SAMSON AGONISTES
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��Capacity not raised to apprehend
Or value what is best,
In choice, but of test to affect the wrong? 1030
Or was too much of self-love mixed,
Of constancy no root infixed,
That either they love nothing, or not long ?
Whate'er it be, to wisest men and best, Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin
veil,
Soft, modest, meek, demure, Once joined, the contrary she proves a
thorn
Intestine, far within defensive arms A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue Adverse and turbulent; or by her charms Draws him awry, enslaved 1041
With dotage, and his sense depraved To folly and shameful deeds, which ruin
ends.
What pilot so expert but needs must wreck, Embarked with such a steers-mate at the
helm?
Favoured of Heaven who finds One virtuous, rarely found, That in domestic good combines ! Happy that house ! his way to peace is
smooth :
But virtue which breaks through all oppo- sition, 1050 And all temptation can remove, Most shines and most is acceptable above.
Therefore God's universal law Gave to the man despotic power Over his female in due awe, Nor from that right to part an hour, Smile she or lour: So shall he least confusion draw On his whole life, not swayed By female usurpation, nor dismayed. 1060 But had we best retire ? I see a storm. Sams. Fair days have oft contracted
wind and rain. Chor. But this another kind of tempest
brings. Sams. Be less abstruse; my riddling
days are past. Chor. Look now for no inchanting voice,
nor fear The bait of honeyed words; a rougher
tongue Draws hitherward; I know him by his
stride,
The giant Harapha of Gath, his look Haughty, as is his pile high-built and
proud.
��Comes he in peace ? What wind hath blown him hither 1070
I less conjecture than when first I saw
The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:
His habit carries peace, his brow defi- ance. Sams. Or peace or not, alike to me he
comes. Chor. His fraught we soon shall know:
he now arrives.
Har. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance,
As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been,
Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath;
Men call me Harapha, of stock renowned
As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old 1080
That Kiriathaim held. Thou know'st me now,
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats per- formed,
Incredible to me, in this displeased,
That I was never present on the place
Of those encounters, where we might have tried
Each other's force in camp or listed field ;
And now am come to see of whom such noise
Hath walked about, and each limb to sur- vey,
If thy appearance answer loud report. 1090 Sams. The way to know were not to see,
but taste.
Har. Dost thou already single me ? I thought
Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. O that fortune
Had brought me to the field where thou art famed
To have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw !
I should have forced thee soon wish other arms,
Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown;
So had the glory of prowess been recovered
To Palestine, won by a Philistine
From the unforeskiuned race, of whom thou bear'st i too
The highest name for valiant acts. That honour,
Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee,
I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.
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