And aggravate my folly, who committed
To such a viper his most sacred trust
Of secrecy, my safety, and my life.

1000

CHOR. Yet beauty, tho' injurious, hath strange

power,

After offence returning, to regain

Love once possess'd, nor can be easily
Repuls'd, without much inward passion felt
And secret sting of amorous remorse.

1015

[end;

SAMS. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord

Not wedlock-treachery endang'ring life.

CHOR. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman's love can win or long inherit; But what it is, hard is to say,

Harder to hit,

Which way soever men refer it,

Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day
Or seven, though one should musing sit.

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

1013

Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compar'd, 1020 Successor in thy bed,

Nor both so loosely disallied

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

Is it for that such outward ornament
Was lavish'd on their sex, that inward gifts

1008 Love] Terence, And. iii. 3. 23.

1025

'Amantium iræ, amoris integratio est.' Newton.

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

Or value what is best

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-love mix'd,
Of constancy no root infix'd,

That either they love nothing, or not long?

Whate'er it be to wisest men and best

1030

Seeming at first all heavenly 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 enslav'd

With dotage, and his sense deprav'd

To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends. What pilot so expert but needs must wreck, Imbark'd with such a steers-mate at the helm ? Favour'd of heav'n who finds

One virtuous, rarely found,

That in domestic good combines :

1040

Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth; But virtue, which breaks through all opposition, And all temptation can remove,

Most shines and most is acceptable above.

Therefore God's universal law

Gave to the man despotic power

Over his female in due awe,

Nor from that right to part an hour,

195.

Smile she or lour :

So shall he least confusion draw
On his whole life, not sway'd
By female usurpation, or dismay'd.

1060

But had we best retire? I see a storm. [rain. SAMS. Fair days have oft contracted wind and CHOR. But this another kind of tempest brings. SAMS. Be less abstruse, my riddling days are

past.

[fear

CHOR. Look now for no inchanting voice, nor
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
I less conjecture than when first I saw
The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.

arrives.

[hither

1072

SAMS. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. CHOR. His fraught we soon shall know, he now [chance, HAR. I come not, Samson, to condole thy As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been,

1065 Look] Euripid. Med. 771.

—δεχου δὲ μὴ πρὸς ἡδονὴν λογους.

1066 honied] Withers' Fidelia, 1622.

His honied words, his bitter lamentations.'

1075

fraught] Tit. Andronic. iv. 2.

Todd.

Todd.

As the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught.'

And Othello, act iii. sc. 3. 'Swell, bosom, with thy fraught.'

Todd.

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
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 displeas'd, -
That I was never present on the place

1080

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

SAMS. The way to know were not to see but

taste.

HAR. Dost thou already single me? I thought Gyves and the mill had tam'd thee. O that for

tune

Had brought me to the field where thou art fam'd
To have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw!
I should have forc'd thee soon with other arms,
Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown;
So had the glory of prowess been recover'd
To Palestine, won by a Philistine

1099

From the unforeskinn'd race, of whom thou bear'st
The highest name for valiant acts: that honour
Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee,
I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.

SAMS. Boast not of what thou would'st have

done, but do

What then thou wouldst, thou see'st it in thy

hand.

1105

HAR. To combat with a blind man I disdain, And thou hast need much washing to be touch'd. SAMS. Such usage as your honourable lords Afford me assassinated and betray'd,

Who durst not with their whole united powers 1110
In fight withstand me single and unarm❜d,
Nor in the house with chamber ambushes
Close-banded durst attack me, no not sleeping,
Till they had hir'd a woman with their gold,
Breaking her marriage faith to circumvent me.
Therefore without feign'd shifts let be assign'd
Some narrow place inclos'd, where sight may
give thee,

Or rather flight, no great advantage on me;
Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet
And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon,
Vant-brass and greves, and gauntlet, add thy

spear,

1121

A weaver's beam, and seven-times-folded shield,
I only with an oaken staff will meet thee,
And raise such outcries on thy clatter'd iron,
Which long shall not withhold me from thy head,
That in a little time, while breath remains thee,
Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath to boast
Again in safety what thou wouldst have done

1121 vant-brass] Fairfax's Tasso, B. xx. st. 139.
'His shield was pierc'd, his vant-brace cleft and split.'
Newton.