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If need be, I am ready to forgo

And quit: not wanting him I fhall want nothing. CHORUS.

Fathers are wont to lay up for their fons, 1485 Thou for thy fon art bent to lay out all :

Sons wont to nurse their

in old age, parents in old

Thou in old age car'ft how to nurse thy fon

Made older than thy age through eye-fight lost.

MANO A Н.

eyes,

It shall be my delight to tend his
And view him fitting in the house, ennobled
With all those high exploits by him achiev'd,
And on his shoulders waving down those locks
That of a nation arm'd the strength contain’d:
And I perfuade me God had not permitted
His ftrength again to grow up with his hair
Garrison'd round about him like a camp
Of faithful foldiery, were not his purpose
To use him further yet in fome great service,

mous exploits is vaftly expreffive of the doating fondness of an old father. Nor is the poet lefs to be admir'd for his making Manoah under the influence of this pleafing imagination go on ftill further, and flatter himfelf even with the VOL. I.

1490

1495

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Not to fit idle with fo great a gift

Ufelefs, and thence ridiculous about him.

1500

And fince his ftrength with eye-fight was not loft, God will restore him eye-fight to his ftrength."

CHORUS.

Thy hopes are not ill founded nor seem vain
Of his delivery, and thy joy thereon
Conceiv'd, agreeable to a father's love,
In both which we, as next, participate.

MANOAH.

1505

I know your friendly minds and-O what noife! Mercy of Heav'n, what hideous noife was that! Horribly loud, unlike the former shout.

CHORUS.

Noife call you it or univerfal groan, As if the whole inhabitation perish'd!

1504. Thy hopes are not ill founded nor seem vain

Of his delivery,] This is very proper and becoming the gravity of the Chorus, as much as to intimate that his other hopes were fond and extravagant. And the art of the poet cannot be fufficiently admired in raifing the hopes and expectations of his perfons to the highest pitch juft before the dreadful catastrophe. How great

1510

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&c.] It must be very pleafing to the reader to obferve with what art and judgment Milton prepares him for the relation of the cataftrophe of this tragedy. This abrupt ftart of Manoah upon hear

Blood, death, and deathful deeds are in that noife, Ruin, destruction at the utmost point.

MANO A Н.

Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise: Oh it continues, they have flain my fon.

CHORUS.

Thy son is rather flaying them, that outcry From flaughter of one foe could not ascend. MANOAH.

Some difmal accident it needs must be;

1516

What shall we do, stay here or run and fee? 1520

CHORUS.

Best keep together here, left running thither
We unawares run into danger's mouth.
This evil on the Philiftines is fall'n;

From whom could else a general cry be heard?

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The sufferers then will fcarce moleft us here, 1525
From other hands we need not much to fear.

What if his eye-fight (for to Ifrael's God
Nothing is hard) by miracle reftor'd,

He now be dealing dole among his foes,
And over heaps of flaughter'd walk his way?
MANOAH.

That were a joy presumptuous to be thought.
CHORUS.

Yet God hath wrought things as incredible
For his people of old; what hinders now?
MANOAH.

He can, I know, but doubt to think he will

1530

Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief.
A little stay will bring fome notice hither.

1529. be dealing dole] Diftributing his gifts and portions among his enemies, from a Saxon word fays Skinner, but Mr. Upton in his Remarks upon Ben. Jonfon's three plays p. 31. derives the word dole from the Greek TO TY SIEλew, diftributers. By the way we may obferve, that the Chorus here entertains the fame pleafing hope of Samfon's eye-fight being by miracle restored, which he had before tacitly reproved in Manoah, and Manoah who had

1536 CHORUS

before encourag'd the fame hope
in himself, now defponds and
reckons it prefumptuous in another.
Such changes of our thoughts are
natural and common, efpecially
in any change of our fituation and
circumftances. Fear and hope u-
fually fucceed each other like ague
and fever. And it was not a flight
obfervation of mankind, that could
have enabled Milton to have un-
derftood and defcrib'd the human
paffions fo exactly.

1536. A

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CHORUS.

Of good or bad fo great, of bad the fooner;
For evil news rides poft, while good news baits.
And to our wish I fee one hither speeding,

An Hebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe.
MESSENGER.

1540

O whither shall I run, or which way fly
The fight of this fo horrid fpectacle,
Which erft my eyes beheld and yet behold?
For dire imagination ftill purfues me.
But providence or inftinct of nature seems,
Or reason though disturb'd, and scarce confulted,
To' have guided me aright, I know not how,
To thee first reverend Manoah, and to these
My countrymen, whom here I knew remaining,

1536. A little stay will bring Some notice hither.] The text of the first edition wants the nine lines preceding this, and the line that follows it: but they are fupplied in the Errata. This line in that edition is in the part of the Chorus, as I think it ought to be: and fo is the next but one, in that and all the editions; though it feems to belong rather to Manoah. The line between them, which is wanting (as I just now observed) in the text of the first edition, in

1545

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