SAMSON. So let her go, God sent her to debase me, Of secresy, my safety, and my life. CHORUS. 1000 Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, 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. SAMSON. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end, Not wedlock-treachery indang'ring life. CHORUS. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, 1003. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, &c.] This truth Milton has finely exemplified in Adam forgiving Eve, and he had full experience of it in his own case, as the reader may see in the note upon Paradise Lost, x. 940. 1008. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end,] Terence, Andria iii. iii. 23. Amantium iræ, amoris integratio est. 1010. It is not virtue, &c.] 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, who was 1005 1010 called the woman-hater. It may be said indeed in excuse, that the occasion was very provok ing, and that these reproaches are rather to be looked upon as a sudden start of resentment, than cool and sober reasoning. Thyer. These reflections are the more severe, as they are not spoken by Samson, who might be supposed to utter them out of pique and resentment, but are delivered by the Chorus as serious and important truths. But by all accounts Milton himself had suffered some uneasiness through the temper and behaviour of two of his wives; and no wonder therefore that upon so tempting an occasion as this he indulges his spleen a little, depreciates the qualifications of the women, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit Harder to hit, (Which way soever men refer it,) Much like thy riddle Samson, in one day 1015 Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compar'd, 1020 Nor both so loosely disallied Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously 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, judgment scant, Or value what is best In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong? Of constancy no root infix'd, That either they love nothing, or not long? 1030 Read to the wisest man. See the following expressions, in his way, -draws him awry. Mea dowcourt. We have such a change of the number in the Paradise Lost, ix. 1183. -in women overtrusting Lets her will rule; restraint she will not brook, And left to herself, &e. U Seeming at first all heav'nly under virgin veil, Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue With dotage, and his sense deprav'd To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends. Imbark'd with such a steers-mate at the helm ? Favour'd of heav'n who finds One virtuous rarely found, That in domestic good combines : Happy that house his way to peace is smooth: and we justified it there by a similar instance from Terence. 1038. far within defensive arms A cleaving mischief,] The idea is rather that of an adversary, who, having rushed within his antagonist's shield, grapples with him and cleaves to his side. We would willingly save Milton, if possible, from the reproach of so many ill-placed allusions to classic mythology. E. 1046. Favour'd of heav'n who finds &c.] If Milton like Solomon and the Son of Sirach sati 1035 1040 1045 1050 rizes the women in general, like them too he commends the virtuous and good, and esteems a good wife a blessing from the Lord. Prov. xviii. 22. Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord. xix. 14. A prudent wife is from the Lord. Ecclus. xxvi. 1, 2. Blessed is the man that hath a virtuous wife, for the number of his days shall be double. A virtuous woman rejoiceth her husband, and he shall fulfil the years of his life in peace, &c. This is much better than condemning all without distinction, as Juvenal and Boileau have done, the former in his sixth, and the latter in his tenth satire. Most shines and most is acceptable above. Therefore God's universal law By female usurpation, or dismay'd. 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. Look now for no inchanting voice, nor fear 1060 1065 Haughty as is his pile high-built and proud. I less conjecture than when first I saw Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. CHORUS. 1071 His fraught we soon shall know, he now arrives. 1075 1075. His fraught] For fraught read freight. Meadowcourt. HARAPHA. 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 1080 If thou at all art known. Much I have heard 1085 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 The way to know were not to see but taste. 1079. Men call me Harapha, &c.] This character is fictitious, but is properly introduced by the poet, and not without some foundation in Scripture. Arapha, or rather Rapha, (says Calmet,) was father of the giants of Rephaim. The word Rapha may likewise signify simply a giant. Of stock renowned as Og, for Qg the king of Bashan was of the race of the Rephaim, whose bed was nine cubits long, and four broad, Deut. iii. 11. Or Anak, the father of the Anakims, and the Enims old, Deut. ii. 10, 11, a people great, and many, and tall as the Anakims; which also were 1090 accounted giants or Rephaim, as the Anakims, but the Moabite's call them Emims. That Kiriathaim held, for Gen. xiv. 5. Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, or the plain of Kiriathaim. 1081. -thou know'st me now If thou at all art known.] He is made to speak in the spirit, and almost in the language, of Satan, Paradise Lost, iv. 830. Not to know me argues yourselves unknown. |