From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs, To all the miseries of life, Life in captivity Among inhuman foes. But who are these? for with joint pace I hear Perhaps my enemies, who come to stare At my affliction, and perhaps t' insult, Their daily practice to afflict me more. CHORUS. This, this is he; softly a while, Let us not break in upon him; O change beyond report, thought, or belief! As one past hope, abandon'd, And by himself given over; In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds O'er-worn and soil'd; Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he, That heroic, that renown'd, Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd 105 110 115 120 125 111. steering this way;] If this be the right. reading, the metaphor is extremely hard and abrupt. A common man would have said bearing this way. Warburton. 118. See how he lies at random, carelessly diffus'd,] This beautiful application of the word diffused Milton has borrowed from the Latins. So Ovid ex Ponto, iii. iii. 7. Publica me requies curarum somnus habebat, Fusaque erant toto languida membra toro. Thyer. So Virgil, fusi per herbam, En. i. 214. and in many other places. E. No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could with stand; Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid, Ran on imbattled armies clad in iron, And weaponless himself, Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery ร Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd cuirass, Adamantean proof; But safest he who stood aloof, When insupportably his foot advanc'd, In scorn of their proud arms and warlike tools, 180 135 Spurn'd them to death by troops. The bold Ascalonite Fled from his lion ramp, old warriors turn'd Their plated backs under his heel; Or grov❜ling soil'd their crested helmets in the dust. 140 he had before used 'gean for Egéan, and Thyéstean for Thyestéan. 136. When insupportably his foot advanc'd,] For this nervous expression Milton was probably indebted to the following lines of Spenser, Faery Queen, b. i. cant. vii. st. 11. That when the knight he spied, he 'gan advance With huge force, and insupportable main. Thyer. 188. The bold Ascalonile] The inhabitant of Ascalon, one of the five principal cities of the Philistines, mentioned, 1 Sam. vi. 17. In Ramath-lechi famous to this day. 145 Then by main force pull'd up, and on his shoulders bore 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. 150 Thy bondage or lost sight, Prison within prison Inseparably dark? Thou art become (O worst imprisonment !) 155 (Which men enjoying sight oft without cause complain) 145. In Ramath-lechi famous to this day.] Judges xv. 17.-he cast away the jaw-bone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lechi, that is, the lifting up of the jaw-bone, or casting away of the jaw-bone, as it is rendered in the margin of our Bibles. 147. The gates of Azza.] If the poet did not think the alliteration too great, he possibly would have wrote The gates of Gaza. ner Milton designed them. Symp son. 147. -post, and massy bar,] Mr. Meadowcourt proposes to read posts, as being more conformable to Scripture, Judges xvi. 3. And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all: and posts is certainly better on this account, but perhaps Milton So he does within six lines of might prefer post as somewhat of a softer sound. the end of this play, whence Gaza mourns. I cannot help remarking the great difference there is betwixt Ben Johnson's Chorusses, and our author's. Old Ben's are of a poor similar regular contexture; our author's truly Grecian, and noble, diversified with all the measures our language and poetry are capable of, and I am afraid not to be read in the man 148. -Hebron, seat of giants old,] For Hebron was the city of Arba, the father of Anak, and the seat of the Anakims. Josh. xv. 13, 14. And the Anakims were giants, which come of the giants. Numb. xiii. 33. 157. oft without cause complain] So Milton himself corrected it, but all the editions continue the old erratum complained. By how much from the top of wondrous glory, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall'n. For him I reckon not in high estate 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. SAMSON. I hear the sound of words, their sense the air Dissolves unjointed ere it reach my ear. 160 165 170 175 162. For inward light alas Puts forth no visual beam.] The expression is fine, and means the ray of light, which occasions vision. Mr. Pope borrowed the expression in one of his juvenile poems, He from thick films shall purge the and supposed Milton meant by visual ray the sight, or at least thought himself at liberty to use it in that highly figurative sense. See what is said on the passage in the last edition of Mr. Pope's works. Warburton. 172. Or the sphere of fortune raises;] Fortune is painted on a globe, which by her influence is in a perpetual rotation on its Either he mistook his original, axis. Warburton. CHORUS. He speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might, The glory late of Israel, now the grief; We come thy friends and neighbours not unknown 180 To visit or bewail thee, or if better, Salve to thy sores; apt words have pow'r to swage And are as balm to fester'd wounds. SAMSON. Your coming, friends, revives me, for I learn 178. He speaks,] We have followed Milton's own edition; most of the others have it He spake. 185 autem ad Eumenem utrumque genus hominum, et qui propter odium fructum oculis ex ejus casu capere vellent, [see above, ver. 112. to stare at my affliction,] et qui propter veterem amicitiam colloqui consolarique cuperent. Corn. Nepos in vita Eumenis. Calton. 184. apt words have pow'r to swage &c.] Alluding to these lines in Eschylus. Prom. Vinct. 377. 181. From Eshtaol and Zora's fruitful vale] These were two towns of the tribe of Dan, Josh. xix. 41. the latter the birth-place of Samson, Judges xiii. 2. and they were near one another. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol, Judges xiii. 25. And they were both situated in the valley, Josh. xv. 33. and therefore the poet Or to this passage in Menander. with great exactness says and Zora's fruitful vale. Eshtaol 182. To visit or bewail thee,] The poet dictated To visit and bewail thee: The purpose Ούκουν Προμηθευ τουτο γινώσκεις, ότι Λογος γαρ εστι λυπης φαρμακον μόνον. Or perhaps to Horace, epist. i. i. 34. Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem. |