This jail I count the house of liberty

To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. 950 DAL. Let me approach at least, and touch thy

hand.

SAM. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance

wake

125

955

My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint.
At distance I forgive thee; go with that:
Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works.
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable
Among illustrious women, faithful wives!
Cherish thy hasten'd widowhood 16 with the gold
Of matrimonial treason! so farewell.

DAL. I see thou art implacable, more deaf 960 To prayers than winds and seas; yet winds to

seas

Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages,
Eternal tempest, never to be calm'd.
Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing

965

For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate;
Bid
go with evil omen, and the brand
Of infamy upon my name denounced?
To mix with thy concernments I desist
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. 970
Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouth'd,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.'
My name perhaps among the circumcised
In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes,
To all posterity may stand defamed,

128

975

With malediction mention'd, and the blot
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced:
But in my country, where I most desire,
In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,
I shall be named 129 among the famousest
Of women, sung at solemn festivals,
Living and dead recorded, who, to save
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 inhospitable guile

131

130

980

985

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

The publick marks of honour and reward,
Conferr'd upon me for the piety,

991

Which to my country I was judged to have shown.

At this whoever envies or repines,'

132

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

995

[Exit.

CHO. She's gone, a manifest serpent by her

Discover'd in the end, till now conceal'd.

SAM. 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.

1000

CHO. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange

After offence returning, to regain

Love once possess'd, nor can be easily

1005

Repulsed, without much inward passion felt,
And secret sting of amorous remorse.

SAM. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, 135

Not wedlock treachery endangering life.

1009

CHо. It is not virtue, 136 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

137

1015

Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compared, Successour in thy bed,

Nor both so loosely disallied

Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously

1021

Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.

Is it for that such outward ornament

1025

Was lavish'd on their sex, that inward gifts

Were left for haste unfinish'd, judgement scant, Capacity not raised to apprehend

Or value what is best

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong ?

Or was too much of self-love 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 138

1030

Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil,139 Soft, modest, meek, demure,

1036

Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn
Intestine, far within defensive arms

A cleaving mischief,140 in his way to virtue
Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms
Draws him awry enslaved

With dotage, and his sense depraved

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 domestick good combines;

141

1040

1046

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 acceptable above.

Therefore God's universal law

1051

But had we best retire? I see a storm.

1060

SAM. Fair days have oft contracted wind and

rain.

CHO. But this another kind of tempest brings.

SAM. Be less abstruse; my riddling days are

past.

CHO. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor

fear

VOL. V.

1065

E

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

1070

I less conjecture than when first I saw
The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.
SAM. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes.
CHO. His fraught we soon shall know: he now
arrives.

Enter HARAPHA.

1075

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,142 of stock renown'd
As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old

1080

That Kiriathaim held: thou know'st me now,
If thou at all art known.143 Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats perform❜d,
Incredible to me, in this displeased,

1085

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.

1090

SAM. The way to know were not to see, but

taste.