by John Milton
The Scene before the Prison in Gaza
Samson. A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or shade,
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
5
Relieves me from my task of servile toyl,
Daily in the common Prison else enjoyn’d me,
Where I a Prisoner chain’d, scarce freely draw
The air imprison’d also, close and damp,
Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends,
10
The breath of Heav’n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn Feast the people hold
To Dagon12 thir Sea-Idol, and forbid
Laborious works, unwillingly this rest
15
Thir Superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease;
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
20
Of Hornets arm’d, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heav’n foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at last in sight
25
Of both my Parents all in flames ascended
From off the Altar, where an Off’ring burn’d,
As in a fiery column charioting
His Godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit reveal’d to Abraham’s race?
30
Why was my breeding order’d and prescrib’d
As of a person separate to God,
Design’d for great exploits; if I must dye
Betray’d, Captiv’d, and both my Eyes put out,
Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;
35
To grind in Brazen Fetters under task
With this Heav’n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labour of a Beast, debas’t
Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
40
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;
Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine Prediction; what if all foretold
45
Had been fulfill’d but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but my self?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodg’d, how easily bereft me,
Under the Seal of silence could not keep,
50
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,
O’recome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom? Vast, unwieldy, burdensom,
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Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest suttleties, not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command.
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my Hair.
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But peace, I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation,13 which herein
Happ’ly had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,
And proves the sourse of all my miseries;
65
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask14 a life to wail, but chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse then chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!
70
Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull’d, which might in part my grief have eas’d,
Inferiour to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,
75
They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos’d
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more then half.
80
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first created Beam, and thou great Word,
Let there be light, and light was over all;
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Why am I thus bereav’d thy prime decree?
The Sun to me is dark
And silent as the Moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar15 cave.
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Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life it self, if it be true
That light is in the Soul,
She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th’ eye confin’d?
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So obvious and so easie to be quench’t,
And not as feeling through all parts diffus’d,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exil’d from light;
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
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To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but O yet more miserable!
My self, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,
Buried, yet not exempt
By priviledge of death and burial
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From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious16 more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
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But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet stealing this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Thir daily practice to afflict me more.
115
Chorus. This, this is he; softly a while,
Let us not break in upon him;
O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelesly diffus’d,17
With languish’t head unpropt,
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As one past hope, abandon’d,
And by himself giv’n over;
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O’re worn and soild;
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be hee,
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That Heroic that Renown’d,
Irresistible18 Samson? whom unarm’d
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could withstand;
Who tore the Lion, as the Lion tears the Kid,19
Ran on embattell’d Armies clad in Iron,
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And weaponless himself,
Made Arms ridiculous, useless the forgery
Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer’d Cuirass,
Chalybean20 temper’d steel, and frock of mail
Adamantean Proof;
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But safest he who stood aloof,
When insupportably21 his foot advanc’t,
In scorn of thir proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurn’d them to death by Troops. The bold Ascalonite22
Fled from his Lion ramp,23 old Warriors turn’d
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&
nbsp; Thir plated backs under his heel;
Or grovling soild thir crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what trivial24 weapon came to hand,
The Jaw of a dead Ass, his sword of bone,
A thousand fore-skins25 fell, the flower of Palestin
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In Ramath-lechi famous to this day:
Then by main force pull’d up, and on his shoulders bore
The Gates of Azza, Post, and massie Bar
Up to the Hill of Hebron, seat of Giants old,
No journey of a Sabbath day, and loaded so;
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Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heav’n.26
Which shall I first bewail,
Thy Bondage or lost Sight,
Prison within Prison
Inseparably dark?
155
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)
The Dungeon of thy self; thy Soul
(Which Men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)
Imprison’d now indeed,
In real darkness of the body dwells,
160
Shut up from outward light
T’ incorporate with gloomy night;
For inward light alas
Puts forth no visual beam.
O mirror of our fickle state,27
165
Since man on earth unparallel’d!
The rarer thy example stands,
By how much from the top of wondrous glory,
Strongest of mortal men,
To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall’n.
170
For him I reckon not in high estate
Whom long descent of birth
Or the sphear of fortune raises;
But thee whose strength, while vertue was her mate,
Might have subdu’d the Earth,
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Universally crown’d with highest praises.
Samson. I hear the sound of words, thir sense the air
Dissolves unjointed e’re it reach my ear.
Chorus. Hee speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might,
The glory late of Israel, now the grief;
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We come thy friends and neighbours not unknown
From Eshtaol and Zora’s fruitful Vale28
To visit or bewail thee, or if better,
Counsel or Consolation we may bring,
Salve to thy Sores; apt words have power to swage
185
The tumors29 of a troubl’d mind,
And are as Balm to fester’d wounds.
Samson. Your coming, Friends, revives me, for I learn
Now of my own experience, not by talk,
How counterfeit a coin they are who friends
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Bear in their Superscription30 (of the most
I would be understood): in prosperous days
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head
Not to be found, though sought. Yee see, O friends,
How many evils have enclos’d me round;
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Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,
Blindness, for had I sight, confus’d with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who like a foolish Pilot have shipwrack’t
My Vessel trusted to me from above,
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Gloriously rigg’d; and for a word, a tear,
Fool, have divulg’d the secret gift of God
To a deceitful Woman: tell me Friends,
Am I not sung and proverb’d for a Fool
In every street, do they not say, how well
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Are come upon him his deserts? yet why?
Immeasurable strength they might behold
In me, of wisdom nothing more then mean;
This with the other should, at least, have paird,31
These two proportiond ill drove me transverse.32
210
Chorus. Tax not divine disposal, wisest Men
Have err’d, and by bad Women been deceiv’d;
And shall again, pretend they ne’re so wise.
Deject not then so overmuch thy self,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides;
215
Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather
Then of thine own Tribe fairer, or as fair,
At least of thy own Nation, and as noble.
Samson. The first I saw at Timna,33 and she pleas’d
220
Mee, not my Parents, that I sought to wed,
The daughter of an Infidel: they knew not
That what I motion’d was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urg’d
The Marriage on; that by occasion hence
225
I might begin Israel’s Deliverance,
The work to which I was divinely call’d;
She proving false, the next I took to Wife
(O that I never had! fond wish too late)
Was in the Vale of Sorec, Dalila,
230
That specious Monster, my accomplisht snare.
I thought it lawful from my former act,
And the same end; still watching to oppress
Israel’s oppressours: of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I my self,
235
Who vanquisht with a peal34 of words (O weakness!)
Gave up my fort of silence to a Woman.
Chorus. In seeking just occasion to provoke
The Philistine, thy Countries Enemy,
Thou never wast remiss, I bear thee witness:
240
Yet Israel still serves with all his Sons.35
Samson. That fault I take not on me, but transfer
On Israel’s Governours, and Heads of Tribes,
Who seeing those great acts which God had done
Singly by me against their Conquerours
245
Acknowledg’d not, or not at all consider’d
Deliverance offerd: I on th’ other side
Us’d no ambition to commend my deeds,36
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the dooer;
But they persisted deaf, and would not seem
250
To count them things worth notice, till at length
Thir Lords the Philistines with gather’d powers
Enterd Judea seeking mee, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham was retir’d,
Not flying, but fore-casting in what place
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To set upon them, what advantag’d best;
Mean while the men of Judah to prevent
The harrass of thir Land, beset me round;
I willingly on some conditions came
Into thir hands, and they as gladly yield me
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To the uncircumcis’d a welcom prey,
Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threds
Toucht with the flame: on thir whole Host I flew
Unarm’d, and with a trivial weapon fell’d
Their choicest youth; they only liv’d who fled.
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Had Judah that day join’d, or one whole Tribe,
They had by this possess’d the Towers of Gath,37
And lorded over them whom now they serve;
But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
And by thir vices brought to servitude,
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Then to love Bondage more then Liberty,
Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty;38
And to despise, or envy, or suspect
Whom God hath of his special favour rais’d
As thir Deliverer; if he aught begin,
275
How frequent to desert him, and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?
&n
bsp; Chorus. Thy words to my remembrance bring
How Succoth and the Fort of Penuel
This great Deliverer contemn’d,
280
The matchless Gideon in pursuit
Of Madian and her vanquisht Kings:39
And how ingrateful Ephraim
Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument,
Not worse then by his shield and spear
285
Defended Israel from the Ammonite,
Had not his prowess quell’d thir pride
In that sore battel when so many dy’d
Without Reprieve adjudg’d to death,
For want of well pronouncing Shibboleth.40
290
Samson. Of such examples add mee to the roul,
Mee easily indeed mine41 may neglect,
But Gods propos’d deliverance not so.
Chorus. Just are the ways of God,42
And justifiable to Men;
295
Unless there be who think not God at all,
If any be, they walk obscure;43
For of such Doctrine never was there School,
But the heart of the Fool,44
And no man therein Doctor but himself.
300
Yet more there be who doubt his ways not just,
As to his own edicts, found contradicting,
Then give the rains to wandring thought,
Regardless of his glories diminution;
Till by thir own perplexities involv’d
305
They ravel more, still less resolv’d,
But never find self-satisfying solution.
As if they would confine th’ interminable,
And tie him to his own prescript,
Who made our Laws to bind us, not himself,
310
And hath full right t’ exempt
Whom so it pleases him by choice
From National obstriction,45 without taint
Of sin, or legal debt;
For with his own Laws he can best dispence.
315
He would not else who never wanted means,
Nor in respect of th’ enemy just cause
To set his people free,