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 hospitable guile

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

The public marks of honour and reward,

Which to my country I was judg'd to have shown.

At this whoever envies or repines,

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

[Erit.]

Chor. She's gone, a manifest serpent by her sting Discover'd in the end, till now conceal'd.

Sams. 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 secresy, my safety, and my life.

[power,

Chor. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange

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.

Sams. 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; 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

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

Nor both so loosely disallied

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

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 rais'd to apprehend

Or value what is best

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-loye 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
Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil,
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 Heaven, 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,

And all temptation can remove,

Most shines, and most is accceptable 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,
Smile she or lour:

So shall he least confusion draw
On his whole life, not sway'd

By female usurpation, or dismay'd.
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.

Chor. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue 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.

Sams. Or peace, or not, alike to me he comes. Chor. His fraught we soon shall know, he now arrives.

[Enter HARAPHA.]

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
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

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.

Sams. 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 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,

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.

[but do

Sams. Boast not of what thou would'st have done, What then thou would'st; thou seest it in thy hand. 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
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 enclos'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-brace and greves, and gauntlet, add thy spear,
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 would'st have done
To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more.

Har. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious

arms,

Which greatest heroes have in battle worn,

Their ornament and safety, had not spells

And black enchantments, some magician's art, Arm'd thee or charm'd thee strong, which thou from Heaven

Feign'dst at thy birth, was given thee in thy hair, Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs Were bristles rang'd like those that ridge the back Of chaf'd wild boars, or ruffled porcupines.