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A

SAMSON.

Little onward lend thy guiding hand

To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of fun or fhade:
There I am wont to fit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of fervile toil,
Daily' in the common prison else injoin'd me,
Where I a prifoner chain'd, fcarce freely draw
The air imprison'd also, close and damp,
Unwholefome draught: but here I feel amends,

Samfon Agoniftes] The fubject but a very indifferent one for a dramatic fable. However he has made the beft of it. He feems to have chofen it for the fake of the fatire on bad wives. Warburton.

Samfon Agoniftes] That is Samfon an actor, Samfon reprefented in a play. Ayavisne, ludio, hiftrio, actor fcenicus. Samfon Milton after the example of the Greek tragedians, whom he profeffes to imitate, opens his drama with introducing one of its principal perfonages explaining the story upon which it is founded. Thyer. 1. A little onward lend thy guiding band

The

To thefe dark steps, ] So Tirefias in Euripides, Phæniffæ ver. 841. Ηγο προπαροιθε θυγατερ, ὡς

TUONE WIFI &c. Richardson, 3. For yonder bank] The scene of this tragedy is much the fame as that of the OITUS ET NOWV in Sophocles, where blind Oedipus is conducted in like manner and represented fitting upon a little hill near Athens: but yet I think there is fcarcely a fingle thought the fame in the two pieces, and I am fure the Greek tragedy can have no pretence to be efteem'd better, but only because it is two thousand years older.

The breath of Heav'n fresh blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-fpring born; here leave me to refpire. 11
This day a folemn feast the people hold
To Dagon their fea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works; unwillingly this rest

Their fuperftition yields me; hence with leave 15
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek

This unfrequented place to find fome ease,
Eafe to the body fome, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of hornets arm'd, no fooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times paft, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heav'n foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at laft in fight

Of both my parents all in flames afcended

13. To Dagon their fea-idol,] For Milton both here and in the Paradife Loft follows the opinion of thofe, who defcribe this idol as part man, part fish. I. 462.

Dagon his name, fea monster,
upward man
And downward fish.

24. Twice by an Angel,] Once a to his mother, and again to his father Manoah and his mother both,

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25 From

and the fecond time the Angel afcended in the flame of the altar. Judges XIII. 3, 11, 20.

28. and from fome great a&t,] Mr. Sympfon fays that the true reading is

as from fome great act: but the poet would hardly fay As in fiery column &c as from fome great act &c; and therefore we may retain and, and as may be under

ftood

From off the altar, where an offering burn'd,
As in a fiery column charioting

act

His god-like prefence, and from fome great
Or benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd
As of a person separate to God,

Defign'd for great exploits; if I must die
Betray'd, captiv'd, and both my eyes put out,
Made of enemies the scorn and gaze;

my

To grind in brazen fetters under task

3°

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With this Heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious strength

Put to the labor of a beast, debas'd

Lower than bondflave! Promife was that I

Should Ifrael from Philiftian yoke deliver ;

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyelefs in Gaza at the mill with flaves,

food tho' not exprefs'd. As in a fiery column charioting &c, and as from fome great act &c.

33. Betray'd, captiv'd,] It fhould be pronounced with the accent upon the last fyllable, as afterwards ver, 694.

To dogs and fowls a prey, or elfe captiv'd.

I think we commonly pronounce it with the accent upon the first

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Himself in bonds under Philiftian yoke:

Yet ftay, let me not rafhly call in doubt
Divine prediction; what if all foretold
Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but myself? 46
Who this high gift of ftrength committed to me,
In what part lodg'd, how eafily bereft me,
Under the feal- of filence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,
O'ercome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body ftrong!
But what is ftrength without a double share
Of wisdom, vaft, unwieldy, burdenfome,

Proudly fecure, yet liable to fall

By weakeft fubtleties, not made to rule,

But to fubferve where wifdom bears command! God, when he gave me ftrength, to show withal How flight the gift was, hung it in my hair.

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55

I must not quarrel with the will

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Of

Of highest difpenfation, which herein

Haply had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me ftrength is my bane,
And proves the fource of all my miseries;
So many, and fo huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O lofs of fight, of thee I most complain !
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!

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Light the prime work of God to me' is extinct, 70 And all her various objects of delight

Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd, Inferior to the vileft now become

Of man or worm; the vileft here excel me,

1

They creep, yet fee, I dark in light expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In pow'r of others, never in my own ;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half,

69. or decrepit age !] So it is printed in the first edition; the later editors have omitted or, concluding I fuppofe that it made the verfe a fyllable too long. Mr. Calton proposes to read

-beggery in decrepit age!

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