Nor much more cause.

Samson hath quit himself

Like Samson, and heroicly hath finished

A life heroie, on his enemies

Fully revenged-hath left them years of mourning,
And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor
Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel
Honour hath left and freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion ;
To himself and father's house eternal fame;
And, which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,
But favouring and assisting to the end.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail

Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,

Dispraise, or blame; nothing but well and fair,

And what may quiet us in a death so noble. Cec
Let us go find the body where it lies

Soaked in his enemies' blood, and from the stream
With lavers pure, and cleansing herbs, wash off
The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while
(Gaza is not in plight to say us nay),

Will send for all my kindred, all my friends,
To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend,

With silent obsequy and funeral train,

Home to his father's house. There will I build him
A monument, and plant it round with shade
Of laurel ever green and branching palm,
With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled
In copious legend, or sweet lyric song.
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,
And from his memory inflame their breasts
To matchless valour and adventures high;
The virgins also shall, on feastful days,
Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing
His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice,
From whence captivity and loss of eyes.

1710

1720

1730

1740

1750

Chor. All is best, though we oft doubt
What the unsearchable dispose

Of Highest Wisdom brings about
And ever best found in the close.

Oft He seems to hide his face,

But unexpectedly returns,

sal

And to his faithful champion hath in place

Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns,
And all that band them to resist

His uncontrollable intent. W
His servants He, with new acquist

Of true experience from this great event,
With peace and consolation hath dismissed,
And calm of mind, all passion spent.

f

NOTES.

PREFACE.

The Preface is mainly intended by Milton to be his Apology to the Puritans for writing a play. It is with this object that he appeals to the authority of Scripture, and to the example of a Father of the Church. Incidentally there follow Milton's expression of disesteem for the tragic compositions of his own time, and an explanation of his plan of reverting to the ancient Greek model.

said by Aristotle... imitated. Poetics, vi. Twining's explanation of this difficult passage throws light on Milton's :-"The passions of savages or of men in the first rude stages of civilization, are ferocious and painful. They pity or they fear, either violently or not at all. In polished society where these passions are indulged in works of the imagination (tragedies, novels, etc.) the pain is converted into one strong and delightful feeling by the consciousness of fiction," i.e. of truth well imitated,..." and the habitual exercise of the passions in fiction has a tendency to soften and refine those passions, when excited by real objects in common life." See Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, i. 178 (Eng. transl.), for a different view.

for so, in physic... humours. A reference to the doctrine, "similia similibus curantur," formulated by Paracelsus, long before Hahnemann made it the basis of Homœopathy. With Paracelsus this took the particular shape of the doctrine of Signatures, pointed out by Dunster, "which inferred the propriety of the use of any vegetable or mineral, in medicine from the similarity of colour, shape or appearance, which these remedies might bear to the part affected." Thus turmeric or saffron was given in liver complaints. Both doctrines were based upon Paracelsus's theory that Man, the microcosm, is only a miniature of Nature, the macrocosm.

a verse of Euripides. "Evil communications corrupt good manners. Newton quotes the verse, φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρήσθ ̓ ὁμιλίαι Kakal, as from Menander of the New Comedy. Todd points out

that it is also found in the fragments of the earlier writer, Euripides.

Paraeus. The latinized name of David Paré, a Calvinist theologian (1548-1622). In his Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy, Milton in inquiring whether Tragedy is not 66 more doctrinal and exemplary to a nation" than the Epic, compares the Song of Solomon to a divine Pastoral Drama, and the Apocalypse of St. John (i.e. the book of Revelation) to a "high and stately Tragedy shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies" appealing, as here, to the authority of Paraeus. So, later, Ewald has looked upon the book of Job as a drama.

:

Dionysius the elder. Tyrant of Syracuse (421-367 B.C.). He carried off the first prize at the festival of the Lenaea with a play called The Ransom of Hector, besides contending repeatedly for the prize of tragedy at Athens.

Augustus Caesar (63 B. C.-14 A.D.) Suetonius (ii. 85) says that Augustus, being asked by his friends "how Ajax' was getting on," replied "My 'Ajax' has committed suicide with a-sponge ("in spongiam incubuisse ").

There are

Seneca (d. 65 A.D.). Tutor to the Emperor Nero. ten Latin tragedies extant under his name, two being fragmentary. They are reproductions from the great Greek models, rhetorical in style, and false in depicting passion; but the Choruses set forth in strong epigrammatic language the doctrines of the Stoic philosophy.

Gregory Nazianzen (329-389), Bishop of Constantinople. When Julian the Apostate aimed at destroying culture and refinement among the Christians by prohibiting them from teaching grammar and rhetoric (362 A.D. Amm. Marcell. xxii. 10, quoted in Gibbon, xxiii.), Gregory attempted to counteract his insidious aim by creating a body of Christian literature on classical models for their use. A more general cause that contributed to the formation of this new literature was the aversion of the early Christians to heathen literature (cf. St. Augustin, Confessiones, i. 13). Gregory's Christus Patiens was a Greek adaptation, chiefly from the Bacchae of Euripides, this play being chosen, perhaps, because it had for its subject the rise of a new religion. It was the earliest example of the "Christian drama," which in Western Europe took the name of Mysteries and Miracle Plays. Later research ascribes the Christus Patiens to Apollinarius the elder, who, besides, wrote several dramas on the models of Euripides and Menander. He also turned Scripture History and the Psalms into Homeric hexameters, and the Gospels and Epistles into Socratic dialogues. (See Smith's Dict. of Christian Biogr. art. Apollinaris.)

An

interludes, used here contemptuously for 'Comedies.' interlude properly was something acted in the intervals of a banquet or entertainment. It was the transition form between the old Moralities and Comedy properly so called, resembling the former in the absence of a plot, and the latter in containing real personages instead of the abstractions of the Moralities. Heywood's Four P's is an example.

intermixing comic stuff.

This is a deliberate condemnation of a great part of Elizabethan tragedy, and an upholding of the classical drama, which, as a rule, avoids such intermixture. The Alcestis of Euripides is an exception.

no Prologue, in the sense of the author's Apology, meant to bespeak the goodwill of the audience, as used in English plays and Latin comedies. But a prologue in the Greek sense Milton himself uses in this drama. See Introd. p. xii.

Martial (43-104), Latin epigrammatist. These Epistles are addressed either to the Reader (books i. iii. x. xiii. xiv.) or to Friends (ii. ix. xii.) or to his patron Domitian (v. viii.).

Chorus Italians. The Chorus had been used in Italian literature since the revival of learning in the 15th century. It of course existed in the Melodrama or Operas, which rose into importance in Italy in the 17th century, while dramatic literature proper fell into decay. This age of decadence in Italy, contemporary with Milton's age in England, is called the era of the Seicentisti. Sismondi does not name any of the seicentisti dramatists, and among those named by Hallam, Andreini (d. 1652), who wrote the drama of Adamo, is alone of any interest to us. This work has choruses of Angels, Spirits and Phantoms. Chiabrera (d. 1637), better known as a lyric poet, was also the father of the Melodrama in Italy, and Rinuccini (d. 1621) employed in his choruses the 'apolelymenon' measure of Milton.

Apolelymenon Alloeostropha, 'freed from the restraints' of division into Strophé (the song sung by the chorus in moving rhythmically from right to left on the orchestra), Antistrophé (sung similarly in moving from left to right), and Epode (an aftersong' sung while standing still). The Strophé and Antistrophé were stanzas of exactly the same rhythmic construction. Monostrophic (ode) is a choral ode of a single stanza, and an Alloeostropha is a choral ode of several irregular stanzas, neither of which is capable of division into strophes and antistrophés.

stanzas... music. Such was the origin of the Greek chorus from the Dithyramb (lyrical songs in honour of Bacchus), to which was afterwards added a new element, the Dialogue.

stage... intended. The objection of the Puritans to acting had been deepened since the appearance of actresses on the stage after the Restoration.