Witness when I was worried with thy peals.
Dal. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken
In what I thought would have succeeded best.
Let me obtain forgiveness of thee, Samson,
Afford me place to shew what recompense
Tow'rds thee I intend for what I have misdone,
Misguided; only what remains past cure
Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist

To' afflict thyself in vain: though sight be lost,
Life yet hath many solaces, enjoy'd
Where other senses want not their delights
At home in leisure and doinestic ease,

Exempt from many a care and chance to which
Eye-sight exposes daily men abroad.

I to the lords will intercede, not doubting
Their favourable ear, that I may fetch thee
From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide
With me, where my redoubled love and care
With nursing diligence, to me glad office,
May ever tend about thee to old age

910

95

920

925

With all things grateful cheer'd, and so supplied,
That what by me thou' hast lost thou least shalt miss.
Sam. No, no, of my condition take no care;

It fits not; thou and I long since are twain:
Nor think me so unwary or accursed,

To bring my feet again into the snare

930

Where once I have been caught; I know thy trains Though dearly to my cost, thy gins and toils;

Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms

No more on me have power, their force is null'd,
So much of adder's wisdom I have learn'd
To fence my ear against thy sorceries.

936

If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men Loved, honour'd, fear'd me, thou alone could'st hate

me

Thy husband, slight me, sell me, and forego me; 940
How wouldst thou use me now, blind, and thereby
Deceivable, in most things as a child

Helpless, thence easily contemn'd, and scorn'd,
And last neglected? How would'st thou insult,

934. There is no particular allusion here, as has been supposed, to the fable of Circe and her enchanted cup; it is but the common figurative language of poetry, and involves no impropriety or anachronism. 936. Psal. Iviii. 4. 5.

When I must live uxorious to thy will

In perfect thraldom, how again betray me,
Bearing my words and doings to the lords
To gloss upon, and, censuring, frown or smile?
This jail I count the house of liberty

945

To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. 950 Dul. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand. Sum. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance

wake

My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint.

At distance I forgive thee, go with that,
Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable
Among illustrious women, faithful wives:
Cherish thy hasten'd widowhood with the gold
Of matrimonial treason: so farewell.

955

960

Dul. I see thou art implacable, more deaf To prayers than winds and seas, yet winds to seas Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore : Thy anger unappeasable, still rages,

Eternal tempest never to be calm'd.

Why do I humble thus myself, and suing

For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate?

Bid go with evil omen aud the brand

Of infamy upon my name denounced?

To mix with thy concernments I desist

965

975

Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. 970
Fame if not double-faced is double-mouth'd,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.
My name perhaps among the circumcised
In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes,
To all posterity may stand defamed,
With malediction mention'd, and the blot
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced.
But in my country, where I most desire,
In Ecron, Gaza, Ashdod, and in Gath,
I shall be named among the famousest

Of women, sung at solemn festivals,

Living and dead recorded, who, to save

980

973. Milton is here contrary to his predecessors, they making fame a goddess, he a god.

Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the faith of wedlock bands, my tomb
With odours visited and annual flowers;
Not less renown'd than in Mount Ephraim

Jael, who with inhospitable guile

Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nail'd.
Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy

The public marks of honour and reward
Conferr'd upon me for the piety

985

991

Which to my country I was judged to have shewn. At this whoever envies or repines,

I leave him to his lot, and like my own.

995

Chor. She's gone, a manifest serpent by her sting

Discover'd in the end, till now conceal'd.

Sam. So let her go, God sent her to debase me,

And aggravate my folly, who committed

To such a viper his most sacred trust

Of secrecy, my safety, and my life.

1000

[power

Chor. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange

After offence returning, to regain

Love once possess'd, nor can be easily

1005

Repulsed, without much inward passion felt

And secret sting of amorous remorse.

Sum. Love quarrels oft in pleasing concord end,

Not wedlock treachery endangering life.

Chor. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit That woman's love can win or long inherit;

1010

But what it is, hard is to say,

Harder to hit

(Which way soever men refer it),

1015

Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day

Or seven, though one should musing sit.

If any of these or all, the Timnian bride Had not so soon preferr'd

Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compared,
Successor to thy bed,

1020

Nor both so loosely disally'd

Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.

986. It is supposed that the annual visitation of tombs was on

eastern custom.

988. Judges iv. v.

1020. Paranymph; brideman.

Is it for that such outward ornament

Was lavish'd on their sex, that inward gifts

Were left for haste unfinish'd, judgment scant,
Capacity not raised to apprehend

Or value what is best

1025

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-love mix'd,

1030

Of constancy no root infix'd,

That either they love nothing, or not long?
Whate'er it be, to wisest men and best

Seeming at first all heav'nly under virgin veil, 1035
Soft, modest, meek, demure,

Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn

Intestine, far within defensive arms

A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue

Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms
Draws him awry inslaved

With dotage, and his sense depraved

To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends

What pilot so expert but needs must wreck

1040

Imbark'd with such a steers-mate at the helm? 1045

Favour'd of Heav'n who finds

One virtuous, rarely found,

That in domestic good combines :

Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth:

But virtue which breaks through all opposition, 1050

And all temptation can remove,

Most shines and most is acceptable above.

But had we best retire, I see a storm?

1055

1060

Sum. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. Chor. But this another kind of tempest brings. Sam. Be less abtruse, my riddling days are past. Chor. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear 1034. There is a similar change of numbers to that in this passage of men, and the singular pronoun, iu Par. Lost, ix. 1183.

The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue

1066

Draws hitherward, I know him by his stride,
The giant Harapha of Gath, his look

Haughty as is his pile, high-built and proud.

Comes he in peace? what wind hath blown him hither

I less conjecture than when first I saw

The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:

His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.

1071

Sam. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. Chor. His fraught we soon shall know, he now ar rives.

1075

Har. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance, As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been, Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath, Men call me Harapha, of stock renown'd As Og or Anak, and the Emims old

1080

That Kiriathaim held; thou know'st me now
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats perform'd,
Incredible to me, in this displeased,
That I was never present on the place

1085

Of those encounters, where we might have tried
Each other's force in camp or listed field;
And now am come to see of whom such noise
Hath walk'd about, and each limb to survey,
If thy appearance answer loud report.

1090

Sam. The way to know were not to see but taste. Har. Dost thou already single me? I thought Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. O that Fortune Had brought me to the field, where thou art famed To have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw; I should have forced thee soon with other arms, 1090 Or left thy carcase where the ass lay thrown: So had the glory' of prowess been recover'd

To Palestine, won by a Philistine,

From the unforeskinn'd race, of whom thou bear'st The highest name for valiant acts; that honour 1101 Certain to' have won by mortal duel from thee,

1075. His fraught; freight is proposed as a better reading. 1079. Harapha is a fictitious character, but the name was snggested to Milton by Arapha or Rapha being mentioned in Scrip ture as the father of the giants of Rephaim.-See Deut. ii. 10, '1. iii. 11. Gen. xiv. 5.

1093. Gyves, fetters or chains.