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SAMSON AGONISTES.

A

SAMSON.

Little onward lend thy guiding hand

A

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To thefe dark steps, a little further on; For yonder bank hath choice of fun or shade: There I am wont to fit, when any chance Relieves me from my task of fervile toil, * a Daily' in the common prifon elfe injoin'd me, I Where I a prifoner chain'd, fcarce freely draw The air imprison'd alfo, close and damp, UT Unwholesome draught: but here I feel amends, RoMThe

Samson Agonifies] The fubject but a very indifferent one for a dramatic fable. However he has made the best of it. He feems to have

chofen it for the fake of the fatire on bad wives. Warburton. Samfon Agamifies] That is Samfon an actor, Samfon reprefented in a play. Ayresns, ludio, hiftrio, actor fcenicus.

Samfon] Milton after the example of the Greek tragedians, whom he profeffes to imitate, opens his drama with introducing one of its principal perfonages explaining the story upon which it is founded.

Thyer. 1. A little onward lend thy guiding band

The breath of Heav'n fresh blowing, pure and sweet,

With day-fpring born; here leave me to respire. 11
This day a folemn feast the people hold
To Dagon their fea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works; unwillingly this rest

L

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i

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Their fuperftition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noife, I feek
This unfrequented place to find fome ease,
Eafe to the body fome, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly fwarm
Of hornets arm'd, no fooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present 32
Times paft, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heav'n foretoldod?
Twice by an Angel, who at laft in fighter
Of both my parents all in flames afcended
WH

13. To Dagon their fea-idol,] For Milton both here and in the Paradife Loft follows the opinion of thofe, who defcribe this idol as part man, part fish. I. 462.

Dagon his name, sea monster,
upward man
And downward fish.

24. Twice by an Angel,] Once to his mother, and again to his faer Manoch and his winter both,

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From

From off the altar, where an offering burn'd,
As in a fiery column charioting

His god-like prefence, and from fome great act
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?

Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd 30
As of a perfon feparate to God,
Defign'd for great exploits; if I muft dien gaivisÃ
Betray'd, captív'd, and both my eyes put out, T
Made of my enemies the fcorn and gaze

To grind in brazen fetters under task

With this Heav'n-gifted ftrength? O glorious strength
Put to the labor of a beast, debas'd

Lower than bondflave! Promife was that I
Should Ifrael from Philiftian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with flaves,

7 X

Himself

fyllable captiv'd: but our old authors give it the fame pronunciation as Milton. Spenfer. Faery Queen. B. 2. Cant. 4. St. 16.

Thus when as Guyon Furor had captiv'd:

and B. 3. Cant. 1. St. 2.

But the captiv'd Acrafia he fent: and Fairfax Cant. 19. St. 95. Free was Erminia, but captiv'd her heart. P 3 53. But

Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke: i.

Yet ftay, let me not rafhly call in doubt Sa
Divine prediction; what if all foretold

1

Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default, A
Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodg'd, how leafily bereft me,
Under the feal of filence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,
O'ercome with importunity and tears.

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O impotence of mind, in body strong! putih Kansa But what is ftrength without a double share Hunn A Of wisdom, vaft, unwieldy, burdenfome, roch Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall

By weakest fubtleties, not made to rule,

But to fubferve where wisdom bears command!
God, when he gave me ftrength, to show withal/
How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But peace, I must not quarrel with the will

33. But nobat is frength without
a double fhare

Of wifdem, &c] Ovid. Met. XIII. 15963.

Tu vires fine mente geris

tu tantum corpore prodes,

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Of highest difpenfation, which herein
Haply had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me ftrength is my bane,
And proves the fource of all my miferies;
So many, and fo huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O lofs of fight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O,worfe than chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!
Light the prime work of God to me' is extinct, 70
And all her various objects of delight

Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd
Inferior to the vileft now become

Of man or worm; the vileft here excel me,
They creep, yet fee, I dark in light expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, ftill as a fool,od.
In pow'r of others, never in my own;!
Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than half,

ALC 69. or decrepit age!] So it is printed in the first edition; the later editors have omitted or, concluding I fuppofe that it made the verfe a fyllable too long. Mr. Cal<ton propofes to read

-beggery in decrepit age!

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