NOTES TO SAMSON AGONISTES.

Throughout this Poem there are references and allusions the explanation of which will be easily found in those four chapters of the Book of Judges (xiii-xvi.) which contain the history of Samson.

13. "Dagon, their sea-idol." Compare P. L., I. 457-466. 66-109. But, chief of all, O loss of sight,' &c. In applying this passage to Milton himself, compare Sonnets XIX., XXII., XXIII., and P. L., III. 1—55 and VII. 1—39. 89. "her vacant interlunar cave": i.e. her "between moons" where she hides between old moon and new moon. 133. Chalybean-tempered": i.e. tempered like the steel of the Chalybes, an iron-working nation of Asia Minor.

cave,

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133. "Adamantean." Adamant (literally "unsubduable ") was generally a name for steel; sometimes for any very hard substance.

138. "Ascalonite." I Sam. vi. 17. 147. Azza," same as Gaza.

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See Deut. ii. 23.

148. “Hebron, seat of giants old." Numb. xiii. 33 and Josh. xv. 13, 14.

150. "Like whom the Gentiles," &c. The Titans: particularly Atlas.

181. "Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale." Samson's native district in Dan. See his life in Judges: also Josh. xv. 33 and xix. 41.

229. "Dalila." Observe the pronunciation Dalĭla. See P. L., IX. 1061, and note there.

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278-281. "How Succoth," &c. Judges viii. 5 et seq. 282-289. And how ingrateful Ephraim," &c. Judges xii. I et seq.

&c.

297-299. "For of such doctrine," &c. Ps. xiv. I. 318, 319. "this heroic Nazarite." Numb. vi. I-21. 453. idolists," idolaters. See P. R., IV. 234.

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471. 'blank," blanch, turn pale.

499–501. “a sin that Gentiles in their parables condemn,” An allusion to such stories as that of Tantalus.

598. "And I shall shortly be with them that rest." This is perhaps the most pathetic line in all Milton.

674-704. "Nor do I name of men the common rout," &c. It is impossible to read this passage without seeing in it a veiled reference to the trials and executions of the Regicides, and the degradation of the other chiefs of the Commonwealth, after the Restoration; and the description of his own case at the close is exact, even to the surprise that at the end of his temperate life his disease should have been gout. See Memoir, p. lxx. and P. lxxiii.

715, 716. "Tarsus," in Cilicia; "the isles of Javan,' those of Greece and Ionia; " Gadire," Gades in Spain.

720. "amber scent": i.e. the fragrance of grey amber or ambergris. See note, P. R., II. 344.

759-762. "That wisest and best men," &c. See Memoir, p. xxxix.

778-789. Compare Eve's speech to Adam, P. L., IX. 1155 et seq.

840. "Knowing.. by thee betrayed." See same idiom, P. L., IX. 792.

936. "adder's wisdom." Ps. lviii. 4, 5.

971-974. "Fame. is double-mouthed." In Chaucer's House of Fame, and elsewhere, the fickle goddess is represented as having at her command two trumpets, one of gold and one of black brass. A blast from the first secures good renown for persons or deeds, a blast from the other ensures infamy; and no one ever knows on any particular occasion which will be blown.

988-990. "in Mount Ephraim Fael," &c. Judges iv.

and v.

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I020. 'Thy paranymph,” i.e. bridesman,

1034-1045. "Whate er it be," &c. A passage very like this occurs in Milton's first Divorce Treatise, published in 1643. 1053-1060. "Therefore God's universal law," &c. A very decisive expression of one of Milton's doctrines, expressed several times elsewhere. Compare P. L., X. 144 et seq. Once (in his Tetrachordon) he admits this limitation: "Not "but that particular exceptions may have place, if she exceed "her husband in prudence and dexterity, and he contentedly 66 'yield; for then a superior and more natural law comes in, "that the wiser should govern the less wise whether male or "female."

1075. "fraught," freight, burden.

1079. "Men call me Harapha." No such individual giant is mentioned in Scripture; but see 2 Sam. xxi. 15-22. The Philistine giants mentioned there are said to be sons of a certain well-known giant in Gath called "the giant," and the Hebrew word for "the giant" there is rapha or harapha. Milton has appropriated the name to his fictitious giant, whom he makes out in the sequel (1248, 1249) to be the actual father of that brood of giants.

1080, 1081. "Ög.. Anak.. the Emims. . Kiriathaim." Deut. iii. II; ii. 10, 11; Gen xiv. 5.

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1120, 1121. 'brigandine,' coat of mail; " habergeon,' mail for the neck and shoulders; "vant-brace," mail for the arms; "greaves," leg-armour ; 'gauntlet," glove of mail. II22. "A weaver's beam" : Goliath's weapon, whose armour also Milton had just remembered. I Sam. xvii. 5-7.

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I220. appellant," challenger. 1231. "O Baal-zebub!" Harapha fitly swears by this God, "the God of Ekron" (2 Kings i. 16); and again (1242) by the Phoenician goddess Astaroth.

1248, 1249. See previous note, line 1079, and see again 2 Sam. xxi. 15-22, for the fates of four of the five giants whom Milton takes the liberty of making sons of his Harapha. Their brother Goliath had previously been killed by David. As Samson's death, in the Biblical chronology, was eighty years before David's accession, Milton must have taken poetic licence in making the five giants killed in David's time fullgrown in Samson's.

1308. "Ebrews." So spelt in the original edition. The word occurs three times in S. A., and each time so; it occurs but twice besides in the poetry (P. R., IV. 336, and Ps. cxxxvi. 50), both times as an adjective, and both times with the H.

1461-1471. "Some much averse," &c. One may detect here a glance at the different degrees of vengefulness among the Royalists after the Restoration.

1540. "An Ebrew." See note, line 1308.

1605-1610. "The building was," &c. Imagine as follows : There is a large semi-circular covered space or amphitheatre, with tiers of seats, the roof supported by two pillars rising about mid-point of the diameter of the semi-circle. There is no wall at this diameter, but only these two pillars. G G

VOL. II.

Standing

near them, therefore, Samson would look in upon the lords and others of high rank occupying the tiers of seats in the covered space, while behind him, in an open and uncovered space, and seeing only his back, would be the poorer and seat

less rabble.

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1619. cataphracts," mailed horsemen.

1627. "stupendious." See P. L., X. 351, and note there. 1674. "Silo." Another instance of Milton's dislike of the sound sh. In Samson's time the Tabernacle and the Ark were in Shiloh (Josh. xviii. 1).

1686. "struck." See note, P. L., II. 165.

1692-1696. "And as an evening dragon came," &c. The violent change of metaphor, the dragon becoming an eagle within four lines, has caused some to suspect an error of the text. But is not the violence intentional? The blind Samson came among the assembled and seated Philistines like an evening dragon among tame fowl perched on their roosts-a fearful object certainly, but on the ground and darkly groping his way, so that he can only get at them by some chance spring forward and upward. Knowing this, though fluttered, they are on their guard against that possibility; when lo! their destruction comes upon them from him vertically downwards. The very enemy they saw on the ground was, in his own mind at that moment, swooping down upon them resistlessly from overhead; and so he who came as a ground-dragon ended as an eagle, the bird of Jove, bringing thunderbolts from a clear sky.

1695. "villatic fowl," farm-house fowl; from villa, a country house.

1699. "that self-begotten bird," &c. The Phoenix. See P. L., V. 272-274, and note there.

1700. "embost," embosked, hidden.

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1702. holocaust," a sacrifice burnt entire.

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1703. teemed," produced.

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1707. a secular bird": i.e. lasting for many sæcula, or generations.

1713. "the sons of Caphtor": i.e. the Philistines, reputed to have come from the Isle of Caphtor or Crete. See Amos ix. 7, and Deut. ii. 23.

1755. "acquist," acquisition: not unfrequent in old English writers, sometimes as acquest.

NOTES TO THE MINOR ENGLISH POEMS.

PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV. Several phrases and rhymes in this juvenile piece have been traced to Sylvester's Du Bartas (see Introd.)-e.g. the rhymes recoil, foil (9, 10), mountains, fountains (13, 14), crush, gush (17, 18)."Terah's faithful son (1) is Abraham; "Pharian for Egyptian (3) is either from Pharaoh or from Pharos (an island on the coast of Egypt), and is found in Buchanan's Psalms.

PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXXXVI.— Ruddy waves" and "Erythræan" for the Red Sea (45, 46) are found in Sylvester; also "walls of glass" (50), and "warble forth" (89). "Watery plain" for the sea (23) is in Spenser, Drayton, and William Browne; "golden-tressed," as an epithet for the sun (29), is in Chaucer; "hornèd moon" (33) is Spenser's, Shakespeare's, and everybody's; "tawny king" is found in Fairfax's Tasso.

"Seon . . that ruled the Amorrean coast" (65) is a literal translation of a line in Buchanan's Latin version of Psalm CXXXV.

ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT.

I. "O fairest flower," &c. imitated from that of a piece Pilgrim.

This opening is distinctly in Shakespeare's Passionate

8-10. "grim Aquilo," &c. Aquilo, or Boreas, the North Wind, dwelt in a cave in Thrace, and carried off Oreithyia, the daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus.

15. icy-pearled." Warton suggested "ice-ypearled," on the analogy of ychained (Od. Nat. 155) and star-ypointing (On Shaks.); but, on the analogy of rosy-bosomed (Com. 986) and fiery-wheelèd (Pens. 53), we may keep icy-pearlèd. Sylvester calls hail "ice-pearl.'

23-27. "For so Apollo," &c. Hyacinthus, son of a