Thirst, and refreshed; nor envied them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
Chor. O madness! to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God with these forbidden made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook!

Sams. But what availed this temperance, not complete
Against another object more enticing?

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

My nation, and the work from Heaven 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, clustering down,
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,

Consume me, and oft-invocated death

Hasten the welcome end of all my pains.

Man. Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that gift

Which was expressly given thee to annoy them?

Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle,

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,
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.

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Sams. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend

590

That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,

Nor the other light of life continue long,

But yield to double darkness nigh at hand;
So much I feel my genial spirits droop,
My hopes all flat: Nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself;
My race of glory run, and race of shame,

BB

And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

Man. Believe not these suggestions, which proceed

From anguish of the mind, and humours black

600

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,
And healing words from these thy friends admit.
Sams. Oh, that torment should not be confined
To the body's wounds and sores,

With maladies innumerable

In heart, head, breast, and reins,
But must secret passage find

To the inmost mind,

There exercise all his fierce accidents,

And on her purest spirits prey,

As on entrails, joints, and limbs,

With answerable pains, but more intense,

Though void of corporal sense!

My griefs not only pain me

As a lingering disease,

But, finding no redress, ferment and rage;

Nor less than wounds immedicable

Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,

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620

Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,

To black mortification.

Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings,

Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb

Or medicinal liquor can assuage,

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.

Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er

To death's benumbing opium as my only cure;

630

Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,

And sense of Heaven's desertion.

I was his nursling once and choice delight, His destined from the womb,

Promised by heavenly message twice descending.

Under his special eye

Abstemious I grew up and thrived amain;

He led me on to mightiest deeds,

Above the nerve of mortal arm,

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 the irreparable loss

640

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 remediless.

This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,
No long petition-speedy death,

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The close of all my miseries and the balm.
Chor. Many are the sayings of the wise,
In ancient and in modern books enrolled,
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude,
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.

But with the 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,

Secret refreshings that repair his strength

And fainting spirits uphold.

God of our fathers! what is Man,

That thou towards him with hand so various

Or might I say contrarious?—

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,

That, wandering 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,

To some great work, thy glory,

And people's safety, which in part they effect.

Yet toward these, thus dignified, thou oft,

Amidst their highth of noon,

Changest thy countenance and thy hand, with no regard

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-
Unseemly falls in human eye,

Too grievous for the trespass or omission;

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Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword

Of heathen and profane, their carcasses
To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived,

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude.
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty

With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,
Painful diseases and deformed,

In crude old age;

Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering
The punishment of dissolute days. In fine,
Just or unjust alike seem miserable,

For oft alike both come to evil end.

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.
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

Of Tarsus, bound for the isles

Of Javan or Gadire,

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With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,

Sails filled, and streamers waving,

Courted by all the winds that hold them play;

An amber scent of odorous perfume

720

Her harbinger, a damsel train behind?

Some rich Philistian matron she may seem;

And now, at nearer view, no other certain

Than Dalila thy wife.

Sams. My wife! my traitress! let her not come near me. Chor. Yet on she moves; now stands and eyes thee fixed, About to have spoke; but now, with head declined,

Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps,
And words addressed seem into tears dissolved,

Wetting the borders of her silken veil.

But now again she makes address to speak.

Dal. With doubtful feet and wavering resolution

I came, still dreading thy displeasure, Samson;
Which to have merited, without excuse,

I cannot but acknowledge.) Yet, if tears
May expiate (though the fact more evil drew
In the perverse event than I foresaw),

My penance hath not slackened, though my pardon

730

No way assured. But conjugal affection,
Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt,
Hath led me on, desirous to behold

Once more thy face, and know of thy estate,
If aught in my ability may serve

To lighten what thou suffer'st, and appease

Thy mind with what amends is in my power—
Though late, yet in some part to recompense
My rash but more unfortunate misdeed.

Sams. (Out, out, hyæna! These are thy wonted arts,
And arts of every woman false like thee-
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray;
Then, as repentant, to submit, beseech,
And reconcilement move with feigned remorse,
Confess, and promise wonders in her change-
Not truly penitent, but chief to try

Her husband, how far urged his patience bears,
His virtue or weakness which way to assail :
Then, with more cautious and instructed skill,
Again transgresses, and again submits;
That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled,
With goodness principled not to reject
The penitent, but ever to forgive,
Are drawn to wear out miserable days,
Entangled with a poisonous bosom-snake,
If not by quick destruction soon cut off,
As I by thee, to ages an example.

Dal. Yet hear me, Samson; not that I endeavour

To lessen or extenuate my offence,

But that, on the other side, if it be weighed

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By itself, with aggravations not surcharged,

Or else with just allowance counterpoised,
Tmay, if possible, thy pardon find

770

The easier towards me, or thy hatred less.
First granting, as I do, it was a weakness
In me, but incident to all our sex,

Curiosity, inquisitive, importune

Of secrets, then with like infirmity

To publish them-both common female faults-
Was it not weakness also to make known

For importunity, that is for naught,

Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety?

780

To what I did thou show'dst me first the way.

But I to enemies revealed, and should not!

Nor should'st thou have trusted that to woman's frailty:
Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel.

Let weakness, then, with weakness come to parle,