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 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 Not 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 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 &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 From whom could else a general cry be heard? The sufferers then will fcarce moleft us here, 1525 What if his eye-fight (for to Ifrael's God He now be dealing dole among his foes, That were a joy presumptuous to be thought. Yet God hath wrought things as incredible He can, I know, but doubt to think he will 1530 Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief. 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 1536. A CHORUS. Of good or bad fo great, of bad the fooner; An Hebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe. 1540 O whither shall I run, or which way fly 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 |