wise deject not then
Speaker 1: so overmuch thyself, who hast of sorrow thy full load. Besides,
Speaker 1: yet truth to say, I have oft heard men wonder
Speaker 1: why thou shouldst wed Felstian women, rather than of thine
Speaker 1: own tribe, fairer or as fair at least of thy
Speaker 1: own nation, and as noble. The first I saw at Tymna,
Speaker 1: and she pleased me. Not my parents that I sought
Speaker 1: to wed the daughter of an infidel. They knew, not
Speaker 1: that what I motioned was of God. I knew from
Speaker 1: intimate impulse, and therefore urg'd the marriage on that by occasion,
Speaker 1: hence I might begin Israel's deliverance, the work to which
Speaker 1: I was divinely called. She proving false. The next I
Speaker 1: took to wife, Oh that I never had fond wish
Speaker 1: too late, was in the veil of Sorek Dullillah, that
Speaker 1: speecious monster my accomplish'd snare. I thought it lawful from
Speaker 1: my former act, and the same end, still watching to
Speaker 1: oppress Israel's oppressors. Of what now I suffer. She was
Speaker 1: not the prime cause, but I myself, who vanquish'd with
Speaker 1: a peal of words, Oh, weakness, gave up my thought
Speaker 1: of silence to a woman in seeking just occasion to
Speaker 1: provoke the Philistine thy country's enemy. Thou never wast remiss,
Speaker 1: I hear thee witness, Yet Israel still serves with all
Speaker 1: his sons at fault. I take not on me, but
Speaker 1: transfer on Israel's governess and heads of tribes, who, seeing
Speaker 1: those great acts which God had done singly by me
Speaker 1: against their conquerors, acknowledg'd not or not at all consider'd
Speaker 1: deliverance offer'd. I, on the other side, used no ambition
Speaker 1: to commend my deeds. The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke
Speaker 1: loud the doer, but they persisted death and would not
Speaker 1: seem to count them things worth notice, till at length
Speaker 1: their lords the Philistines, with gather'd powers, entered Judea, seeking me, who, then,
Speaker 1: safe to the rock of Etham, was returned, tired, not flying,
Speaker 1: but forecasting in what place to set upon them, what
Speaker 1: advantag'd best. Meanwhile, the men of Judah, to prevent the
Speaker 1: harass of their land, beset me round I willingly. On
Speaker 1: some conditions came into their hands, and they as gladly
Speaker 1: yield me to the uncircumcis'd a welcome prey bound with
Speaker 1: two cords. P cords to me were threads touch'd with
Speaker 1: the flame on their whole host. I flew unarm'd, and
Speaker 1: with a trivial weapon fell'd their choicest youth. They only
Speaker 1: lived who fled, had Judah that day join'd or won
Speaker 1: the whole tribe they had by this possess'd the towers
Speaker 1: of Gath, and lauded over them, whom now they serve.
Speaker 1: But what more oft in nations grown corrupt and by
Speaker 1: their vices brought to servitude than to love bondage more
Speaker 1: than liberty, bondage with ease than strenuous liberty. And to despise,
Speaker 1: or envy or suspect whom God Hath of his special
Speaker 1: favor rais'd as their deliverer, if he ought to begin,
Speaker 1: how frequent, to desert him, and at last to heap
Speaker 1: ingratitude on worthiest deeds. Thy words to my remembrance bring
Speaker 1: how succorth and the thought of Penuel their great deliverer,
Speaker 1: contemnd the matchless Gideon in pursuit of Aladian and her
Speaker 1: vanquish'd kings, And how ingrateful Ephraim not worse than, by
Speaker 1: his shield and spear, had dealt with Jephtha, who by
Speaker 1: argument defended Israel from the Ammonite, had not his prowess
Speaker 1: quell'd their pride in that sore battle, when so many
Speaker 1: died without reprieve adjudg'd to death for want of well
Speaker 1: pronouncing shibboleth. Of such examples add me to the role
Speaker 1: me easily. Indeed mine may neglect, but God's proposed deliverance.
Speaker 2: Not so.
Speaker 1: Just are the ways of God and justifiable to men,
Speaker 1: unless they be who think not God at all, If
Speaker 1: any be, they walk obscure, for of such doctrine, never
Speaker 1: was their school but the heart of the fool, And
Speaker 1: no man therein doctor but himself. Yet more there be
Speaker 1: who doubt his ways, not just as to his own
Speaker 1: edicts found contradicting, than give the reins to wandering thought,
Speaker 1: regardless of his glory's diminution, Till by their own perplexities
Speaker 1: involv'd they ravel more, still less resolv'd, but never find
Speaker 1: self satisfying solution, as if they would confine the interminable
Speaker 1: and tie him to his own prescript. Who made our
Speaker 1: laws to bind us, not himself, and hath full right
Speaker 1: to exempt whomso it pleases him by choice, from national
Speaker 1: obstriction without taint of sin or legal debt. For with
Speaker 1: his own laws he can best dispense. He would not
Speaker 1: else who never wanted means, nor in respect of the
Speaker 1: enemy just cause to set his people free, have prompted
Speaker 1: this heroic Nazarite, against his vow of strictest purity, to
Speaker 1: seek in marriage that fallacious bride unclean unchaste down reason
Speaker 1: then at least vain reasonings down The reason hereover that
Speaker 1: moral verded quits her of unclean unchaste was subsequent her stain,
Speaker 1: not his is. But see here comes thy reverend sire,
Speaker 1: with careful steps, locks white as down, Old Man Noah,
Speaker 1: advise forthwith how thou oughtest to receive him? Ay me
Speaker 1: another inward grief awaked with mention of that name, renews
Speaker 1: the assault end of Section two, Section three, Man Noah, Chorus, Samson,
Speaker 1: Brethren and men of Dane, For such she seem though
Speaker 1: in this uncouth place, if old respect, as I suppose
Speaker 1: towards your once gloried friend, my son now captive, hither
Speaker 1: hath inform'd your younger feet, while mine cast back with
Speaker 1: age came lagging after, say if he be here as
Speaker 1: signal now in low dejected state, as asked in highest,
Speaker 1: behold him where he lies? Oh, miserable change? Is this
Speaker 1: the man that invincible samson far renown'd the dread of
Speaker 1: Israel's foes, who, with a strength equivalent to angels, walk'd
Speaker 1: their streets, none offering fight, whose single combatant duel'd their armies,
Speaker 1: rank'd in proud array himself an army now unequal match
Speaker 1: to save himself against a coward arm'd at one spear's length. Oh, ever,
Speaker 1: failing trust in mortal strength, and o what not in
Speaker 1: man deceivable and vain? Nay what thing God pray'd for,
Speaker 1: but often proves our woe? Our bane, I pray'd for children,
Speaker 1: and thought barrenness in wedlock a reproach I gain'd a son,
Speaker 1: and such a son as all men hail'd me happy?
Speaker 1: Who would be now a father in my stead? Oh?
Speaker 1: Wherefore did God grant me my request? And as a
Speaker 1: blessing with such pomp adorn'd? Why are his gifts desirable
Speaker 1: to tempt our earnest prayers? Then given with solemn hand
Speaker 1: as graces draw a scorpion's tail behind? For this did
Speaker 1: the angel twice dessent? For this ordain'd thy nature, holy
Speaker 1: as of a plant, select and sacred, glorious for a
Speaker 1: while the miracle of men. Then in an hour ensnar'd assalted, overcome,
Speaker 1: lead bound thy foe's derision, captive, poor and blind into
Speaker 1: a dungeon, thrust to work with slaves. Alas methinks, whom
Speaker 1: God hath chosen once to worthy a deed, if he
Speaker 1: through frailty er, he should not so awe whealm, and
Speaker 1: as a thrall subject him to so foul indignities. Be
Speaker 1: it but for honor's sake of former deeds, a point
Speaker 1: not heavenly disposition. Father, Nothing of all these evils hath
Speaker 1: befallen me, but justly I myself have brought them on
Speaker 1: sole author, I sole cause, if aught seem vile, as
Speaker 1: vile hath been my folly, who hath profan'd the mystery
Speaker 1: of God given me under pledge of vow, and have
Speaker 1: betrayed it to a woman, a Canaanite, my faithless enemy.
Speaker 1: This well I knew, nor was it all surprised, but
Speaker 1: warned by oft experience, did not she of Timner first
Speaker 1: betray me and revealed the secret rested from me in
Speaker 1: her heights of nuptial love, professed, carrying it straight to
Speaker 1: them who had corrupted her my spies and rivals. In
Speaker 1: this other was there found more faith, who, also, in
Speaker 1: her prime of love spousal embraces viciated with gold, though
Speaker 1: offered only by the scent conceiv'd her spurious first born
Speaker 1: treason against me. Thrice she essayed, with flattering prayers and
Speaker 1: sighs and amorous reproaches to win from me my capital secret,
Speaker 1: in what part my strength lay stored, in what parts
Speaker 1: summ'd that she might know? Thrice I deluded her and
Speaker 1: turn'd to sport her importunity, each time perceiving how openly
Speaker 1: and with what impudence she purpos'd to betray me, and
Speaker 1: which was worse than undissembl'd hate, with what contempt she
Speaker 1: sought to make me traitor to myself. Yet the fourth time,
Speaker 1: when mustering all her wiles with blandish'd parleys, feminine assaults
Speaker 1: tongue batteries, she surceas'd not day nor night to storm me,
Speaker 1: over watch'd and wearied out. At times when men seek
Speaker 1: most repose and rest, I yielded and unlock'd all my heart, who,
Speaker 1: with a grain of manhood, well resolved might easily have
Speaker 1: shook off all her snares, But foul effeminacy help me
Speaker 1: yoked her bond slave oh indignity, a blot to honor
Speaker 1: and religion. Servile mind rewarded well with servile punishment. The
Speaker 1: base degree to which I now am fallen these rags.
Speaker 1: This grinding is not yet so base as was my
Speaker 1: former servitude, ignoble, unmanly, ignominious, infamous, true slavery, and that
Speaker 1: blindness worse than this, that saw not how degenerate I serv'd.
Speaker 1: I cannot praise thy marriage choices, son rather approv'd them not,
Speaker 1: But thou didst plead divine impulsion, prompting how thou mightst
Speaker 1: find some occasion to infest our foes. I state not
Speaker 1: that this I am sure our foes found soon occasion
Speaker 1: thereby to make THEE their captive and their triumph. Thou,
Speaker 1: the sooner temptation foundst or overpotent charms to violate the
Speaker 1: sacred trust of silence deposited within THEE, which to have
Speaker 1: kept tacit was in thy power, true, and thou hearest
Speaker 1: enough and more the burden of that fault bitterly hast
Speaker 1: Thou paid, and still art paying that rigid score. A
Speaker 1: worse thing yet remains this day. The Philistines a popular
Speaker 1: feast here, celebrate in Gaza, and proclaim great pomp and
Speaker 1: sacrifice and praises loud to Dargon as their God, who
Speaker 1: hath deliver'd thee Samson bound and blind into their hands
Speaker 1: them out of Thine who slewest them many a slain,
Speaker 1: so Dagon shall be magnified and God, besides whom is
Speaker 1: no God compar'd with idols, disglorifi'd, blasphemed, and had in
Speaker 1: scorn by the idolatrous rout amidst their wine, which to
Speaker 1: have come to pass by means of THEE Samson. Of
Speaker 1: all thy sufferings, think the heaviest of all, reproach the
Speaker 1: most with shame that ever could have befallen thee and
Speaker 1: thy father's house Father. I do acknowledge and confess that
Speaker 1: I this honor, I this pomp, have brought to Dagon
Speaker 1: and advanced his praises high among the heathen round to God,
Speaker 1: have brought dishonor obloqui and OpEd the mouths of idolists
Speaker 1: and atheists, have brought scandal to Israel, diffidence of God
Speaker 1: and doubt in feeble hearts pence enough before to waver
Speaker 1: or fall off and join with idols. Which is my
Speaker 1: chief affliction, shame and sorrow, the anguish of my soul
Speaker 1: that suffers not mine eye to harbor, sleep, or thoughts
Speaker 1: to rest. This only hope relieves me that the strife
Speaker 1: with me hath end all. The contest is now TwixT
Speaker 1: God and Dagon. Dargon hath presumed me overthrown to enter
Speaker 1: lists with God his deity, comparing and preferring before the
Speaker 1: God of Abraham. He he sure will not connive or
Speaker 1: linger thus provoked, but will arise and his great name
Speaker 1: as sert Dagon must stoop, and shall e'er long receive
Speaker 1: such a discomfort as shall quite despoil him of all
Speaker 1: these boasted trophies, one on me and with confusion blank
Speaker 1: his worshipers. With cause, this hope relieves THEE, and these
Speaker 1: words I, as a prophecy, receive for God nothing more certain.
Speaker 1: Will not long defer to vindicate the glory of his
Speaker 1: name against all competition, nor will long endure it doubtful,
Speaker 1: whether God be Lord or dagone. But for THEE, what
Speaker 1: shall be done Thou must not in the Meanwhile, here
Speaker 1: for goot lie in this miserable loathsome pay delight neglected.
Speaker 1: I already have made way to some Pelistian lords, with
Speaker 1: whom to treat about thy ransom. Well, they may by
Speaker 1: this have satisfied their utmost of revenge by pains and
Speaker 1: slaveries worse than death inflicted on thee, who now no
Speaker 1: more canst do them harm. Spare that proposal, father, Spare
Speaker 1: the trouble of that solicitation. Let me hear as I
Speaker 1: deserve pay on my punishment, and expiate, if possible my crime.
Speaker 1: Shameful garrulity to have revealed secrets of men, the secrets
Speaker 1: of a friend, how heinous had the fact been, how
Speaker 1: deserving contempt and scorn of all, to be excluded all
Speaker 1: friendship and avoided as a blab the mark of fool
Speaker 1: set on his front. But I God's counsel have not
Speaker 1: kept his holy secret presumptuously, have published impiously, weakly, at
Speaker 1: least and shamefully, a sin that gentiles in their parables
Speaker 1: condemned to their abyss and horrid pains confined. End of
Speaker 1: Section three, Section four Manoah Samson chorus, be penitent and
Speaker 1: for thy fault, contrite, but act not in thy own affliction. Son,
Speaker 1: repent the sin. But if the punishment thou canst avoid
Speaker 1: self preservation bids or the execution, leave to high disposal,
Speaker 1: and let another hand not thine exact thy penal forfeit
Speaker 1: from thyself. Perhaps God will relent and quit thee all
Speaker 1: his debt. Who ever more approves and more accepts best
Speaker 1: pleas'd with humble and filial submission, Him who, imploring mercy,
Speaker 1: soues for life, than who self rigorous chooses death as due,
Speaker 1: which argues over just and self displeas'd for self offense
Speaker 1: more than for God offended reject not then what offer'd means?
Speaker 1: Who knows? But God hath set before us to return
Speaker 1: THEE home to thy country and his sacred house, where
Speaker 1: thou mayst bring thy offerings to avert his further ire.
Speaker 1: With prayers and vows renew'd his pardon, I implore. But as
Speaker 1: for life, to what end should I seek it? When
Speaker 1: in strength all mortals I excell'd and great in hopes,
Speaker 1: with youthful courage and magnanimous thoughts of birth from heav'n
Speaker 1: foretold and high exploits full of divine instinct after some
Speaker 1: proof of acts, indeed heroic far beyond the sons of
Speaker 1: anak famous now and blazed, fearless of danger like a
Speaker 1: petty god, I walked about, admired of all, and dreaded
Speaker 1: on hostile ground, none daring my affront. Then swollen with
Speaker 1: pride into the snare, I fell of fair, fallacious looks,
Speaker 1: venereal trains, soften'd with pleasure and voluptuous life, at length
Speaker 1: to lay my head and hallow'd pledge of all my
Speaker 1: strength in the lascivious lap of a deceitful concubine, who
Speaker 1: shure me like a tame weather all my precious fleece.
Speaker 1: Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd, shaven and disarm'd among
Speaker 1: my end amiss desire of wine and all delicious drinks,
Speaker 1: which many a famous warrior overturns. Thou couldst repress. Nor
Speaker 1: did the dancing ruby sparkling out power'd The flavor or
Speaker 1: the smell or taste that cheers the hearts of gods
Speaker 1: and men, allure thee from the cool crystalline stream, wherever
Speaker 1: fountain or fresh current flow'd against the eastern ray, translucent,
Speaker 1: pure with touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod eye drank
Speaker 1: from the clear milky juice, a laying thirst and refresh'd.
Speaker 1: Nor envied them the grape whose heads that turbulent liquor
Speaker 1: he fills with fumes. O madness to think use of
Speaker 1: strongest wines and strongest drinks our chief support of health,
Speaker 1: When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear his
Speaker 1: mighty champion strong above compare whose drink was only from
Speaker 1: the liquid brook. But what avail'd distemperance not complete against
Speaker 1: another object? More enticing? What boots it at one gait
Speaker 1: to make defense, and at another to let in the
Speaker 1: foe effeminateely vanquish'd, by which means now blind, dishearten'd, sham'd, dishonored, quell'd.
Speaker 1: To what can I be useful? Wherein serve my nation
Speaker 1: and the work from heav'n impos'd But to sit idle
Speaker 1: on the household hearth a burdeness drone to visitants a
Speaker 1: gaze or piti'd object. These redundant locks, robustious to no purpose,
Speaker 1: clustering down vain monument of strength till length of years,
Speaker 1: and sedentary numbness craze my limbs to a contemptible old
Speaker 1: age obscure here, Rather let me drudge and earn my
Speaker 1: bread till vermin or the draft of servile food consume me,
Speaker 1: and oft invocated death, hasten the welcome end of all
Speaker 1: my pains. Wilt Thou then serve the Philistines with that
Speaker 1: gift which was expressly given THEE to annoy them better
Speaker 1: at home, thy bed rid not only idle, inglorious, unemploy'd,
Speaker 1: with age outworn. But God, who caus'd a fountain at
Speaker 1: thy prayer from the dry ground to spring by thirst,
Speaker 1: to allay after the brunt of battle, can as easy
Speaker 1: cause lighter again within thy eyes to spring, wherewith to
Speaker 1: serve him better than thou hast And I persuade me,
Speaker 1: so why else this strength miraculous yet remaining in those locks,
Speaker 1: His might continues in THEE, not for naught, nor shall
Speaker 1: his wondrous gifts be frost. Thus all otherwise to me
Speaker 1: my thoughts portend that these dark orbs no more shall
Speaker 1: treat with light, nor the other light of life, continue long,
Speaker 1: but yield to double darkness nigh at hand. So much
Speaker 1: I feel my genial spirits droop, my hopes all flat
Speaker 1: nature within me seems in all her functions weary of herself.
Speaker 1: My race of glory run and race of shame, And
Speaker 1: I shall shortly be with them that rest believe not
Speaker 1: these suggestions which proceed from anguish of the mind and
Speaker 1: humor's black that mingle with thy fancy. I, however, must
Speaker 1: not omit a father's timely care to prosecute the means
Speaker 1: of thy deliverance by ransom, or how else. Meanwhile, be
Speaker 1: calm and healing words from these thy friends. Admit, oh,
Speaker 1: that torment should not be confined to the bodies wounds
Speaker 1: and sores, with maladies innumerable in heart, head, breast and reins.
Speaker 1: But must secret passage find to the inmost mind there
Speaker 1: exercise all his fierce accidents, and on her purest spirits
Speaker 1: prey as on entrails, joints, and limbs, with answerable pains,
Speaker 1: but more intense, though void of corporal sense. My griefs
Speaker 1: not only pain me as a lingering disease, but finding
Speaker 1: no redress, ferment and rage, nor less than wounds immedicable,
Speaker 1: rankle and fester and gangreen to black mortification thoughts, my
Speaker 1: tormentous armed with deadly stings, mangle, my apprehensive tenderest parts exasperate, exulcerate,
Speaker 1: and raise dire inflammation which no cooling herb or medicinal
Speaker 1: liquor can assuage, nor breath of vernal air from snowy
Speaker 1: alp sleep. Hath forsook and given me awe to death's
Speaker 1: benumbing opium as my only cure. Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,
Speaker 1: and sense of Heav'n's desertion. I was his nursling once
Speaker 1: and choice delight, his destin'd from the womb, promis'd by
Speaker 1: heav'nly message twice, descending under his special eye, abstemious, I
Speaker 1: grew up and thriv'd amain. He led me on to
Speaker 1: mightiest deeds above the nerve of mortal arm, against the
Speaker 1: uncircumcis'd our enemies. But now Hath cast me off as
Speaker 1: never known, and to those cruel enemies whom I, by
Speaker 1: his appointment had provoked, left me all helpless with the
Speaker 1: irreparable loss of sight, reserv'd alive to be repeated the
Speaker 1: subject of their cruelty or scorn. Nor am I in
Speaker 1: the list of them that hope hopeless? Are all my evils,
Speaker 1: all remediless this one prayer yet remains, might I be
Speaker 1: heard no long petition, speedy death, the clothes of all
Speaker 1: my miseries and the balm. Many are the sayings of
Speaker 1: the wise, in ancient and in modern books, in old
Speaker 1: extolling patience as the truest fortitude, and to the bearing
Speaker 1: well of all calamities, all chances incident to man's frail life.
Speaker 1: Consolatories writ with studied argument and much Persuasian sort, lenient
Speaker 1: of grief and anxious thought. But with the afflicted in
Speaker 1: his pangs, their sound little prevails, or rather seems a
Speaker 1: tune harsh and of dissonant mood from his complaint, unless
Speaker 1: he feel within some source of consolation from above, secret
Speaker 1: refreshings that repair his strength and fainting spirits are pold,
Speaker 1: God of our Father's. What is man that thou towards
Speaker 1: him with hands so various, or might I say contrarious?
Speaker 1: Temperest thy providence through his short course? Not evenly as
Speaker 1: thou rulest the angelic orders and inferior creatures mute, irrational
Speaker 1: and brute. Nor do I name of men the common
Speaker 1: rout that wandering loose about grow up and perish as
Speaker 1: the summer fly, hence without name no more remember'd, but
Speaker 1: such as thou hast solemnly elected with gifts and graces,
Speaker 1: eminently adorn'd to some great work, thy glory and people safety,
Speaker 1: which in part they effect Yet toward these thus dignified
Speaker 1: Thou oft, amidst their height of noon, changest thy countenance
Speaker 1: and thy hand, with no regard of highest favors past
Speaker 1: from thee on them, or them to thee of service.
Speaker 1: Nor only dost degrade them or remit to life obscur'd,
Speaker 1: which were a fair dismission. But throwst them lower than
Speaker 1: thou didst exhort them high unseemly falls in human eye
Speaker 1: to grievous for the trespass or omission oft leavest them
Speaker 1: to the hostile sword of heathen and profane their carcasses
Speaker 1: to dogs and fowls a prey or else captiv'd, or
Speaker 1: to the unjust tribunals, and a change of times and condemnation,
Speaker 1: and of the ingrateful multitude. If these they escape, perhaps
Speaker 1: in poverty, with sickness and disease, Thou bowst them down
Speaker 1: painful diseases and deform'd in crude old age, though not disordinate,
Speaker 1: yet causeless suffering. The punishment of dissolute days in fine,
Speaker 1: just or unjust alike seem miserable, for oft alike, both
Speaker 1: come to evil end. So deal not with this, wants
Speaker 1: thy glorious champion, the image of thy strength and mighty minister.
Speaker 1: What do I beg How hast thou dealt already behold
Speaker 1: him in this state, colors Amitus, and turn his labors,
Speaker 1: for thou canst to peaceful end. But who is this?
Speaker 1: What thing of sea or land? Female of sex? It
Speaker 1: seems that so bedeck'd ornate and gay comes this way,
Speaker 1: sailing like a stately ship of Tarsus, bound for the
Speaker 1: isles of Javan or Gadeir, with all her bravery on
Speaker 1: and tackle trim, sails fill'd and streamers waving, courted by
Speaker 1: all the winds that hold them. Play an amber scent
Speaker 1: of odorous perfume, her harbinger a damsel train behind some
Speaker 1: rich Pelictian matron, ye may seem, and now at ne'er
Speaker 1: view no other certain than dullillah, thy wife, my wife,
Speaker 1: my traitress. Let her not come near me? Yet on
Speaker 1: she move now stands and eyes thee fix'd about to
Speaker 1: have spoke, but now with head declin'd like a fair
Speaker 1: flower surcharg'd with dew, she weeps, and words address'd seem
Speaker 1: into tears, dissolv'd, wetting the borders of her silken veil.
Speaker 1: But now again she makes a dress to speak. End
Speaker 1: of Section four, Section five. Dulli Lah Samson, with doubtful
Speaker 1: feet and wavering resolution. I came still dreading thy displeasure, Samson,
Speaker 1: which do have merited without excuse, I cannot but acknowledge.
Speaker 1: Yet if tears may expiate, though the fact more evil
Speaker 1: drew in the perverse event than I foresaw my penance,
Speaker 1: hath not slacken'd, though my pardon no way assur'd, But
Speaker 1: conjugal affection, prevailing over fear and timorous doubt, hath led
Speaker 1: me on, desirous to behold once more thy face and
Speaker 1: know of thy estate, if aught in my ability, may
Speaker 1: serve to lighten what thou suffer't and appease thy mind
Speaker 1: with what immense is in my power, Though late, yet
Speaker 1: in some part to recompense my rash, but more unfortunate
Speaker 1: misdeed out out Hyena. These are thy wonted arts and
Speaker 1: arts of every woman false like thee to break all faith,
Speaker 1: all vows, deceive, betray Then, as repentant to submit, beseech
Speaker 1: and reconcilement, move with feigned remorse, confess and promise. Wonders
Speaker 1: in her change, not truly penitent, but chief to try
Speaker 1: her husband, how far urg'd his patience bears is virtue
Speaker 1: or weakness? Which way to assail? Then, with more cautious
Speaker 1: and instructed skill, again transgresses, and again submits that wisest
Speaker 1: and best men full oft beguiled with goodness principles not
Speaker 1: to reject the penitent, but ever to forgive, are drawn
Speaker 1: to wear out miserable days entangled with a poisonous bosom snake,
Speaker 1: if not by quick destruction, cut off as I by
Speaker 1: THEE to ages an example. Yet hear me, Sampson, not
Speaker 1: that I endeavor to lessen or extenuate my offense, but
Speaker 1: that on the other side, if it be weigh'd by
Speaker 1: itself with a cravations, not surcharg'd, or else with just
Speaker 1: allowance counterpoised, I may, if possible, thy pardon find the
Speaker 1: easier towards me, or thy hatred less First granting as
Speaker 1: I do, it was a weakness in me, but incident
Speaker 1: to all our sex curiosity, inquisitive importune of secrets, then
Speaker 1: with like infirmity to publish them both common female faults.
Speaker 1: Was it not weakness? Also to make known for importunity,
Speaker 1: that is for naught wherein consisted all thy strength and safety.
Speaker 1: To what I did, Thou show'st me first the way,
Speaker 1: But I to enemies reveal'd and should not, nor shouldst
Speaker 1: thou have trusted that to woman's frailty. E're I to THEE,
Speaker 1: Thou to thy self wast cruel let weakness. Then with
Speaker 1: weakness come to parl so near related or the same
Speaker 1: of kind, thine forgive mine that men may censure thine
Speaker 1: the gentler, if severely thou exact not more strength from
Speaker 1: me than in thyself was found. And what if love,
Speaker 1: which thou interpret'st hate, the jealousy of love powerful of
Speaker 1: sway in human hearts, nor less in mine towards THEE
Speaker 1: caus'd what I did? I saw THEE mutable, a fancy
Speaker 1: feared lest one day thou wouldst leave me as her
Speaker 1: at tymner sought by all means. Therefore, how to endear
Speaker 1: and hold THEE to me firmest? No better way I
Speaker 1: saw than by importuning to learn thy secrets, get into
Speaker 1: my power the key of strength and safety. Thou wilt say, why,
Speaker 1: then reveal'd. I was assured by those who tempted me
Speaker 1: that nothing was design'd against THEE, but safe custody and
Speaker 1: hold that made for me. I knew that liberty would
Speaker 1: draw THEE forth to perilous enterprises, while I at home
Speaker 1: sate full of cares and fears, wailing thy absence in
Speaker 1: my widow'd bed. Here, I should still enjoy THEE day
Speaker 1: and night, mine and Love's prisoner, not the Philistines whole
Speaker 1: to myself, unhazarded abroad, fearless at home, of partners in
Speaker 1: my love. These reasons in Love's law have passed for good,
Speaker 1: though fond and reasonless to some perhaps, And love hath
Speaker 1: oft well meaning, wrought much woe, yet always pity or pardon,
Speaker 1: hath obtain'd be not unlike all others, Not austere as
Speaker 1: thou art, strong, inflexible as steel. If thou in strength
Speaker 1: all mortals dost exceed in uncompassionate anger, do not so?
Speaker 1: End of Section five, Section six, Samson Dali lah. How
Speaker 1: cunningly the sorceress displays her own transgressions to upbraid me.
Speaker 1: Mine that malice, not repentance brought THEE hither by this
Speaker 1: appears I gave thou, sayest the example I led the
Speaker 1: way bitter reproach, but true I to myself was false.
Speaker 1: Ere thou to me such pardon. Therefore, as I give
Speaker 1: my folly, take to thy wicked deed, which, when thou
Speaker 1: seest impartial, self severe, inexorable, thou wilt renounce thy seeking
Speaker 1: and much rather confessed. Feigned weakness is thy excuse, and
Speaker 1: I believe it weakness to resist Felistian gold. If weakness
Speaker 1: may excuse, what murder, what traitor, pallicide, incestuous, sacrilegious, but
Speaker 1: may plead it all wickedness is weakness that plead Therefore
Speaker 1: with God or man will gain THEE no remission. But
Speaker 1: love constrained THEE call it furious rage to satisfy thy lust.
Speaker 1: Love seeks to have love my love. How couldst thou hope,
Speaker 1: who took'st the way to raise in me inexpiable hate,
Speaker 1: knowing as needs I must by THEE betray'd in vain,
Speaker 1: Thou strivest to cover shame with shame, or by evasions
Speaker 1: thy crime uncoverest more, since thou determinest weakness for no
Speaker 1: plea in man or woman. Though to thy own condemning
Speaker 1: hear what assaults I had, what snares, besides what sieges
Speaker 1: girt me round ere I consented, which might have awed
Speaker 1: the best resolv'd of men, the constantest to have yielded
Speaker 1: without blame. It was not gold, as to my charge,
Speaker 1: thou lest that wrought with me. Thou know'st the magistrates
Speaker 1: and princes of my country came in person, solicited, commanded, threaten'd, urg'd,
Speaker 1: endured by all the bonds of civil duty and of
Speaker 1: religion press'd How just it was, how honorable, how glorious
Speaker 1: to entrap a common enemy who had destroy'd such numbers
Speaker 1: of our nation. And the priest was not behind, but
Speaker 1: ever at my ear preaching, How meritorious with the gods
Speaker 1: it would be to ensnare an irreligious dishonorer of dark on.
Speaker 1: What had I to oppose against such powerful arguments? Only
Speaker 1: my love of thee held long debate, and combated in
Speaker 1: silence all these reasons with hard contest, at length that
Speaker 1: grounded maxim so rife and celebrated in the mouth of
Speaker 1: wisest men that to the public good, private respects must
Speaker 1: yield with grave authority, took full possession of me and
Speaker 1: prevail'd virtue, as I thought truth duty so enjoining, I
Speaker 1: thought where all thy circling wiles would end in feigned religion,
Speaker 1: smooth hypocrisy. But had thy love still odiously pretended, been
Speaker 1: as it ought sincere, it would have taught THEE far
Speaker 1: Other reasonings brought forth other deeds. I before all the
Speaker 1: daughters of my tribe and of my nation, chose THEE
Speaker 1: from among my enemies. Lov'd THEE as too well. Thou
Speaker 1: knewest too well, unbosom'd all thy secrets to THEE, not
Speaker 1: out of levity, but overpower'd by thy request. Who could
Speaker 1: deny THEE nothing? Yet now am judg'd an enemy? Why
Speaker 1: then didst thou at first receive me for thy husband? Then,
Speaker 1: as since then thy country's foe profess'd being once a
Speaker 1: wife for me, Thou wast to leave parents and country.
Speaker 1: Nor was I their subject, nor under their protection, but
Speaker 1: my own, thou mine, not theirs. If aught against my life,
Speaker 1: thy country sought of THEE, it sought unjustly against the
Speaker 1: law of nature, law of Natias, no more thy country,
Speaker 1: but an impious crew of men conspiring to uphold their
Speaker 1: state by worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends for
Speaker 1: which our country is a name. So dear not therefore
Speaker 1: to be obeyed, but zeal mov'd thee to please thy gods,
Speaker 1: Thou didst it gods unable to acquit themselves and prosecute
Speaker 1: their foes, but by ungodly deeds the contradiction of their
Speaker 1: own deity. Gods cannot be less therefore to be pleas'd,
Speaker 1: obey'd or fear'd These false pretexts and varnish'd colors failing
Speaker 1: bear in thy guilt, how foul must thou peer in
Speaker 1: argument with men? A woman ever goes by the worst,
Speaker 1: whatever be her cause, for want of words, no doubt,
Speaker 1: or lack of breath. Witness, when I was worried with
Speaker 1: thy peals, I was a fool to rash, and quite
Speaker 1: mistaken in what I thought would have succeeded. Best. Let
Speaker 1: me obtain forgiveness of THEE. Sampson afford me place to
Speaker 1: show what recompense towards THEE I intend for what I
Speaker 1: have misdone misguided, Only what remains past cure bear not
Speaker 1: too sensibly, nor still insist to afflict thyself in vain,
Speaker 1: though sight be lost. Life, yet hath many solaces enjoy'd
Speaker 1: where other senses want not, their delights at home in
Speaker 1: leisure and domestic ease, exempt from many a care and
Speaker 1: chance to which eye sight exposes daily men abroad, I,
Speaker 1: to the Lord's will, intercede, not doubting their favorable ear,
Speaker 1: that I may fetch thee from forth this loathsome prison
Speaker 1: house to abide with me, where my redoubled love and care,
Speaker 1: with nursing diligence to meet glad office may ever tend
Speaker 1: about thee to old age, with all things grateful, cheered,
Speaker 1: and so supplied, that what by me thou hast lost,
Speaker 1: Thou least shalt miss no no of my condition, take
Speaker 1: no care. It fits not thou and I long since
Speaker 1: are twain, Nor think me so unwary or accurst to
Speaker 1: bring my feet again into the snare where once I
Speaker 1: have been caught. I know thy trains, though dearly to
Speaker 1: my cost, thy gins and toils, thy fair enchanted cup
Speaker 1: and warbling charms, no more on me have power their
Speaker 1: forces null'd. So much of Adder's wisdom I have learnt
Speaker 1: to fence my ear against thy sorceries. If in my
Speaker 1: flood of youth and strength, when all men lov'd, honor'd
Speaker 1: fear'd me, thou alone could hate me, thy husband, slight me,
Speaker 1: sell me, and forego me. How wouldst thou use me,
Speaker 1: now blind and thereby deceivable in most things, as a child, helpless, dense,
Speaker 1: easily contempt and scorn'd, and last neglected. How wouldst thou
Speaker 1: insult when I must live oxorious to thy will in
Speaker 1: perfect thraldom? How again betray me, bearing my words and
Speaker 1: doings to the lords to gloss upon and censuring, frown
Speaker 1: or smile this jail. I count the house of liberty
Speaker 1: to thine, whose door my feet shall never enter. Let
Speaker 1: me approach at least and touch thy hand, not for
Speaker 1: thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake my sudden rage to
Speaker 1: tear THEE joint by joint at distance. I forgive THEE.
Speaker 1: Go with that bewail thy falsehood and the pious works
Speaker 1: it hath brought forth to make THEE memorable among illustrious women,
Speaker 1: faithful wives. Cherish thy hastened widowhood with the gold of
Speaker 1: matrimonial treason. So farewell, I see thou art implacable, more
Speaker 1: deaf to prayers than winds and seas, yet WinCE to
Speaker 1: seize are reconcil'd at length, and see to shore thy
Speaker 1: anger unappeasable, still rages eternal tempest, never to be calm'd.
Speaker 1: Why do I humble thus myself and suing for peace,
Speaker 1: reap nothing but repulse and hate. Bid go with evil
Speaker 1: omen and the brand of infamy upon my name denounc'd
Speaker 1: to mix with thy concernments. I desist henceforth, nor too
Speaker 1: much disapprove my own fame, if not double faced, is
Speaker 1: double mouth'd, and with contrarie blast proclaims most deeds on
Speaker 1: both his wings, one black, the other white, bears greatest
Speaker 1: names in his wild eerie flight. My name, perhaps among
Speaker 1: the circumcis'd in Dan, in Tudor, and the bordering tribes.
Speaker 1: To all posterity may stand defamed with malediction, mention'd, and
Speaker 1: the blot of falsehood most unconjugal traduced. But in my
Speaker 1: country where I most desire, in Ekron, Gaza Ashdod, and
Speaker 1: in Gath, I shall be nam'd Among the famousest of
Speaker 1: women sung at solemn festivals, living and dead, recorded who
Speaker 1: to save her country from a fierce destroyer, chose above
Speaker 1: the faith of wedlock, bands my tomb with odors visited
Speaker 1: and annual flowers, not less renown'd than in Mount Ephraim Jael,
Speaker 1: who with inhospitable guile smote Sissira sleeping through the temples nail'd.
Speaker 1: Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy the public
Speaker 1: marks of honor and reward conferred upon me for the
Speaker 1: piety which to my country I was judg'd to have shown.
Speaker 1: At this whoever envies or repines, I'd leave him to
Speaker 1: his lot, and like my own. End of section six,
Speaker 1: Section seven chorus, Samson Hallafa, she's gone a manifest sir,
Speaker 1: and by her sting discover'd in the end till now conceal'd.
Speaker 1: So let her go. God sent her to debase me
Speaker 1: and aggravate my folly. Who committeth to such a viper
Speaker 1: his most sacred trust of secresy my safety and my life. Yet, beauty,
Speaker 1: though injurious, hath strange power after offense, returning to regain
Speaker 1: love once possess'd, nor can be easily repuls'd without much
Speaker 1: inward passion felt and secret sting of amorous remorse love,
Speaker 1: quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, not wedlock, treachery in
Speaker 1: dangering life. It is not virtue, wisdom, valor, wit, strength,
Speaker 1: comeliness of shape, or amplest merit that woman's love can
Speaker 1: win or long inherit. But what it is heart ist
Speaker 1: to say harder to hit? Which waysoever men refer it
Speaker 1: much like thy riddle samson in one day or seven,
Speaker 1: though one should musing sit if any of these, or
Speaker 1: all the chimneyan bride had not so soon preferred thy
Speaker 1: paronymph worthless to thee compar'd successor in thy bed, nor
Speaker 1: both so loosely disallied their nuptials, nor this last so
Speaker 1: treacherously had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head. Is
Speaker 1: it for that such outward ornament was lavish'd on their sex,
Speaker 1: that inward gifts were left for haste, unfinish'd judgment, scant capacity,
Speaker 1: not rais'd to apprehend or value what is best in choice,
Speaker 1: but oftest to affect the wrong, Or was too much
Speaker 1: of self love mix'd of constancy, no root infix'd that
Speaker 1: either they loved nothing or not long whate'er it be
Speaker 1: to wisest men, and best, seeming at first all heavenly
Speaker 1: under virgin veil, soft, modest, meek demure. Once join'd the contrary,
Speaker 1: she proves a thorn intestine far within defensive arms, a
Speaker 1: cleaving mischief in his way to virtue, adverse and turbulent,
Speaker 1: or by her charms draws him awry, enslaved with dotage,
Speaker 1: and his sense deprav'd to folly and shameful deeds, which
Speaker 1: ruin ends what pilot so expert but needs, must wreck.
Speaker 1: Embark'd with such a steer's mate at the helm favored
Speaker 1: of heaven, who finds one virtuous rarely found that in
Speaker 1: domestic good combines happy that house. His way to peep
Speaker 1: is smooth. But virtue, which breaks through all opposition and
Speaker 1: all temptation, can remove most shines, and most is acceptable above.
Speaker 1: Therefore God's universal law gave to the man despotic power
Speaker 1: over his female due all, nor from that right to
Speaker 1: part an hour smile she or lower. So shall he
Speaker 1: least confusion draw on his whole life, not sway'd by
Speaker 1: female usurpation nor dismay'd. But had we best retire, I
Speaker 1: see a storm, fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
Speaker 1: But this another kind of tempest brings be less abstruse.
Speaker 1: My riddling days are past. Look now for no enchanting voice,
Speaker 1: nor fear the bait of honey'd words, a ruffa tongue
Speaker 1: draws hitherward. I know him by his stride, the giant
Speaker 1: Rafa of Gath, his look haughty, as is his pile,
Speaker 1: high built and proud. Comes he in peace? What wind
Speaker 1: hath blown him hither? I less conjecture than when first
Speaker 1: I saw the sumptuous Dalila floating this way. His habit
Speaker 1: carries peace, his brow defiance or peace or not alike.
Speaker 1: To me, he comes his fraught. We soon shall know
Speaker 1: he now arrives. I come not Samson to condole thy
Speaker 1: chance as these perhaps yet wish it had not been,
Speaker 1: though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath. Men
Speaker 1: call me Haratha of stock renown'd as odg or anak,
Speaker 1: and the emens old that kerriat him held. Thou knowest
Speaker 1: me now, if thou at all art known much I
Speaker 1: have heard of Thy prodigious might and beats perform'd incredible
Speaker 1: to me in this displeas'd that I was never present
Speaker 1: on the place of these encounters, where we might have
Speaker 1: tried each other's force in camp or listed field. And
Speaker 1: now am come to see of whom such noise hath
Speaker 1: walk'd about, and each limb to survey if thy appearents
Speaker 1: answer loud report the way to know when not to
Speaker 1: see but taste a dost thou already single me? I
Speaker 1: thought jives, and the mill had tam'd thee O. That
Speaker 1: fortune had brought me to the field where thou art
Speaker 1: fam'd to have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw.
Speaker 1: I should have forc'd thee soon with other arms, for
Speaker 1: left thy carcass where the ass lay own. So had
Speaker 1: the glory of prowess been recover'd to Palestine one by
Speaker 1: a philistine from the unforcekin's race, of whom thou best
Speaker 1: the highest name for valiant acts, that honor certain to
Speaker 1: have won by mortal duel from thee I lose prevent'd
Speaker 1: by thy eyes. Put out boast not of what thou
Speaker 1: wouldst have done, but do what then thou wouldst thou
Speaker 1: seize it in thy hand to combat with a blind man.
Speaker 1: I disdain, and thou hast need much washing to be
Speaker 1: touch'd such usage as your honorable lords afford me assassinated
Speaker 1: and bet trade, who durst not with their whole united
Speaker 1: powers in fight withstand me single and unarm'd, nor in
Speaker 1: the house with chamber ambushes, close banded dust attack me, no,
Speaker 1: not sleeping till they had hired a woman with their gold,
Speaker 1: breaking her marriage faith to circumvent me. Therefore, without feign'd shifts,
Speaker 1: let be assign'd some narrow place, enclos'd, where sight may
Speaker 1: give THEE, or rather flight no great advantage on me.
Speaker 1: Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet and
Speaker 1: brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon, vaunt brass, and grieves
Speaker 1: and gaunt, add thy spear, a weaver's beam, and seven
Speaker 1: times folded shield. I only with an oaken staff will
Speaker 1: meet THEE and raise such outcries on thy clatter'd iron,
Speaker 1: which long shall not withhold me from thy head, that
Speaker 1: in a little time, while breath remains THEE, thou oft
Speaker 1: shalt wish thyself at Gath to boast again in safety
Speaker 1: what thou would'st have done to Samson, but shalt never
Speaker 1: see Gath more. Thou dost not thus disparage glorious arms
Speaker 1: which greatest heroes have in battle worn their ornament and safety,
Speaker 1: had not spells and black enchantments. Some magicians art armed
Speaker 1: thee or charm'd the strong, which thou from heaven faint'st
Speaker 1: at thy birth was given thee in thy hair, where
Speaker 1: strength can least abide, though all thy hairs were bristles ranged,
Speaker 1: like those that reach the back of chafed wild bores
Speaker 1: or ruffled porcupines. End of section seven, Section eight Sampson
Speaker 1: Harapha chorus. I know no spells, use no forbidden arts.
Speaker 1: My trust is in the Living God, who gave leave
Speaker 1: me at my nativity. This strength diffused no less through
Speaker 1: all my sinews, joints, and bones than thine. While I
Speaker 1: preserv'd these locks unshorn the pledge of my unviolated vow
Speaker 1: for proof hereof if Dargon be thy God, go to
Speaker 1: his temple, invocate his aid with solemness devotion spread before him.
Speaker 1: How highly it concerns his glory now to frustrate and
Speaker 1: dissolve these magic spells, which I to be the power
Speaker 1: of Israel's God a vow and challenge Dagon to the test,
Speaker 1: offering to combat thee his champion bold with the utmost
Speaker 1: of his Godhead. Seconded, then thou shalt see or rather
Speaker 1: to thy sorrow soon feel whose God is strongest, thine
Speaker 1: or mine. Presume not on thy God, whate'er he be
Speaker 1: THEE he regards, not owns not hath cut off quite
Speaker 1: from his people, and deliver'd up into thy enemy's hand,
Speaker 1: permitteth them to put out both thine eyes and fetter'd
Speaker 1: sent THEE into the common prison, there to grind among
Speaker 1: the slaves and asses thy comrades, as good for nothing else.
Speaker 1: No better service with those thy boisterous locks, no worthy
Speaker 1: match for valor to assail, nor by the sword of
Speaker 1: noble warrior so to stain his honor. But by the
Speaker 1: barber's raizer best subdu'd all these indignities, for such they
Speaker 1: are from Thine, These evils I deserve, and more acknowledge
Speaker 1: them from God inflicted on me justly, Yet despair not
Speaker 1: of his final pardon, whose ear is ever open and
Speaker 1: his eye gracious to readmit the suppliant in confidence, whereof
Speaker 1: I once again defy THEE to the trial of mortal
Speaker 1: fight by combat, to decide whose God is God, Thine
Speaker 1: or whom I with Israel's sons adore fair honor that
Speaker 1: thou dost thy God, entrusting he will accept THEE to
Speaker 1: defend his cause. A motherer, a revolter, and a robber
Speaker 1: tongue doughty giant. How dost thou prove me? These is
Speaker 1: not thy nation's subject to our lords? Their magistrates confess'd
Speaker 1: it when they took THEE as a league breaker and
Speaker 1: deliver'd bound into our hands. For hadst thou not committed
Speaker 1: notorious murder on those thirty men at Ascalon, who never
Speaker 1: did THEE harm, then, like a robber, stritch'd them of
Speaker 1: their robes. The Philistines, when thou hadst broke the league
Speaker 1: went up with arm'd powers. THEE, only seeking to others,
Speaker 1: did no violence nor spoil among the daughters of the Philistines.
Speaker 1: I chose a wife which argued me no foe, and
Speaker 1: in your city held my nuptial feast. But your ill
Speaker 1: meaning politician lords, under pretense of bridal friends and guests,
Speaker 1: appointed to await me thirty spies, who, threatening cruel death,
Speaker 1: constrain'd the bride to wring from me and tell to
Speaker 1: them my secret that solv'd the riddle which I had
Speaker 1: propos'd when I perceiv'd all set on enmity as on
Speaker 1: my enemies. Wherever chanced, I us'd hostility and took their
Speaker 1: spoil to pay my under miners in their coin. My
Speaker 1: nation was subjected to your lords. It was the force
Speaker 1: of conquest. Force with force is well ejected when the
Speaker 1: conquer'd can But I a private person whom my country,
Speaker 1: as a league breaker, gave up bound presum'd single rebellion,
Speaker 1: and did hostile acts. I was no private, but a
Speaker 1: person rais'd with strength sufficient and command from heaven to
Speaker 1: free my country. If their servile minds me, their deliver
Speaker 1: assent would not receive, but to their masters gave me
Speaker 1: up for naught. The unworthy are they, whence to this
Speaker 1: day they serve. I was to do my part from
Speaker 1: Heaven assign'd, and had perform'd it if my no offense
Speaker 1: had not disabl'd me, not all your force. These shifts
Speaker 1: refuted answer thy appellant, though by his blindness maim'd for
Speaker 1: high attempts, who now defies THEE thrice to single fight
Speaker 1: as a petty enterprise of small enforce with THEE a
Speaker 1: man condemn'd a slave enroll'd due by the law to
Speaker 1: capital punishment to fight with thee. No man of arms
Speaker 1: will deign camest thou for this vain boaster to survey me,
Speaker 1: to descant on my strength and give thy verdict. Come nearer,
Speaker 1: but not hence so slight inform'd, But take good heed
Speaker 1: my hand, survey not thee O bal say bab can
Speaker 1: my ears unus'd hear these dishonor us, and not render death.
Speaker 1: No man withholds thee nothing from thy hand. Fear aye incurable.
Speaker 1: Bring up thy van. My heels are fetter'd, but my
Speaker 1: fist is free this insolence. Other kind of answer fits
Speaker 1: go baffled, coward lest I run upon thee, though in
Speaker 1: these chains bulk without spirit vast, and with one buffet,
Speaker 1: lay thy structure low, or swing THEE in the air.
Speaker 1: Then dash THEE down to the hazard of thy brains
Speaker 1: and shatter'd sides by ashtarrath ere long thou shalt lament
Speaker 1: these braveries in irons loadin on thee. His giant ship
Speaker 1: is gone, somewhat crest fallen, stalking with less unconscionable strides
Speaker 1: and lower looks. But in a sultry chafe, I dread
Speaker 1: him not nor all his giant brood, though fame divulge him,
Speaker 1: father of five sons, all of gigantic size, Goliath chief.
Speaker 1: He will directly to the lords I fear, and with
Speaker 1: malicious counsel stir them up some way or other. Yet
Speaker 1: further to afflict thee, he must allege some cause and
Speaker 1: offer'd fire. Might will not dare mention lest a question
Speaker 1: rise whether he dust accept the offer or not, And
Speaker 1: that he durst not plain enough appear'd much more affliction
Speaker 1: than already felt. They cannot well impose nor I sustain
Speaker 1: if they intend advantage of my labors, the work of
Speaker 1: many hands, which earns my keeping with no small profit
Speaker 1: daily to my owners. But come what will My deadliest
Speaker 1: foe will prove my speediest friend by death to rid me,
Speaker 1: hence the worst that he can give to me the best.
Speaker 1: Yet so it may fall out, because their end is hate,
Speaker 1: not help to me. It may with mine draw their
Speaker 1: own ruin who attempt the deed end of Section eight,
Speaker 1: Section nine chorus, Samson public officer, Oh, how comely it is,
Speaker 1: and how reviving to the spirits of just men long opprest,
Speaker 1: when God into the hands of their deliverer puts invincible
Speaker 1: might to quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor,
Speaker 1: the brute and boisterous force of violent men, hardy and
Speaker 1: industrious to support tyrannic power, but raging to pursue the
Speaker 1: righteous and all such honor truth. He all their ammunition
Speaker 1: and feats of war, defeats with plain, heroic magnitude of
Speaker 1: mind and celestial vigor, arm'd their armories and magazines, contemns
Speaker 1: renders them useless, while with winghead expedition swift as the
Speaker 1: lightning glance, he executes his errand on the wicked, who,
Speaker 1: surprised lose their defense, distracted and amazed. But patience is
Speaker 1: more oft the exercise of saints, the trial of their fortitude,
Speaker 1: making them each his own deliverer and victor. Over All
Speaker 1: that tyranny or fortune can inflict either of these is
Speaker 1: in thy lot. Samson, with might endued above the sons
Speaker 1: of men. But sight bereav'd may chance to number thee
Speaker 1: with those whom patience finally must crown. This idole's day
Speaker 1: hath been to THEE no day of rest, laboring thy
Speaker 1: mind more than the working day thy hands. And yet
Speaker 1: perhaps more trouble is behind. For I descry this way
Speaker 1: some other tending in his hand a scepter or quaint staff.
Speaker 1: He bears comes on a main speed. In his look
Speaker 1: by his habit, I discern him now a public officer,
Speaker 1: and now at hand his message will be short and voluble.
Speaker 1: Ebrew the prisoner Samson. Here I seek his manacles, remark
Speaker 1: him there he sits Samson to thee our lords. Thus
Speaker 1: bid me say, this day to darg On is a
Speaker 1: solemn feast with sacrifices, triumph, pomp, and games. Thy strength
Speaker 1: they know surpassing human rate, and now some public proof
Speaker 1: thereof require to honor this great feast and great assembly.
Speaker 1: Rise therefore with all speed and come along where I
Speaker 1: will see thee hearten'd and fresh clad, to appear as
Speaker 1: fits before the illustrious lords. Thou know'st I am an Hebrew.
Speaker 1: Therefore tell them our law forbids at their religious rights,
Speaker 1: my presents for that cause I cannot come. This answer
Speaker 1: be assured, will not content them? Have they not soared?
Speaker 1: Players and every sort of jimnick artists, restless riders, runners,
Speaker 1: jugglers and dancers, antics, mummers, mimics. But they must pick
Speaker 1: me out with shackles, tired and overlabor'd at their public mill,
Speaker 1: to make them sport with blind activity? Do they not
Speaker 1: seek occasion of new quarrels on my refusal to distress
Speaker 1: me more or make a game of my calamities? We
Speaker 1: turn the way thou camest, I will not come. Regard thyself.
Speaker 1: This will offend them highly, myself, my conscience and internal peace.
Speaker 1: Can they think me so broken, so debas'd with corporal servitude,
Speaker 1: that my mind ever will condescend to such absurd commands,
Speaker 1: although their drudge to be their fool or jester, and
Speaker 1: in my midst of sorrow and heart grief, to show
Speaker 1: them feats and play before their god, the worst of
Speaker 1: all indignities. Yet on me join'd with extreme contempt, I
Speaker 1: will not come. My message was impos'd on me with speed, Brooks,
Speaker 1: no delay. Is this thy resolution? So take it with
Speaker 1: what speed thy message needs. I am sorry what this
Speaker 1: stoutness will produce. Perhaps thou shalt have cause to sorrow. Indeed,
Speaker 1: consider Sampson, matters now are strain'd up to the height
Speaker 1: whether to hold or break. He's gone, and who knows
Speaker 1: how he may report thy words? By adding fuel to
Speaker 1: the flame, expect another message more imperious, more lordly thundering
Speaker 1: than thou well wilt bear. Shall I abuse this consecrated
Speaker 1: gift of strength again, returning with my hair after my
Speaker 1: great transgression, So requite favor renew'd, and add a greater
Speaker 1: sin by prostituting holy things to idols, a Nazarite in
Speaker 1: place abominable, wanting my strength in honor to their Dagon. Besides,
Speaker 1: how vile, contemptible, ridiculous, what act more execrably unclean, profane?
Speaker 1: Yet with this strength thou serv'st the Philistines idolatrous, uncircumcis'd unclean,
Speaker 1: not in their idol worship, but by labor, honest and lawful,
Speaker 1: to deserve my food of those who have me in
Speaker 1: their civil power, where the heart joins, not outward act defile,
Speaker 1: not where outward force constrains the sentence holds, But who
Speaker 1: constrains me to the temple of Dagon, not dragging. The
Speaker 1: Pelictian lord's command commands on no constraints. If I obey them,
Speaker 1: I do it freely, venturing to displease God. For the
Speaker 1: fear of man and man prefer set God behind which,
Speaker 1: in his jealousy shall never unrepented find forgiveness, yet that
Speaker 1: he may dispense with me or thee present in temples
Speaker 1: that idolatrous rites for some important cause. Thou need'st not
Speaker 1: doubt how thou wilt here come off surmounts my reach.
Speaker 1: Be of good courage. I begin to feel some rousing
Speaker 1: motions in me which dispose to something extraordinary my thoughts. I,
Speaker 1: with this messenger, will go along nothing to do. Be
Speaker 1: sure that may dishonor our law or stain my vow
Speaker 1: of Nazarite. If there be aught of presage in the mind,
Speaker 1: this day will be remarkable in my life by some
Speaker 1: great act or of my days. The last in time
Speaker 1: Thou hast resolv'd the man returns Samson this second message
Speaker 1: from our lords to thee. I am bid say, art
Speaker 1: thou our slave, our captive at the public mill, our drudge,
Speaker 1: and dst thou at our sending and command dispute thy
Speaker 1: coming Come without delay, or we shall find such engines
Speaker 1: to a sail and hamper thee as thou shalt come
Speaker 1: of force. Though thou wert family are fasten'd than a rock,
Speaker 1: I could be well content to try their art, which
Speaker 1: to no few of them would prove pernicious, Yet, knowing
Speaker 1: their advantage is too many, because they shall not trail
Speaker 1: me through their streets like a wild beast, I am
Speaker 1: content to go. Master's commands come with a power resistless
Speaker 1: to such as o them, absolute subjection, and for a
Speaker 1: life who will not change his purpose. So mutable are
Speaker 1: all the ways of men. Yet this be sure in
Speaker 1: nothing to comply scandalous or forbidden in our law. I
Speaker 1: praise thy resolution. Doth these lyns by this compliance, thou
Speaker 1: wilt win the lords to favor, and perhaps to set
Speaker 1: thee free brethren farewell your company along. I will not
Speaker 1: wish lest it perhaps offend them to see me girt
Speaker 1: with friends. And how the sight of me as of
Speaker 1: a common enemy, so dreaded once, may now exasperate them.
Speaker 1: I know not. Lords are lordliest in their wine, and
Speaker 1: the well feasted priest, then soonest, fired with zeal. If
Speaker 1: aught religion seem concern'd no less the people on their
Speaker 1: holy days, impetuous, insolent, unquenchable happen. What may of me
Speaker 1: expect to hear not thing dishonorable, impure, unworthy our God,
Speaker 1: our law, my nation, or myself, the last of me?
Speaker 1: Or no I cannot warrant. Go, And the Holy One
Speaker 1: of Israel be thy guide to what may serve his
Speaker 1: glory best, and spread his name great among the heathen round.
Speaker 1: Send thee the angel of thy birth, to stand fast
Speaker 1: by thy side, who from thy father's field rode up
Speaker 1: in flames after his message told of thy conception. And
Speaker 1: be now a shield of fire. That spirit that first
Speaker 1: rush'd on thee in the camp of Dan, be efficacious
Speaker 1: in thee now at need. For never was from heav'n
Speaker 1: imparted measure of strength so great to mortal seed, as
Speaker 1: in thy wond'rous actions hath been seen. But wherefore comes
Speaker 1: old Manoa in such haste, with youthful steps, much livelier
Speaker 1: than ere, while he seems supposing here to find his son,
Speaker 1: or of him bringing to us some glad news. End
Speaker 1: of section nine, Section ten man Noah chorus, Messenger, peace
Speaker 1: with you, brethren. My inducement hither was not at present
Speaker 1: here to find my son by order of the Lord's
Speaker 1: new parted, hence to come and play before them at
Speaker 1: their feast. I heard all as I came, the city
Speaker 1: rings and numbers thither flock. I had no will lest
Speaker 1: I should see him forced to things unseemly. But that
Speaker 1: which mov'd my coming now was chiefly to give ye
Speaker 1: part with me what hope I have, with good success,
Speaker 1: to work his liberty. That hope would much rejoice us
Speaker 1: to partake with thee, say Reverend Sire, we thirst to hear.
Speaker 1: I have attempt'd one by one the lord's, either at
Speaker 1: home or through the high street, passing with supplication, prone
Speaker 1: and father's tears, to accept of ransom for my son
Speaker 1: their prisoner. Some much averse I found, and wond'rous, harsh, contemptuous, proud,
Speaker 1: set on revenge and spite, that part most reverenced dug
Speaker 1: On and his priests. Others more moderate seeming, but their
Speaker 1: aim private reward, for which both God and State they
Speaker 1: easily would set to sail. A third, more generous, far
Speaker 1: and civil, who confess'd they had enough reveng'd, having reduc'd
Speaker 1: their foe to misery beneath their fears. The rest was
Speaker 1: magnanimity to remit if some convenient ransom were propos'd. What
Speaker 1: noise or shout was that it tore the sky, doubtless
Speaker 1: the people shouting to behold their once great dread, captive
Speaker 1: and blind before them, or at some proof of strength
Speaker 1: before them, shone his ransom. If my whole inheritance may compass,
Speaker 1: it shall willingly be paid, and number'd down much. Rather,
Speaker 1: I shall choose to live the poorest in my tribe
Speaker 1: than richest, and he in that calamitous prison left. No.
Speaker 1: I am fix'd not to part hence without him, for
Speaker 1: his redemption all my patrimony. If need be, I am
Speaker 1: ready to forego and quit. Not wanting him, I shall
Speaker 1: want nothing. Fathers are wont to lay up for their sons.
Speaker 1: Thou for thy son art bent to lay out All
Speaker 1: sons won't to nurse their parents in old age. Thou
Speaker 1: in old age carest how to nurse thy son made
Speaker 1: older than thy age through eyesight lost? It shall be
Speaker 1: my delight to tend his eyes and view him sitting
Speaker 1: in the house ennobl'd, with all those high exploits by
Speaker 1: him achiev'd, and on his shoulders waving down those locks
Speaker 1: that of a nation arm'd the strength contain'd. And I
Speaker 1: persuade me God had not permitted his strength again to
Speaker 1: grow up, with his hair garrison round about him like
Speaker 1: a camp of faithful soldiery. Were not his purpose to
Speaker 1: use him father, yet in some great service, not to
Speaker 1: sit idle with so great a gift useless and thence
Speaker 1: ridiculous about him. And since his strength with eyesight was
Speaker 1: not lost, God will restore him eyesight to his strength.
Speaker 1: Thy hopes are not ill founded, nor seem vain of
Speaker 1: his delivery, and thy joy thereon conceiv'd agreeable to a
Speaker 1: father's love in both which we as next participate. I
Speaker 1: know your friendly minds. And oh, what noise, mercy of heaven?
Speaker 1: What hideous noise? Was that? Horribly loud and like the
Speaker 1: former shout noise, call you it or universal groan, as
Speaker 1: if the whole inhabitation perish'd. Blood, death, and dreadful deeds
Speaker 1: are in that noise, ruin destruction at the utmost point
Speaker 1: of ruin. Indeed, methought I heard the noise. Oh it continues.
Speaker 1: They have slain my son. Thy son is rather slaying them.
Speaker 1: That outcry from slaughter of one foe could not ascend
Speaker 1: some dismal accident. It needs must be, what shall we do?
Speaker 1: Stay here or run? And see best keep together here,
Speaker 1: lest running thither we unawares run into danger's mouth. This
Speaker 1: evil on the Philistines is fallen from whom could else
Speaker 1: a general cry be heard the sufferers? Then will Scarce
Speaker 1: molest us here from other hands? We need not much
Speaker 1: to fear, what if his eyesight? For to Israel's God
Speaker 1: nothing is hard by miracle restor'd he now be dealing
Speaker 1: dole among his foes, and over heaps of slaughtered walk
Speaker 1: his way. That where a joy presumptuous to be thought.
Speaker 1: Yet God hath wrought things as incredible for his people
Speaker 1: of old? What hinders now he can? I know, but
Speaker 1: doubt to think he will? Yet hope would fain subscribe,
Speaker 1: and tempts belief A little stay will bring some notice,
Speaker 1: hither of good or bad? So great of bad the
Speaker 1: sooner for evil news writes post, while good news bates,
Speaker 1: And to our wish, I see one hither speeding an ebrew,
Speaker 1: as I guess, and of our tribe. Oh, whither shall
Speaker 1: I run? Or which way fly? The sight of this
Speaker 1: so horrid spectacle which erst my eyes beheld, and yet
Speaker 1: behold for dire imagination still pursues me. But providence or
Speaker 1: instinct of nature seems, or reason, though Disturb'd and Scarce,
Speaker 1: consult to have guided me. Aright, I know not how
Speaker 1: to thee first, Reverend manner' and to these my countrymen,
Speaker 1: whom here I knew, remaining as at some distance from
Speaker 1: the place of horror. So in the sad event too
Speaker 1: much concern'd. The accident was loud, and here before THEE
Speaker 1: with rueful cry. Yet what it was we hear not
Speaker 1: no preface needs thou seest we long to know? It
Speaker 1: would burst forth. But I recover breath and sense, distract
Speaker 1: to know well what I utter tell us the sum
Speaker 1: the circumstance defer. Gaza yet stands, but all her sons
Speaker 1: are fallen, all in a moment, overwhelm'd and fallen sad.
Speaker 1: But thou knowst to Israelites, not saddest the desolation of
Speaker 1: a hostile city. Feed on that first there may in
Speaker 1: grief be surfeit relate by whom by Samson that still
Speaker 1: lessens the sorrow and converts it nigh to joy. Ah
Speaker 1: man o'. I refrain too suddenly to utter what will
Speaker 1: come at last, too soon, lest evil tidings with too
Speaker 1: rude eruption hitting thy aged ear should pierce too deep.
Speaker 1: Suspense in news is torture. Speak them out, then take
Speaker 1: the worst in brief Sampson is dead the worst. Indeed, Oh,
Speaker 1: all my hopes defeated to free him. Hence, but death,
Speaker 1: who sets all free, hath paid his ransom now and
Speaker 1: full discharge. What wind' he joy this day? Had I
Speaker 1: conceiv'd hopeful of his delivery, which now proves abortive as
Speaker 1: the first born bloom of spring, nick't with the lagging
Speaker 1: fear of winter's frost. Yet e'er I give the reins
Speaker 1: to grief? Say first, how did he death? To life?
Speaker 1: Is crown or shame? All by him fell? Thou, sayest,
Speaker 1: by whom fell he? What glorious band gave Samson his
Speaker 1: death's wound? Unwounded of his enemies he fell wearied with slaughter? Then, Oh,
Speaker 1: how explain by his own hands self violence? What cause
Speaker 1: brought him so soon at variance with himself among his foes?
Speaker 1: Inevitable cause at once both to destroy and be destroy'd
Speaker 1: the edifice where all were met to see him upon
Speaker 1: their heads and on his own, he pull'd, oh, vastly
Speaker 1: over strong against thyself, a dreadful way Thou took'st to
Speaker 1: thy revenge more than enough we know. But while things
Speaker 1: yet are in confusion, give us if thou canst I
Speaker 1: witness of what first or last was done relation more
Speaker 1: particular and distinct. End of Section ten, Section eleven Messenger chorus,
Speaker 1: chorus chorus Ma Noah. Occasions drew me early to this city,
Speaker 1: And as the gates I enter'd with sunrise the morning
Speaker 1: tra rumpids festival proclaim'd through each high street. Little I
Speaker 1: had dispatch'd, when all abroad was rumor'd that this day
Speaker 1: Sampson should be brought forth to show the people proof
Speaker 1: of his mighty strength in feats and games. I sorrow'd
Speaker 1: at his captive state, but minded not to be absent
Speaker 1: at that spectacle. The building was a spacious theater, half
Speaker 1: round on two main pillars, vaulted high, with seats where
Speaker 1: all the lords and each degree of sort might sit
Speaker 1: in order to behold. The other side was open, where
Speaker 1: the throng on banks and scaffolds under sky might stand.
Speaker 1: I among these aloof obscurely stood. The feast and noon
Speaker 1: grew high, and sacrifice had filled their hearts with mirth,
Speaker 1: high cheer, and wine went to their sports. They turn'd.
Speaker 1: Immediately was Samson, as a public servant, brought in their state,
Speaker 1: livery clad before him, pipes and timbrels on each side
Speaker 1: went armed guards, both horse and foot, before him, and
Speaker 1: behind archers and slingers, catafracts and spears. At sight of him,
Speaker 1: the people, with a shout, rifted the air, clamoring their
Speaker 1: God with praise, who had made their dreadful enemy their thrall.
Speaker 1: He patient, but undoored where they led him, came to
Speaker 1: the place, and what was set before him, which without
Speaker 1: help of I might be a sayd to heave, pull, draw,
Speaker 1: or break. He still perform'd all with incredible stupendous force,
Speaker 1: none daring to appear antagonist at length. For intermission's sake,
Speaker 1: they led him between the pillars he his guide requested
Speaker 1: for so from such as near a stood we heard
Speaker 1: as overtired, to let him lean awhile with both his
Speaker 1: arms on those two massy pillars that to the arched
Speaker 1: roof gave main support. He unsuspicious led him, which, when
Speaker 1: Samson felt in his arms, with head awhile inclin'd and
Speaker 1: eyes fast fix'd, he stood as one who pray'd or
Speaker 1: some great matter in his mind revolv'd at last, with
Speaker 1: head erect, thus cried aloud, hitherto lords, what your commands
Speaker 1: impos'd I have perform'd as reason was obeying, not without
Speaker 1: wonder or delight beheld now of my own accord such
Speaker 1: other trial. I mean to show you of my strength,
Speaker 1: yet greater, as with a maze, shall strike all who
Speaker 1: behold this utter'd. Straining all his nerves, he bow'd, as
Speaker 1: with the force of winds and waters pent when mountains
Speaker 1: tremble those two massy pillars, with horrible convulsion to and
Speaker 1: fro he tugg'd, he shook till down they came, and
Speaker 1: drew the whole roof after them, with bursts of thunder
Speaker 1: upon the heads of all who sate beneath lords, ladies, captains, counselors,
Speaker 1: or priests their choice, nobility and flower. Not only of this,
Speaker 1: but each Pelictian city round met from all parts to
Speaker 1: solemnize this feast. Samson, with these immix'd inevitably pull'd down
Speaker 1: the same destruction on himself, the vulgar only scap'd who
Speaker 1: stood without Oh dearly bought revenge. Yet glorious, living or dying,
Speaker 1: Thou hast fulfill'd the work for which thou wast foretold
Speaker 1: to Israel, and now liest victorious among thy slain self
Speaker 1: kill'd not willingly, but tangl'd in the fold of dire necessity,
Speaker 1: whose law in death conjoin'd thee with thy slaughter'd foes
Speaker 1: in number more than all thy life hath slain before
Speaker 1: while their hearts went jockun'd and sublime, drunk with idolatry,
Speaker 1: drunk with wine and fat re gorg'd of bulls and goats,
Speaker 1: chaunting their idol and preferring before our living dread who
Speaker 1: dwells in Shiloh, his bright sanctuary. Among them, he a
Speaker 1: spirit of frenzy scent, who hurt their minds and urg'd
Speaker 1: them on with mad desire to call in haste for
Speaker 1: their destroyer. They only set on sport and play unweaitingly,
Speaker 1: importun'd their own destruction to come speedy upon them. So
Speaker 1: fond are mortal men fallen into wrath divine as their
Speaker 1: own ruin on themselves to invite insensate left or to
Speaker 1: sense reprobate, and with blindness internal struck. But he, though
Speaker 1: blind of sight, despis'd and thought extinguish'd quiet with inward eyes,
Speaker 1: illuminated his fiery vitue rous'd from under ashes into sudden flame,
Speaker 1: and as an evening dragon came assailant on the perch'd
Speaker 1: roosts and nests in order rang'd of tame vilatic fowl,
Speaker 1: But as an eagle, his cloudless thunder bolted on their heads.
Speaker 1: So vitue given for lost, depress'd, and overthrown as seem'd
Speaker 1: like that self begotten bird in the Arabian woods, embossed
Speaker 1: that no second nose nor third, and lay e'er while
Speaker 1: a hollow courst from out her ashy womb, now teem'd revives, reflourishes,
Speaker 1: the vigorous most when most unactive deem'd, and though her
Speaker 1: body die, her fame survives a secular bird. Ages of
Speaker 1: lives come come. No time for lamentation now, nor much more,
Speaker 1: cause Samson hath quit himself. Like Samson and heroically hath
Speaker 1: finish'd a life heroic on his enemies, fully reveng'd, hath
Speaker 1: left them years of mourning and lamentation to the sons
Speaker 1: of Caftal, through all Phelistian bounds to Israel, honor hath
Speaker 1: left and freedom. Let but them find courage to lay
Speaker 1: hold on this occasion to himself and father's house eternal fame,
Speaker 1: and which is best and happiest Yet all this with
Speaker 1: God not parted from him as was fear'd, but favoring
Speaker 1: and assisting to the end. Nothing is here for tears,
Speaker 1: nothing to wail or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Speaker 1: dispraise or blame. Nothing but well and fair. And what
Speaker 1: may quiet us in a death? So noble, let us
Speaker 1: go find the body where it lies, soak'd in his
Speaker 1: enemy's blood, and from the stream, with lavers pure and
Speaker 1: cleansing herbs, wash off the clotted gore. Ay with what
Speaker 1: speed the while Gaza is not in plight to say
Speaker 1: us nay, will send for all my kindred, all my friends,
Speaker 1: to fetch him. Hence and solemnly attend with silent obsequi
Speaker 1: and funeral train home to his father's house. There will
Speaker 1: I build him a monument and plant it round with
Speaker 1: shade of laurel ever green and branching palm, with all
Speaker 1: his trophies hung and acts enroll'd in copious legend or
Speaker 1: sweet lyric song. Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,
Speaker 1: and from his memory inflame their breasts to matchless valor
Speaker 1: and adventures high. The virgins also shall, on feastful days
Speaker 1: visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing his lot unfortunate
Speaker 1: innuptial choice. From whence captivity and loss of eyes all
Speaker 1: is best, though we oft doubt what the unsearchable dispose
Speaker 1: of highest wisdom brings about, and ever best found in
Speaker 1: the close oft he seems to hide his face, but
Speaker 1: unexpectedly returns and to his faithful champion, Hath in place
Speaker 1: bore witness gloriously whence gars are mourns, and all that
Speaker 1: band them to resist his uncon prollable intent. His servants
Speaker 1: he with knew a quist of true experience from this
Speaker 1: great event, with peace and consolation, Hath dismissed, and calm
Speaker 1: of mind, all passions spent. End of Section eleven.