She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exil'd from light,
As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but, O yet more miserable!

My self my sepulchre, a moving grave;
Buried, yet not exempt,

By privilege of death and burial,

From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs;
But made hereby obnoxious more

To all the miseries of life,

Life in captivity

Among inhuman foes.

But who are these? for with joint pace I hear

The tread of many feet steering this way;
Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Their daily practice to afflict me more.

O change beyond report, thought, or belief!

See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,

With languish'd head unpropp'd,

115

As one past hope, abandon'd,'"

And by himself given over;

In slavish habit, il-titted weeds

O'erworn and soil'd;

That heroick, that renown'd,

Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,

Irresistible Samson? whom unarm’d

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125

No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand;
Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid;

Ran on embattel'd armies clad in iron;

And, weaponless himself,

Made arms ridiculous useless the forgery

Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass,
Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail

130

There he him found all carelessly displaid So Akenside

118. Diffused. This beautiful applica- | And again, tion of diffused, Milton has taken from the Latin, fusus, and diffusus. No one English word, and hardly any combination of words, can express its full, peculiar, and luscious meaning, which is, as near as I can define it, stretched upon the ground with relaxed and careless limbs. Spenser says

Pour'd out in looseness on the grassy ground.

-But Waller longs To spread his careless limbs amid the cool Of plantane shades, &c.

133. Chalybean. The Chalybes were a people of Pontus, famous for their iron works.

Adamantéan proof?

But safest he who stood aloof,

When insupportably his foot advanced,

In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurn'd them to death by troops.

The bold Ascalonite

Fled from his lion ramp; old warriours turn'd

Their plated backs under his heel;

Or, grovelling, soil'd their crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,

The jaw of a dead ass, his sword of bone,

A thousand foreskins fell, the flower of Palestine,

In Ramath-lechi, famous to this day.

Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore

135

140

145

The gates of Azza, post, and massy bar,

Up to the hill by Hebron, seat of giants old,

No journey of a sabbath-day, and loaded so;

Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up heaven.
Which shall I first bewail,

150

Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)

155

The dungeon of thyself; thy soul,

(Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain,)

Imprison'd now indeed,

Shut up from outward light

In real darkness of the body dwells,

To incorporate with gloomy night;

For inward light, alas!

Puts forth no visual beam.

160

O mirrour of our fickle state!

Since man on earth unparallel'd,

165

The rarer thy example stands,

By how much from the top of wondrous glory,

Strongest of mortal men,

To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen.
For him I reckon not in high estate,

170

Whom long descent of birth,

Or the sphere of fortune raises;

But thee, whose strength, while virtue was her mate,
Might have subdued the earth,

Universally crown'd with highest praises.

175

SAMS. I hear the sound of words; their sense the air

Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear.

CHO. He speaks: let us draw nigh. Matchless in might, The glory late of Israel, now the grief,

138. Ascalonite: An inhabitant of Ascalon.

145. Ramath-lechi. See Judges xv. 17. 147. Azza, another name for Gaza. 148. Hebron. See Josh. xv. 13, 14; Numb. xiii. 33.

172. Sphere of fortune: Alluding to the fact of Fortune being represented on a rolling stone, as in the "Tablature of Cebes."

We come, thy friends and neighbours not unknown,
From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale,
To visit or bewail thee; or, if better,
Counsel or consolation we may bring,

Salve to thy sores: apt words have power to swage
The tumours of a troubled mind,
And are as balm to fester'd wounds.

180

185

SAMS. Your coming, friends, revives me; for I learn

Now of my own experience, not by talk,
How counterfeit a coin they are who friends

Bear in their superscription, (of the most
I would be understood;) in prosperous days
They swarm, but in advérse withdraw their head,
Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends,
How many evils have inclosed me round;

190

Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,
Blindness; for had I sight, confused with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who like a foolish pilot, have shipwreck'd
My vessel trusted to me from above,
Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear,
Fool! have divulged the secret gift of God
To a deceitful woman? tell me, friends,
Am I not sung and proverb'd for a fool
In every street? do they not say, how well
Are come upon him his deserts? yet why?
Immeasurable strength they might behold
In me, of wisdom nothing more than mean:
This with the other should, at least, have pair'd;
These two, proportion'd ill, drove me transverse.

CHO. Tax not divine disposal; wisest men
Have err'd, and by bad women been deceived;
And shall again, pretend they ne'er so wise.
Deject not then so overmuch thyself,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides:
Yet, truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather,
Than of thine own tribe fairer, or as fair,
At least of thy own nation, and as noble.

SAMS. The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased

195

200

205

210

215

181. Eshtaol and Zora were two towns | dissatisfaction his first wife had conceived of the tribe of Dan-Josh. xix. 41-the latter Samson's birthplace. They were both in the valley, (Josh. xv. 33,) and herefore Milton, with his unerring precision in the use of epithets, speaks of their fruitful vale.

184. Salve to thy sores. So Sidney, in his Arcadia: "But no outward cherishing could salve the inward sore of her mind."

219. The first I saw at Timna. None of the crities have observed that Milton here alludes to some of the particulars of his first match. To say nothing of the

at her husband's unsocial and philosophical system of life, so different from the convivial cheerfulness and plenty of her father's family, it is probable that the quarrel was owing to party, which also might operate mutually. But when Cromwell proved victorious, her father, who had taken a very forward part in assisting the king, finding his affairs falling into distress, for prudential reasons strove to bring about an agreement be tween the separated couple. And thus the reconciliation was interested; nor was it effected but by her unsolicited and

Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed
The daughter of an infidel: they knew not
That what I motion'd was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urged
The marriage on; that by occasion hence
I might begin Israel's deliverance,
The work to which I was divinely call'd.
She proving false, the next I took to wife
(0, that I never had! fond wish too late!)
Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila,

That specious monster, my accomplish'd snare.
I thought it lawful from my former act,
And the same end; still watching to oppress
Israel's oppressours: of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I myself,

220

225

230

Who, vanquish'd with a peal of words, (O, weakness!) 235
Gave up my fort of silence to a woman.

CHо. In seeking just occasion to provoke

The Philistine, thy country's enemy,

Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness:
Yet Israel still serves with all his sons.

240

SAMS. That fault I take not on me, but transfer

On Israel's governours and heads of tribes,

Who, seeing those great acts which God had done
Singly by me against their conquerours,

Used no ambition to commend my deeds;

Acknowledged not, or not at all consider'd,
Deliverance offer'd: I on the other side,

The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer;

245

But they persisted deaf, and would not seem

To count them things worth notice, till at length

250

Their lords the Philistines with gather'd powers
Enter'd Judea seeking me, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham was retired;
Not flying, but forecasting in what place
To set upon them, what advantaged best:
Meanwhile the men of Judah, to prevent
The harass of their land, beset me round:
I willingly on some conditions came

Into their hands, and they as gladly yield me
To the uncircumcised a welcome prey,

255

260

Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threads
Touch'd with the flame: on their whole host I flew
Unarm'd, and with a trivial weapon fell'd

more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger and revenge.”— T. WARTON.

apparently humble submission, and after | "partly from his own generous nature, the most earnest intreaties, which the husband for some time resisted. And I think it clear, that Milton's own experience in the course of this marriage, furnished the substance of the sentiments in another speech of Samson, lines 750763. Phillips says that Milton was inclined to pardon his repudiated bride

226. Divinely: Latin, divinitus. 230. Accomplish'd snare: Ironical. 247. Ambition, in the sense of the Latin ambitio, "a going around to gain favour" 253. Rock of Etham. Judges xv. 8.

Their choicest youth; they only lived who fled.
Had Judah that day join'd, or one whole tribe,
They had by this possess'd the towers of Gath,
And lorded over them whom now they serve:
But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt
And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect

Whom God hath of his special favour raised
As their deliverer? if he aught begin,
How frequent to desert him, and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?

CHO. Thy words to my remembrance bring

265

270

275

How Succoth and the fort of Penuel
Their great deliverer contemn'd,

The matchless Gideon, in pursuit

Of Madian and her vanquish'd kings:

And how ingrateful Ephraim

Had dealt with Jephthah, who by argument,
Not worse than by his shield and spear,
Defended Israel from the Ammonite,

Had not his prowess quell'd their pride
In that sore battel, when so many died
Without reprieve, adjudged to death,
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.

SAMS. Of such examples add me to the roll;

280

285

200

Me easily indeed mine may neglect,

But God's proposed deliverance not so.
CHо. Just are the ways of God,

And justifiable to men;

Unless there be who think not God at all:
If any be, they walk obscure;

295

For of such doctrine never was there school,
But the heart of the fool,

And no man therein doctor but himself.

Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just,

300

As to his own edicts found contradicting,

Then give the reins to wandering thought,
Regardless of his glory's diminution;

Till, by their own perplexities involved,
They ravel more, still less resolved,
But never find self-satisfying solution.

As if they would confine the Interminable,
And tie him to his own prescript,

Who made our laws to bind us, not himself,
And hath full right to exempt

278. Succoth. See Judges viii. 4-9. 282. Ephraim. See Judges xi. 15-27, and xii 1-6.

299. And no man, &c. There is something rather too quaint and fanciful in

305

310

this conceit; and it appears the worse, as this speech of the Chorus is of so serious a nature, and filled with so many deep and solemn truths.—THYER.