As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned
The mystery of God giv’n me under pledge
Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman,
380 A Canaanite, my faithless enemy.
This well I knew, nor was at all surprised,
But warned by oft experience: did not she
Of Timna first betray me, and reveal
The secret wrested from me in her heighth
385 Of nuptial love professed, carrying it straight
To them who had corrupted her, my spies,
And rivals? In this other was there found
More faith? who also in her prime of love,
Spousal embraces, vitiated with gold,
390 Though offered only, by the scent conceived
Her spurious first-born; treason against me?
Thrice she assayed with flattering prayers and sighs,
And amorous reproaches to win from me
My capital secret, in what part my strength
395 Lay stored, in what part summed, that she might know:
Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport
Her importunity, each time perceiving
How openly, and with what impudence
She purposed to betray me, and (which was worse
400 Than undissembled hate) with what contempt
She sought to make me traitor to myself;
Yet the fourth time, when must’ring all her wiles,
With blandished parleys, feminine assaults,
Tongue-batteries, she surceased not day nor night
405 To storm me over-watched, and wearied out.
At times when men seek most repose and rest,
I yielded, and unlocked her all my heart,
Who with a grain of manhood well resolved
Might easily have shook off all her snares:
410 But foul effeminacy held me yoked
Her bond-slave; O indignity, O blot
To honour and religion! servile mind
Rewarded well with servile punishment!
The base degree to which I now am fall’n,
415 These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude, ignoble,
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,
True slavery, and that blindness worse than this,
That saw not how degenerately I served.
420 Manoa. I cannot praise thy marriage choices, son,
Rather approved them not; but thou didst plead
Divine impulsion prompting how thou might’st
Find some occasion to infest our foes.
I state not that; this I am sure; our foes
425 Found soon occasion thereby to make thee
Their captive, and their triumph; thou the sooner
Temptation found’st, or over-potent charms
To violate the sacred trust of silence
Deposited within thee; which to have kept
430 Tacit, was in thy power; true; and thou bear’st
Enough, and more the burden of that fault;
Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying
That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains:
This day the Philistines a popular feast
435 Here celebrate in Gaza; and proclaim
Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud
To Dagon, as their god who hath delivered
Thee Samson bound and blind into their hands,
Them out of thine, who slew’st them many a slain.
440 So Dagon shall be magnified, and God,
Besides whom is no God, compared with idols,
Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn
By th’ idolatrous rout amidst their wine;
Which to have come to pass by means of thee,
445 Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest,
Of all reproach the most with shame that ever
Could have befall’n thee and thy father’s house.
Samson. Father, I do acknowledge and confess
That I this honour, I this pomp have brought
450 To Dagon, and advanced his praises high
Among the heathen round; to God have brought
Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths
Of idolists, and atheists; have brought scandal
To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt
455 In feeble hearts, propense enough before
To waver, or fall off and join with idols;
Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow,
The anguish of my soul, that suffers not
Mine eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest.
460 This only hope relieves me, that the strife
With me hath end; all the contest is now
’Twixt God and Dagon; Dagon hath presumed,
Me overthrown, to enter lists with God,
His deity comparing and preferring
465 Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure,
Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked,
But will arise and his great name assert:
Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive
Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him
470 Of all these boasted trophies won on me,
And with confusion blank his worshippers.
Manoa. With cause this hope relieves thee, and these words
I as a prophecy receive: for God,
Nothing more certain, will not long defer
475 To vindicate the glory of his name
Against all competition, nor will long
Endure it, doubtful whether God be Lord,
Or Dagon. But for thee what shall be done?
Thou must not in the meanwhile here forgot
480 Lie in this miserable loathsome plight
Neglected. I already have made way
To some Philistian lords, with whom to treat
About thy ransom: well they may by this
Have satisfied their utmost of revenge
485 By pains and slaveries, worse than death inflicted
On thee, who now no more canst do them harm.
Samson. Spare that proposal, father, spare the trouble
Of that solicitation; let me here,
As I deserve, pay on my punishment;
490 And expiate, if possible, my crime,
Shameful garrulity. To have revealed
Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend,
How heinous had the fact been, how deserving
Contempt, and scorn of all, to be excluded
495 All friendship, and avoided as a blab,
The mark of fool set on his front?
But I God’s counsel have not kept, his holy secret
Presumptuously have published, impiously,
Weakly at least, and shamefully: a sin
500 That Gentiles in their parables condemn
To their abyss and horrid pains confined.
Manoa. Be penitent and for thy fault contrite,
But act not in thy own affliction, son;
Repent the sin, but if the punishment
505 Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids;
Or th’ execution leave to high disposal,
And let another hand, not thine, exact
Thy penal forfeit from thyself; perhaps
God will relent, and quit thee all his debt;
510 Who evermore approves and more accepts
(Best pleased with humble and filial submission)
Him who imploring mercy sues for life,
Than who self-rigorous chooses death as due;
Which argues over-just, and self-displeased
515 For self-offence, more than for God offended.
Reject not then what offered means, who knows
But God hath set before us, to return thee
Home to thy country and his sacred house,
Where thou may’st bring thy off’rings, to avert
520 His further ir
e, with prayers and vows renewed.
Samson. His pardon I implore; but as for life,
To what end should I seek it? when in strength
All mortals I excelled, and great in hopes
With youthful courage and magnanimous thoughts
525 Of birth from Heav’n foretold and high explóits,
Full of divine instinct, after some proof
Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond
The sons of Anak, famous now and blazed,
Fearless of danger, like a petty god
530 I walked about admired of all and dreaded
On hostile ground, none daring my affront.
Then swoll’n with pride into the snare I fell
Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains,
Softened with pleasure and voluptuous life;
535 At length to lay my head and hallowed pledge
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful concubine who shore me
Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece,
Then turned me out ridiculous, despoiled,
540 Shav’n, and disarmed among my enemies.
Chorus. Desire of wine and all delicious drinks,
Which many a famous warrior overturns,
Thou couldst repress, nor did the dancing ruby
Sparkling, outpoured, the flavour, or the smell,
545 Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men,
Allure thee from the cool crystálline stream.
Samson. Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed
Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure
With touch ethereal of heaven’s fiery rod
550 I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying
Thirst, and refreshed; nor envied them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
Chorus. O madness, to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
555 When God with these forbidd’n made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
Samson. But what availed this temperance, not complete
Against another object more enticing?
560 What boots it at one gate to make defence,
And at another to let in the foe
Effeminately vanquished? by which means,
Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonoured, quelled,
To what can I be useful, wherein serve
565 My nation, and the work from Heav’n imposed,
But to sit idle on the household hearth,
A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,
Or pitied object, these redundant locks
Robustious to no purpose clust’ring down,
570 Vain monument of strength; till length of years
And sedentary numbness craze my limbs
To a contemptible old age obscure.
Here rather let me drudge and earn my bread,
Till vermin or the draff of servile food
575 Consume me, and oft-invocated death
Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.
Manoa. Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that gift
Which was expressly giv’n thee to annoy them?
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle,
580 Inglorious, unemployed, with age outworn.
But God who caused a fountain at thy prayer
From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay
After the brunt of battle, can as easy
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring,
585 Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast;
And I persuade me so; why else this strength
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?
His might continues in thee not for naught,
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.
590 Samson. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,
Nor th’ other light of life continue long,
But yield to double darkness nigh at hand:
So much I feel my genial spirits droop,
595 My hopes all flat, nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself;
My race of glory run, and race of shame,
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.
Manoa. Believe not these suggestions which proceed
600 From anguish of the mind and humours black,
That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omit a father’s timely care
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance
By ransom or how else: meanwhile be calm,
605 And healing words from these thy friends admit.
Samson. O that torment should not be confined
To the body’s wounds and sores
With maladies innumerable
In heart, head, breast, and reins;
610 But must secret passage find
To th’ inmost mind,
There exercise all his fierce accidents,
And on her purest spirits prey,
As on entrails, joints, and limbs,
615 With answerable pains, but more intense,
Though void of corporal sense.
My griefs not only pain me
As a ling’ring disease,
But finding no redress, ferment and rage,
620 Nor less than wounds immedicable
Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,
To black mortification.
Thoughts my tormentors armed with deadly stings
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,
625 Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise
Dire inflammation which no cooling herb
Or med’cinal liquor can assuage,
Nor breath of vernal air from snowy alp.
Sleep hath forsook and giv’n me o’er
630 To death’s benumbing opium as my only cure.
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,
And sense of Heav’n’s desertion.
I was his nursling once and choice delight,
His destined from the womb,
635 Promised by Heavenly message twice descending.
Under his special eye
Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain;
He led me on to mightiest deeds
640 Against the uncircumcised, our enemies.
But now hath cast me off as never known,
And to those cruel enemies,
Whom I by his appointment had provoked,
Left me all helpless with th’ irreparable loss
645 Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated
The subject of their cruelty, or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope;
Hopeless are all my evils, all remédiless;
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,
650 No long petition, speedy death,
The close of all my miseries, and the balm.
Chorus. Many are the sayings of the wise
In ancient and in modern books enrolled;
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude;
655 And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man’s frail life;
Consolatories writ
With studied argument, and much persuasion sought,
Lenient of grief and anxious thought;
660 But with th’ afflicted in his pangs their sound
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune,
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint,
Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above;
665 Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.
God of our fathe
rs, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,
670 Temper’st thy providence through his short course,
Not evenly, as thou rul’st
The angelic orders and inferior creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.
Nor do I name of men the common rout,
675 That wand’ring loose about
Grow up and perish, as the summer fly,
Heads without name, no more remembered;
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorned
680 To some great work, thy glory,
And people’s safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignified, thou oft
Amidst their heighth of noon,
Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard
685 Of highest favours past
From thee on them, or them to thee of service.
Nor only dost degrade them, or remit
To life obscured, which were a fair dismission,
But throw’st them lower than thou didst exalt them high,
690 Unseemly falls in human eye,
Too grievous for the trespass or omission;
Oft leav’st them to the hostile sword
Of heathen and profane, their carcasses
To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived:
695 Or to th’ unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude.
If these they ’scape, perhaps in poverty
With sickness and disease thou bow’st them down,
Painful diseases and deformed,
700 In crude old age;
Though not disordinate, yet causeless suff ’ring
The punishment of dissolute days; in fine,
Just or unjust, alike seem miserable,
For oft alike, both come to evil end.
705 So deal not with this once thy glorious champion,
The image of thy strength, and mighty minister.
What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already?
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn
His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end.
710 But who is this, what thing of sea or land?
Female of sex it seems,
That so bedecked, ornate, and gay,
Comes this way sailing
Like a stately ship
715 Of Tarsus, bound for th’ isles
Of Javan or Gadier
With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,
Sails filled, and streamers waving,
Courted by all the winds that hold them play,
720 An amber scent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger, a damsel train behind;
Some rich Philistian matron she may seem,
And now at nearer view, no other certain
Than Dálila thy wife.