(For so from such as nearer stood we heard)
As over-tired to let him lean a while
With both his arms on those two massy pillars
That to the archèd roof gave main support.
He8046 unsuspicious led him, which when Samson
Felt in his arms, with head a while inclined8047
And eyes fast fixed he stood, as one who prayed,
Or some great matter in his mind revolved.
At last with head erect thus cried aloud,
“Hitherto, lords, what your commands imposed
I have performed, as reason was, obeying,
Not without wonder or delight beheld.
Now of my own accord such other trial8048
I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,
As with amaze shall strike all who behold.”
This uttered, straining all his nerves8049 he bowed.
As with the force of winds and waters pent8050
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars
With horrible convulsion8051 to and fro
He tugged, he shook, till down they came and drew
The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,
Lords, ladies, captains, councillors, or priests,
Their choice nobility and flower, not only
Of this but each Philistian city round,
Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.
Samson with these immixed,8052 inevitably
Pulled down the same destruction on himself.
The vulgar8053 only scaped, who stood without.8054
CHOR. O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious! 1660
Living or dying thou hast fulfilled
The work for which thou wast foretold
To Israel, and now ly’st victorious
Among thy slain, self-killed
Not willingly, but tangled in the fold8055
Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoined
Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more
Than all thy life had slain before.
SEMICHOR. While their hearts were jocund8056 and sublime,8057
Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine 1670
And fat regorged8058 of bulls and goats,
Chanting their idol, and preferring8059
Before our living Dread who dwells
In Silo8060 His bright sanctuary:
Among them He a Spirit of frenzy8061 sent,
Who8062 hurt8063 their minds,
And urged them on with mad desire
To call in haste for their destroyer.
They only set on sport8064 and play
Unweetingly8065 importuned
Their own destruction to come speedy upon them.
So fond8066 are mortal men
Fallen into8067 wrath divine,
As their own ruin on themselves t’ invite,
Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,8068
And with blindness internal struck.
SEMICHOR. But he though blind of sight,
Despised and thought extinguished quite,
With inward eyes illuminated,
His fiery virtue8069 roused 1690
From under ashes into sudden flame,
And as an ev’ning dragon8070 came,
Assailant on the perchèd roosts
And nests, in order ranged
Of tame villatic8071 fowl, but as an eagle
His cloudless thunder bolted8072 on their heads.
So virtue giv’n for lost,
Depressed,8073 and overthrown (as seemed),
Like that self-begotten bird8074
In th’ Arabian woods embossed,8075 1700
That no second knows nor third,
And lay erewhile a holocaust,8076
From out her ashy womb now teemed—8077
Revives, reflourishes, then8078 vigorous most
When most unactive deemed.
And though her body die, her fame survives
(A secular8079 bird) ages of lives.
MAN. Come, come, no time for lamentation now,
Nor much more cause. Samson hath quit8080 himself
Like Samson, and heroically hath finished
A life heroic, on his enemies
Fully revenged, hath left them years of mourning,
And lamentation to the sons of Caphtor8081
Through all Philistian bounds.8082 To Israel
Honor hath left, and freedom. Let but them
Find courage to lay hold8083 on this occasion—
To himself and father’s house8084 eternal fame.
And which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,
But favoring and assisting to the end. 1720
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Let us go find the body where it lies
Soaked in his enemies’ blood, and from the stream
With lavers8085 pure, and cleansing herbs, wash off
The clotted gore.8086 I with what speed the while
(Gaza is not in plight8087 to say us nay)
Will send for all my kindred, all my friends 1730
To fetch him hence and solemnly attend
With silent obsequy8088 and funeral train8089
Home to his father’s house. There will I build him
A monument, and plant it round with shade
Of laurel ever green, and branching palm,
With all his trophies hung, and acts enrolled8090
In copious legend8091 or sweet lyric song.
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,8092
And from his memory inflame their breasts
To matchless valor, and adventures high. 1740
The virgins also shall on feastful days
Visit his tomb with flowers, only bewailing
His lot unfortunate in nuptial choice,
From whence captivity and loss of eyes.
CHOR. All is best, though we oft doubt,
What th’ unsearchable8093 dispose8094
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft He seems to hide His face,
But unexpectedly returns—1750
And to His faithful champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously. Whence Gaza mourns
And all that band8095 them to resist
His uncontrollable8096 intent,8097
His servants He with new acquist8098
Of true experience from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismissed,8099
And calm of mind, all passion spent.
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
This cannot be more than a brief, more or less representative glimpse of what Carrithers and Hardy (below, at p. 15) call “the prodigious landscape of relevant scholarship.” All of the listed books contain useful citations to a much wider portion of the landscape.
EDITIONS OF MILTON
Bush, Douglas, ed. The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965 [poetically the most sensitive edition].
Flannagan, Roy, ed. The Riverside Milton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998 [the most capacious edition—1,213 pages, many double-columned—bristling with information: early biographies; poems English and Latin; much prose].
Shawcross, John T., ed. The Complete English Poetry of John Milton. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1963 [handy, inexpensive, far-ranging].
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Fallon, Robert Thomas. Milton in Government. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714. London: Nelson, 1961. 2nd ed., Sphere paperback, 1972.
——. Milton and the English Revolution. New York: Viking, 1977.
——. The Experience of Defeat: Milton and Some Contemporaries. New York: Viking, 1984.
——. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution. London: Allan Lane, 1993. Penguin, 1994.
LANGUAGE
The Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles. 10 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933.
LITERARY CRITICISM
COLLECTIONS
Barker, Arthur E., ed. Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Danielson, Dennis, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Milton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Patrides, C. A., and Joseph Wittreich. The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
INDIVIDUAL STUDIES
Carrithers, Gale H., and James D. Hardy Jr. Milton and the Hermeneutic Journey. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.
Ferry, Anne D. Milton’s Epic Voice: The Narrator in Paradise Lost. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Lewis, C. S. “A Note on Comus.” In C. S. Lewis, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966.
——. A Preface to Paradise Lost. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942. Rev. ed., 1960.
Marotti, Arthur F. Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Martz, Louis I. Poet of Exile: A Study of Milton’s Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980.
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. John Milton: A Reader’s Guide to His Poetry. New York: Farrar, 1963.
Rumrich, John Peter. Matter of Glory: A New Preface to Paradise Lost. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987.
Steadman, John M. The Wall of Paradise: Essays on Milton’s Poetics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
Stein, Arnold. The Art of Presence: The Poet and Paradise Lost. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THESE BANTAM CLASSICS
BEOWULF AND OTHER ENGLISH POEMS, 978-0-553-21347-8
THE BHAGAVAD-GITA: KRISHNA’S COUNSEL IN TIME OF WAR, 978-0-553-21365-2
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE and THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, 978-0-553-21482-6
THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, 978-0-553-21340-9
FOUR GREAT AMERICAN CLASSICS (THE SCARLET LETTER; THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN; THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE; BILLY BUDD, SAILOR), 978-0-553-21362-1
GREEK DRAMA, 978-0-553-21221-1
JO’S BOYS, Louisa May Alcott, 978-0-553-21449-9
LITTLE WOMEN, Louisa May Alcott, 978-0-553-21275-4
WINESBURG, OHIO, Sherwood Anderson, 978-0-553-21439-0
THE COMPLETE PLAYS, Aristophanes, 978-0-553-21343-0
EMMA, Jane Austen, 978-0-553-21273-0
MANSFIELD PARK, Jane Austen, 978-0-553-21276-1
NORTHANGER ABBEY, Jane Austen, 978-0-553-21197-9
PERSUASION, Jane Austen, 978-0-553-21137-5
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Jane Austen, 978-0-553-21310-2
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, Jane Austen, 978-0-553-21334-8
PETER PAN, J. M. Barrie, 978-0-553-21178-8
BRADBURY CLASSIC STORIES, Ray Bradbury, 978-0-553-28637-3
THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, Ray Bradbury, 978-0-553-27822-4
JANE EYRE, Charlotte Brontë, 978-0-553-21140-5
VILLETTE, Charlotte Brontë, 978-0-553-21243-3
WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Emily Brontë, 978-0-553-21258-7
THE SECRET GARDEN, Frances Hodgson Burnett, 978-0-553-21201-3
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND and
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, Lewis Carroll, 978-0-553-21345-4
MY ÁNTONIA, Willa Cather, 978-0-553-21418-5
O PIONEERS!, Willa Cather, 978-0-553-21358-4
THE CANTERBURY TALES, Geoffrey Chaucer, 978-0-553-21082-8
STORIES, Anton Chekhov, 978-0-553-38100-9
THE AWAKENING, Kate Chopin, 978-0-553-21330-0
THE WOMAN IN WHITE, Wilkie Collins, 978-0-553-21263-1
HEART OF DARKNESS and THE SECRET SHARER, Joseph Conrad, 978-0-553-21214-3
LORD JIM, Joseph Conrad, 978-0-553-21361-4
THE DEERSLAYER, James Fenimore Cooper, 978-0-553-21085-9
THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, James Fenimore Cooper, 978-0-553-21329-4
MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS AND OTHER SHORT FICTION, Stephen Crane, 978-0-553-21355-3
THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, Stephen Crane, 978-0-553-21011-8
THE INFERNO, Dante, 978-0-553-21339-3
PARADISO, Dante, 978-0-553-21204-4
PURGATORIO, Dante, 978-0-553-21344-7
THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, Charles Darwin, 978-0-553-21463-5
MOLL FLANDERS, Daniel Defoe, 978-0-553-21328-7
ROBINSON CRUSOE, Daniel Defoe, 978-0-553-21373-7
BLEAK HOUSE, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21223-5
A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21244-0
DAVID COPPERFIELD, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21189-4
GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21342-3
HARD TIMES, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21016-3
OLIVER TWIST, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21102-3
THE PICKWICK PAPERS, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21123-8
A TALE OF TWO CITIES, Charles Dickens, 978-0-553-21176-4
THREE SOLDIERS, John Dos Passos, 978-0-553-21456-7
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 978-0-553-21216-7
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 978-0-553-21175-7
THE ETERNAL HUSBAND AND OTHER STORIES, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 978-0-553-21444-4
THE IDIOT, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 978-0-553-21352-2
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 978-0-553-21144-3
SHERLOCK HOLMES VOL I, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 978-0-553-21241-9
SHERLOCK HOLMES VOL II, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 978-0-553-21242-6
SISTER CARRIE, Theodore Dreiser, 978-0-553-21374-4
THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK, W. E. B. Du Bois, 978-0-553-21336-2
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, Alexandre Dumas, 978-0-553-21350-8
THE THREE MUSKETEERS, Alexandre Dumas, 978-0-553-21337-9
MIDDLEMARCH, George Eliot, 978-0-553-21180-1
SILAS MARNER, George Eliot, 978-0-553-21229-7
SELECTED ESSAYS, LECTURES, AND POEMS, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 978-0-553-21388-1
TEN PLAYS BY EURIPIDES, Euripides, 978-0-553-21363-8
APRIL MORNING, Howard Fast, 978-0-553-27322-9
MADAME BOVARY, Gustave Flaubert, 978-0-553-21341-6
HOWARDS END, E. M. Forster, 978-0-553-21208-2
A ROOM WITH A VIEW, E. M. Forster, 978-0-553-21323-2
THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL, Anne Frank, 978-0-553-57712-9
ANNE FRANK’S TALES FROM THE SECRET ANNEX, Anne Frank, 978-0-553-58638-1
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND OTHER WRITINGS, Benjamin Franklin, 978-0-553-21075-0
THE YELLOW WALLPAPER AND OTHER WRITINGS, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 978-0-553-21375-1
FAUST: FIRST PART, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 978-0-553-21348-5
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, Kenneth Grahame, 978-0-553-21368-3
THE COMPLETE FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, translated by Jack Zipes, 978-0-553-38216-7
ROOTS, Alex Haley, 978-0-440-17464-6
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, Thomas Hardy, 978-0-553-21331-7
JUDE THE OBSCURE, Thomas Hardy, 978-0-553-21191-7
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE, Thomas Hardy, 978-0-553-21024-8
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE, Thomas Hardy, 978-0-553-21269-3
TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES, Thomas Hardy, 978-0-553-21168-9
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 978-0-553-21270-9
THE SCARLET LETTER, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 978-0-553-21009-5
THE FAIRY TALES OF HERMANN HESSE, Hermann Hesse, 978-0-553-37776-7
SIDDHARTHA, Hermann Hesse, 978-0
-553-20884-9
THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER, Homer, 978-0-553-21399-7
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, Victor Hugo, 978-0-553-21370-6
FOUR GREAT PLAYS: A DOLL’S HOUSE, GHOSTS, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, and THE WILD DUCK, Henrik Ibsen, 978-0-553-21280-8
THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, Henry James, 978-0-553-21127-6
THE TURN OF THE SCREW AND OTHER SHORT FICTION, Henry James, 978-0-553-21059-0
A COUNTRY DOCTOR, Sarah Orne Jewett, 978-0-553-21498-7
DUBLINERS, James Joyce, 978-0-553-21380-5
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, James Joyce, 978-0-553-21404-8
THE METAMORPHOSIS, Franz Kafka, 978-0-553-21369-0
THE STORY OF MY LIFE, Helen Keller, 978-0-553-21387-4
CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS, Rudyard Kipling, 978-0-553-21190-0
THE JUNGLE BOOK, Rudyard Kipling, 978-0-553-21199-3
KIM, Rudyard Kipling, 978-0-553-21332-4
LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER, D. H. Lawrence, 978-0-553-21262-4
SONS AND LOVERS, D. H. Lawrence, 978-0-553-21192-4
WOMEN IN LOVE, D. H. Lawrence, 978-0-553-21454-3
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Gaston Leroux, 978-0-553-21376-8
BABBITT, Sinclair Lewis, 978-0-553-21486-4
MAIN STREET, Sinclair Lewis, 978-0-553-21451-2
THE CALL OF THE WILD and WHITE FANG, Jack London, 978-0-553-21233-4
THE SEA WOLF, Jack London, 978-0-553-21225-9
TO BUILD A FIRE AND OTHER STORIES, Jack London, 978-0-553-21335-5
THE PRINCE, Niccolò Machiavelli, 978-0-553-21278-5
DEATH IN VENICE AND OTHER STORIES, Thomas Mann, 978-0-553-21333-1
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 978-0-553-21406-2
OF HUMAN BONDAGE, W. Somerset Maugham, 978-0-553-21392-8
THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFÉ AND OTHER STORIES, Carson McCullers, 978-0-553-27254-3
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, 978-0-553-26963-5
THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, Carson McCullers, 978-0-553-25051-0
BILLY BUDD, SAILOR AND OTHER STORIES, Herman Melville, 978-0-553-21274-7
MOBY-DICK, Herman Melville, 978-0-553-21311-9
ON LIBERTY and UTILITARIANISM, John Stuart Mill, 978-0-553-21414-7
THE ANNOTATED MILTON, John Milton, 978-0-553-58110-2
THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, 978-0-553-21402-4
COMMON SENSE, Thomas Paine, 978-0-553-21465-9
THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO, Plato, 978-0-553-21371-3
THE TELL-TALE HEART AND OTHER WRITINGS, Edgar Allan Poe, 978-0-553-21228-0
The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Page 75