Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly, Less therefore to be pleased, obeyed, or feared. DALILA. In argument with men a woman ever Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. SAMSON. For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath; Witness when I was worried with thy peals. DALILA. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken To afflict thyself in vain: though sight be lost, Where other senses want not their delights I to the lords will intercede, not doubting With all things grateful cheered, and so supplied, That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss SAMSON. No, no, of my condition take no care; It fits not; thou and I long since are twain; To bring my feet again into the snare Where once I have been caught; I know thy trains To fence my ear against thy sorceries. If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men Helpless, thence easily contemned, and scorned, To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. DALILA. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand. SAMSON. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake DALILA. I see thou art implacable, more deaf To prayers than winds and seas; yet winds to seas Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, Eternal tempest never to be calmed. 1 Alluding, no doubt, to the story of Circe and the Sirens; but did not our author's fondness for Greek learning make him here forget that it is a little out of character to represent Samson acquainted with the mythology of that country?—Thyer. 2 See Psalm lviii. 4, 5. Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing Smote Sisera sleeping through the temples nailed. The public marks of honour and reward Conferred upon me, for the piety Which to my country I was judged to have shown. I leave him to his lot, and like my own. CHORUS. She's gone, a manifest serpent by her sting Discovered in the end, till now concealed. SAMSON. So let her go; God sent her to debase me, 1 Fame is always a goddess in the classic poets; but our author has made the muse masculine in Lycidas. 2 This would seem to have been an oriental custom, from what we read respecting the yearly lamentation for the daughter of Jephtha. CHORUS. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, Love once possessed, nor can be easily SAMSON. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, Not wedlock-treachery endangering life. CHORUS. It is not virtue,1 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 Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compared, Nor both so loosely disallied Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously Is it for that such outward ornament Was lavished on their sex, that inward gifts Or value what is best In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong? Or was too much of self-love mixed, Of constancy no root infixed, That either they love nothing, or not long? 1 However just the observation may be, that Milton, in his Paradise Lost, seems to court the favour of the female sex, it is very certain that he did not carry the same complaisance into this performance. What the chorus here says outgoes the very bitterest satire of Euripides.-Thyer. It will be recollected that Milton's own domestic life was not a happy one, and that some of the bitterness with which this poem is fraught may be traced to that cause. 2 Brideman. Cf. Judges xiv. 20. Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil, Once joined, the contrary she proves, a thorn A cleaving mischief,1 in his way to virtue With dotage, and his sense depraved To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends. One virtuous rarely found, That in domestic good combines ; Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth: 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 swayed By female usurpation, or dismayed. But had we best retire? I see a storm. SAMSON. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. CHORUS. But this another kind of tempest brings. SAMSON. Be less abstruse: my riddling days are past. CHORUS. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear The bait of honeyed 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. 1 An allusion to the poisoned garment sent to Hercules by Deis nira. |