Paradise Regained
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Project Note
This is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND. This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
The source of this document is the Early English Books Online (EEBO-TCP) website. Those books were transcribed in a character for character manner and can be very cumbersome to read since there was no standard spelling during that time. Many spelling variations such as "unlesse", "vnlesse", and "vnles" regularly appear.
This project was conceived to clean up those books as much as possible and make them more accessible to the interested reader, leading to the creation of a massive list of variant spellings and their corrections. This was used to clean up the text, but is of course only as complete as the list itself. Because of the nature of the original transcription, some words have missing characters or places where the original language (e.g., Greek) was not transcribed. This effort does not change that. Be aware that the original transcription can also be faulty and in some cases entire sentences may be missing.
Although this is no substitute for a properly compared, proofed, and scholarly edition, I believe that the result is a document which is far more accessible, particularly for searching for terms using standard spelling. The document has been cleaned and presented in what I hope is a pleasing and useful format for the vast majority of Christian brothers and sisters who just want access to read these spiritually nourishing works.
However, a word of warning: The Puritans were a very diverse group of people and their age was characterized with godliness, but also much upheaval, disputation and strife. They disagreed on many doctrines and some of these works contain less orthodox or Scriptural views than others. The reader is strongly advised to read with discernment, particularly if it is unknown whether author is trustworthy.
This project took a huge amount of time and skill to bring to fruition. I would particularly like to thank David Jonescue for the initial list of Puritans he found on EEBO and the concept behind this project as well as the continuous, unceasing efforts toward seeing this complete. Without his labor, this would not be available. Alex Sarrouf was invaluable in providing the initial list of over 7,000 spelling variations he had identified and corrected, as well as continuing to review more than 16,000 additions to that list for any typos.
Logan West
(with David Jonescue and Alex Sarrouf)
www.puritansearch.org
Licensed,
July 2. 1670.
PARADISE REGAIN'D. A POEM. In IV BOOKS. To which is added SAMSON AGONISTES.
The Author JOHN MILTON.
LONDON, Printed by J. M. for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleetstreet, near Temple-Bar. MDCLXXI.
PARADISE REGAIN'D, A POEM. The First BOOK.
I Who e're while the happy Garden sung,
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recover'd Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsit,
And
Eden
raised in the wast Wilderness.
Thou Spirit who ledst this glorious Eremite
Into the Desert, his Victorious Field
Against the Spiritual Foe, and broughtest him thence
10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted Song else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of natures bounds
With prosperous wing full sum'd to tell of deeds
Above Heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an Age,
Worthy t' have not remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer with a voice
More awful then the sound of Trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heavens Kingdom nigh at hand
20
To all Baptiz'd: to his great Baptism flocked
With awe the Regions round, and with them came
From
Nazareth
the Son of
Joseph
deemed
To the flood
Jordan,
came as then obscure,
Unmarkt, unknown; but him the Baptist soon
Descri'd, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his Heavenly Office, nor was long
His witness unconfirm'd: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove
30
The Spirit descended, while the Fathers voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and with the voice divine
Nigh Thunder-struck, th' exalted man, to whom
Such high attest was given, a while survey'd
With wonder, then with envy fraught and rage
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To Council summons all his mighty Peers,
40
Within thick Clouds and dark ten-fold involved,
A gloomy Consistory; and them amidst
With looks agast and sad he thus bespake.
O ancient Powers of Air and this wide world,
For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old Conquest, then remember Hell
Our hated habitation; well ye know
How many Ages, as the years of men,
This Universe we have possessed, and ruled
In manner at our will th'affairs of Earth,
50
Since
Adam
and his facile consort
Eve
Lost Paradise deceived by me, though since
With dread attending when that fatal wound
Shall be inflicted by the Seed of
Eve
Upon my head, long the decrees of Heaven
Delay, for longest time to him is short;
And now too soon for us the circling hours
This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we
Must bide the stroke of that long threatn'd wound,
At least if so we can, and by the head
60
Broken be not intended all our power
To be infring'd, our freedom and our being.
In this fair Empire won of Earth and Air;
For this ill news I bring, the Woman's seed
Destin'd to this, is late of woman born,
His birth to our just fear gave no small cause,
But his growth now to youths full flower; displaying
All virtue, grace and wisdom to achieve
Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear.
Before him a great Prophet, to proclaim
70
His coming, is sent Harbinger, who all
Invites, and in the Consecrated stream
Pretends to wash off sin, and fit them so
Purified to receive him pure, or rather
To do him honor as their King; all come,
And he himself among them was baptized,
Not thence to be more pure, but to receive
The testimony of Heaven, that who he is
Thenceforth the Nations may not doubt; I saw
The Prophet do him reverence, on him rising
80
Out of the water, Heaven above the Clouds
Unfold her Crystal Dores, thence on his head
A perfect Dove descend, whate're it meant,
And out of Heaven the Sovereign voice I heard,
This is my Son beloved, in him am pleased.
His Mother then is mortal, but his Sire,
He who obtains the Monarchy of Heaven,
And what will he not do to advance his Son?
His first-begot we know, and sore have felt,
When his fierce thunder drove us to the deep;
90
Who this is we must learn, for man he seems
In all his lineaments, though in his face
The glimpses of his Fathers glory shine.
Ye see our danger on the utmost edge
Of hazard, which admits no long debate,
But must with something sudden be opposed,
Not force, but well couchit fraud, well woven snares,
E're in the head of Nations he appear
Their King, their Leader, and Supreme on Earth.
I, when no other durst, sole undertook
100
The dismal expedition to find out
And ruin
Adam,
and the exploit performed
Successfully; a calmer voyage now
Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once
Induces best to hope of like success.
He ended, and his words impression left
Of much amazement to th'infernal Crew,
Distracted and surprised with deep dismay
At these sad tidings; but no time was then
For long indulgence to their fears or grief:
110
Unanimous they all commit the care
And management of this main enterprize
To him their great Dictator, whose attempt
At first against mankind so well had thriv'd
In
Adam
's overthrow, and led thir march
From Hell's deep-vaulted Den to dwell in light,
Regents and Potentates, and Kings, yea gods
Of many a pleasant Realm and Province wide.
So to the Coast of
Jordan
he directs
His easy steps; girded with snaky wiles,
120
Where he might likeliest find this new-declared,
This man of men, attested Son of God,
Temptation and all guile on him to try;
So to subvert whom he suspected raised
To end his Raign on Earth so long enjoyed:
But contrary unweeting he fulfilled
The purposed Counsel pre-ordained and fixed
Of the most High, who in full frequence bright
Of Angels, thus to
Gabriel
smiling spake.
Gabriel
this day by proof thou shalt behold,
130
Thou and all Angels conversant on Earth
With man or men's affairs, how I begin
To verify that solemn message late,
On which I sent thee to the Virgin pure
In
Galilee,
that she should bear a Son
Great in Renown, and called the Son of God;
Then toldst her doubting how these things could be
To her a Virgin, that on her should come
The Holy Ghost, and the power of the highest
O're-shadow her: this man born and now up-grown,
140
To show him worthy of his birth divine
And high prediction, henceforth I expose
To Satan; let him tempt and now assay
His utmost subtlety, because he boasts
And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng
Of his Apostasy; he might have learnt
Less over-weening, since he failed in
Job,
Whose constant perseverance overcame
Whate're his cruel malice could invent.
He now shall know I can produce a man
150
Of female Seed, far abler to resist
All his solicitations, and at length
All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell,
Winning by Conquest what the first man lost
By fallacy surprised. But first I mean
To exercise him in the Wilderness,
There he shall first lay down the rudiments
Of his great warfare, e're I send him forth
To conquer Sin and Death the two grand soes,
By Humiliation and strong Sufferance:
160
His weakness shall overcome Satanic strength
And all the world, and mass of sinful flesh;
That all the Angels and Aetherial Powers,
They now, and men hereafter may discern,
From what consummate virtue I have chose
This perfect Man, by merit called my Son,
To earn Salvation for the Sons of men.
So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven
Admiring stood a space, then into Hymns
Burst forth, and in Celestial measures moved,
170
Circling the Throne and Singing, while the hand
Sung with the voice, and this the argument.
Victory and Triumph to the Son of God
Now entering his great duel, not of arms,
But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles.
The Father knows the Son; therefore secure
Ventures his filial Virtue, though untri'd,
Against whate're may tempt, whate're seduce,
Allure, or terrify, or undermine.
Be frustrate all ye stratagems of Hell,
180
And devilish machinations come to naught.
So they in Heaven their Odes and Vigils tuned:
Mean while the Son of God, who yet some days
Lodg'd in
Bethabara
where
John
baptized,
Musing and much revolving in his breast,
How best the mighty work he might begin
Of Savior to mankind, and which way first
Publish his God-like office now mature,
One day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading;
And his deep thoughts, the better to converse
190
With solitude, till far from track of men,
Thought following thought, and step by step led on,
He entered now the bordering Desert wild,
And with dark shades and rocks environ'd round,
His holy Meditations thus persu'd.
O what a multitude of thoughts at once
Awakn'd in me swarm, while I consider
What from within I feel myself, and hear
What from without comes often to my ears,
Ill sorting with my present state compared.
200
When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing, all my mind was set
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do
What might be public good; myself I thought
Born to that end, born to promote all truth,
All righteous things: therefore above my years,
The Law of God I read, and found it sweet,
Made it my whole delight, and in it grew
To such perfection, that e're yet my age
Had measured twice six years, at our great Feast
210
I went into the Temple, there to hear
The Teachers of our Law, and to propose
What might improve my knowledge or their own;
And was admired by all, yet this not all
To which my Spirit aspir'd, victorious deeds
Flam'd in my heart, heroic acts, one while
To rescue
Israel
from the
Roman
yoke,
Then to subdue and quell over all the earth
Brute violence and proud Tyrannick power,
Till truth were freed, and equity restored:
220
Yet held it more human, more heavenly first
By winning words to conquer willing hearts,
And make persuasion do the work of fear;
At least to try, and teach the erring Soul
Not willfully mis-doing, but unware
Missed; the stubborn only to destroy.
These growing thoughts my Mother soon perceiving
By words at times cast forth inly rejoiced,
And said to me apart, high are thy thoughts
O Son, but nourish them and let them soar
230
To what highth sacred virtue and true worth
Can raise them, though above example high;
By matchless Deeds express thy matchless Sire.
For know, thou art no Son of mortal man,
Though men esteem thee low of Parentage,
Thy Father is the Eternal King, who rules
All Heaven and Earth, Angels and Sons of men,
A messenger from God fore-told thy birth
Conceiv'd in me a Virgin, he fore-told
Thou shouldst be great and sit on
David
's Throne,
240
And of thy Kingdom there should be no end.
At thy Nativity a glorious Choir
Of Angels in the fields of
Bethlehem
sung
To Shepherds watching at their folds by night,
And told them the Messiah now was born,
Where they might see him, and to thee they came;
Directed to the Manger where thou laisit,
For in the Inn was left no better room:
A Star, not seen before in Heaven appearing
Guided the Wise Men thither from the East,
250
To honor thee with Incense, Myrrh, and Gold,
By whose bright course led on they found the place,
Affirming it thy Star new grav'n in Heaven,
By which they knew thee King of
Israel
born.
Just
Simeon
and Prophetic
Anna,
warned
By Vision, found thee in the Temple, and spake
Before the Altar and the vested Priest,
Like things of thee to all that present stood.
This having heard, strait I again revolv'd
The Law and Prophets, searching what was writ
260
Concerning the Messiah, to our Scribes
Known partly, and soon found of whom they spake
I am; this chiefly, that my way must lie
Through many a hard assay even to the death,
E're I the promised Kingdom can attain,
Or work Redemption for mankind, whose sins
Full weight must be transferred upon my head.
Yet neither thus disheartn'd or dismayed,
The time prefixed I waited, when behold
The Baptist, (of whose birth I oft had heard,
270
Not knew by sight) now come, who was to come
Before Messiah and his way prepare.
I as all others to his Baptism came,
Which I believed was from above; but he
Strait knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed
Me him (for it was show'n him so from Heaven)
Me him whose Harbinger he was; and first
Refus'd on me his Baptism to confer,
As much his greater, and was hardly won;
But as I rose out of the laving stream,
280
Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence
The Spirit descended on me like a Dove,
And last the sum of all, my Father's voice,
Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his,
Me his beloved Son, in whom alone
He was well pleased; by which I knew the time
Now full, that I no more should live obscure,
But openly begin, as best becomes
The Authority which I derived from Heaven.
And now by some strong motion I am led
290
Into this Wilderness, to what intent
I learn not yet, perhaps I need not know;
For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.
So spake our Morning Star then in his rise,
And looking round on every side beheld
A pathless Desert, dusk with horrid shades;
The way he came not having marked, return
Was difficult, by human steps untrod;
And he still on was led, but with such thoughts
Accompanied of things past and to come
300
Lodg'd in his breast, as well might recommend
Such Solitude before choicest Society.
Full forty days he passed, whether on hill
Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night
Under the covert of some ancient Oak,
Or Cedar, to defend him from the dew,
Or harbor'd in one Cave, is not revealed;
Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt
Till those days ended, hunger'd then at last
Among wild Beasts: they at his sight grew mild,
310
Nor sleeping him nor waking harm'd, his walk
The fiery Serpent fled, and noxious Worm,
The Lion and fierce Tiger glar'd aloof.
But now an aged man in Rural weeds,
Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray Ewe,
Or withered sticks to gather; which might serve
Against a Winters day when winds blow keen,
To warm him wet returned from field at Eve,
He saw approach, who first with curious eye
Perus'd him, then with words thus utt'red spake.
320
Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place
So far from path or road of men, who pass
In Troop or Caravan, for single none
Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here
His Carcass, pin'd with hunger and with droughth?
I ask the rather, and the more admire,
For that to me thou seemest the man, whom late
Our new baptizing Prophet at the Ford
Of
Jordan
honor'd so, and called thee Son
Of God; I saw and heard, for we sometimes
330
Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth
To Town or Village nigh (nighest is far)
Where ought we hear, and curious are to hear,
What happ'ns new; Fame also finds us out.
To whom the Son of God. Who brought me hither
Will bring me hence, no other Guide I seek.
By Miracle he may, replied the Swain,
What other way I see not, for we here
Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inur'd
More then the Camel, and to drink go far,
340
Men to much misery and hardship born;
But if thou be the Son of God, Command
That out of these hard stones be made thee bread;
So shalt thou save thyself and us relieve
With Food, whereof we wretched seldom taste.
He ended, and the Son of God replied.
Think'st thou such force in Bread? is it not written
(For I discern thee other then thou seemest)
Man lives not by Bread only, but each Word
Proceeding from the mouth of God; who fed
350
Our Fathers here with Manna; in the Mount
Moses
was forty days, nor eat nor drank,
And forty days
Elijah
without food
Wandred this barren waste, the same I now:
Why dost thou then suggest to me distrust,
Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?
Whom thus answered th' Arch Fiend now undisguis'd.
'It is true, I am that Spirit unfortunate,
Who leagu'd with millions more in rash revolt
Kept not my happy Station, but was driven
360
With them from bliss to the bottomless deep,
Yet to that hideous place not so confined
By rigor unconniving, but that oft
Leaving my dolorous Prison I enjoy
Large liberty to round this Globe of Earth,
Or range in th' Air, nor from the Heaven of Heavens
Hath he excluded my resort sometimes.
I came among the Sons of God, when he
Gave up into my hands
Uzzean Job
To prove him, and illustrate his high worth;
370
And when to all his Angels he proposed
To draw the proud King
Ahab
into fraud
That he might fall in
Ramoth,
they demuring,
I undertook that office, and the tongues
Of all his flattering Prophets glibb'd with lies
To his destruction, as I had in charge.
For what he bids I do; though I have lost
Much luster of my native brightness, lost
To be beloved of God, I have not lost
To love, at least contemplate and admire
380
What I see excellent in good, or fair,
Or virtuous, I should so have lost all sense.
What can be then less in me then desire
To see thee and approach thee, whom I know
Declar'd the Son of God, to hear attent
Thy wisdom, and behold thy God-like deeds?
Men generally think me much a foe
To all mankind: why should I? they to me
Never did wrong or violence, by them
I lost not what I lost, rather by them
390
I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell
Copartner in these Regions of the World,
If not disposer; lend them oft my aid,
Oft my advice by presages and signs,
And answers, oracles, portents and dreams,
Wherbey they may direct their future life.
Envy they say excites me, thus to gain
Companions of my misery and woe.
At first it may be; but long since with woe
Never acquainted, now I feel by proof,
400
That fellowship in pain divides not smart,
Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load.
Small consolation then, were Man adjoin'd:
This wounds me most (what can it less) that Man,
Man fallen shall be restored, I never more.
To whom our Savior sternly thus replied.
Deservedly thou griev'st, composed of lies
From the beginning, and in lies wilt end;
Who boast'st release from Hell, and leave to come
Into the Heaven of Heavens; thou comest indeed,
410
As a poor miserable captive thrall,
Comes to the place where he before had sat
Among the Prime in Splendour, now deposed,
Ejected, emptied, gaz'd, unpityed, shunned,
A spectacle of ruin or of scorn
To all the Host of Heaven; the happy place
Imports to thee no happiness, no joy,
Rather inflames thy torment, representing
Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable,
So never more in Hell then when in Heaven.
420
But thou art serviceable to Heaven's King.
Wilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear
Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites?
What but thy malice moved thee to misdeem
Ofirghteous
Job,
then cruelly to afflict him
With all inflictions, but his patience won?
The other service was thy chosen task,
To be a liar in four hundred mouths;
For lying is thy sustenance, thy food.
Yet thou pretend'st to truth; all Oracles
430
By thee are given, and what confessed more true
Among the Nations? that hath been thy craft,
By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies.
But what have been thy answers, what but dark
Ambiguous and with double sense deluding,
Which they who asked have seldom understood,
And not well understood as good not known?
Who ever by consulting at thy shrine
Return'd the wiser, or the more instruct
To fly or follow what concerned him most,
440
And run not sooner to his fatal snare?
For God hath justly given the Nationsup
To thy Delusions; justly, since they fell
Idolatrous, but when his purpose is
Among them to declare his Providence
To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth,
But from him or his Angels President
In every Province, who themselves disdaining
To approach thy Temples, give thee in command
What to the smallest tittle thou shalt say
450
To thy Adorers; thou with trembling fear,
Or like a Fawning Parasite obey'st;
Then to thyself ascrib'st the truth fore-told.
But this thy glory shall be soon retrench'd;
No more shalt thou by oracling abuse
The Gentiles; henceforth Oracles are ceased,
And thou no more with Pomp and Sacrifice
Shalt be inquired at
Delphi
or elsewhere,
At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute.
God hath now sent his living Oracle
460
Into the World, to teach his final will,
And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell
In pious Hearts, an inward Oracle
To all truth requisite for men to know.
So spake our Savior; but the subtle Fiend,
Though inly stung with anger and disdain,
Dissembl'd, and this Answer smooth returned.
Sharply thou hast insisted on rebuke,
And urged me hard with doings, which not will
But misery hath rested from me; where
Easily canst thou find one miserable,
470
And not enforced ofttimes to part from truth;
If it may stand him more instead to lie,
Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure?
But thou art placit above me, thou art Lord;
From thee I can and must submiss endure
Check or reproof, and glad to scape so quit.
Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk,
Smooth on the tongue discourst, pleasing to th'ear,
And tuneable as Silvan Pipe or Song;
480
What wonder then if I delight to hear
Her dictates from thy mouth? most men admire
Virtue, who follow not her lore: permit me
To hear thee when I come (since no man comes)
And talk at least, though I despair to attain.
Thy Father, who is holy, wise and pure,
Suffers the Hypocrite or Atheous Priest
To tread his Sacred Courts, and minister
About his Altar, handling holy things,
Praying or vowing, and vouchsafed his voice
490
To
Balaam
Reprobate, a Prophet yet
Inspir'd; disdain not such access to me.
To whom our Savior with unalter'd brow.
Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope,
I bid not or forbid; do as thou find'st
Permission from above; thou canst not more.
He added not; and Satan bowing low
His gray dissimulation, disappear'd
Into thin Air diffused: for now began
Night with her sullen wing to double-shade
500
The Desert, Fowls in thir clay nests were couchit;
And now wild Beasts came forth the woods to roam.
The End of the First Book.
PARADISE REGAIN'D. The Second BOOK.
MEan while the new-baptized, who yet remained
At
Jordan
with the Baptist, and had seen
Him whom they heard so late expressly called
Jesus Messiah Son of God declared,
And on that high Authority had believed,
And with him talked, and with him lodged, I mean
Andrew
and
Simon,
famous after known
With others though in Holy Writ not named,
Now missing him thir joy so lately found,
So lately found, and so abruptly gone,
10
Began to doubt, and doubted many days,
And as the days increased, increased thir doubt:
Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,
And for a time caught up to God, as once
Moses
was in the Mount, and missing long;
And the great
Thisbite
who onfiery wheels
Rode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.
Therefore as those young Prophets then with care
Sought lost
Elijah,
so in each place these
Night to
Bethabara;
in
Jericho
20
The City of Palms,
Aenon,
and
Salem
Old,
Machaerus
and each Town or City wall'd
On this side the broad lake
Genezaret,
Or in
Perea,
but returned in vain.
Then on the bank of
Jordan,
by a Creek:
Where winds with Reeds, and Osiers whisp'ring play
Plain Fishermen, no greater men them call,
Close in a Cottage low together got
Thir unexpected loss and plaints out breathed.
Alas, from what high hope to what relapse
30
Unlook'd for are we fallen, our eyes beheld
Messiah certainly now come, so long
Expected of our Fathers; we have heard
His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth,
Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand,
The Kingdom shall to
Israel
be restored:
Thus we rejoiced, but soon our joy is turned
Into perplexity and new amaze:
For whither is he gone, what accident
Hath wrapped him from us? will he now retire
40
After appearance, and again prolong
Our expectation? God of
Israel,
Send thy Messiah forth, the time is come;
Behold the Kings of the Earth how they oppress
Thy chosen, to what highth thir power unjust
They have exalted, and behind them cast
All fear of thee, arise and vindicate
Thy Glory, freethy people from thir yoke,
But let us wait; thus far he hath performed,
Sent his Anointed, and to us revealed him,
50
By his great Prophet, pointed at and shown,
In public, and with him we have conversed;
Let us be glad of this, and all our fears
Lay on his Providence; he will not fail
Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall,
Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence,
Soon we shall see our hope, our joy return.
Thus they out of their plaints new hope resume
To find whom at the first they found unsought:
But to his Mother
Mary,
when she saw
60
Others returned from Baptism, not her Son,
Nor left at
Jordan,
tidings of him none;
Within her breast, though calm; her breast though pure,
Motherly cares and fears got head, and raised
Some troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad.
O what avails me now that honor high
To have conceived of God, or that salute
Hale highly favor'd, among women blest;
While I to sorrows am no less advancit,
And fears as eminent, above the lot
70
Of other women, by the birth I bore,
In such a season born when scarce a Shed
Could be obtained to shelter him or me
From the bleak air; a Stable was our warmth,
A Manger his, yet soon enforcit to fly
Thence into
Egypt,
till the Murd'rous King
Were dead, who sought his life, and missing filled
With Infant blood the streets of
Bethlehem;
From
Egypt
home returned, in
Nazareth
Hath been our dwelling many years, his life
80
Private, unactive, calm, contemplative,
Little suspicious to any King; but now
Full grown to Man, acknowledged, as I hear,
By
John
the Baptist, and in public shown,
Son owned from Heaven by his Father's voice;
I looked for some great change; to Honor? no,
But trouble, as old
Simeon
plain fore-told,
That to the fall and rising he should be
Of many in
Israel,
and to a sign
Spoken against, that through my very Soul
90
A sword shall pierce, this is my favor'd lot,
My Exaltation to Afflictions high;
Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest;
I will not argue that, nor will repine.
But where delays he now? some great intent
Conceals him: when twelve years he scarce had seen,
I lost him, but so found, as well I saw
He could not lose himself; but went about
His Father's business; what he meant I mus'd,
Since understand; much more his absence now
100
Thus long to some great purpose he obscures.
But I to wait with patience am inur'd;
My heart hath been a storehouse long of things
And sayings laid up, portending strange events.
Thus
Mary
pondering oft, and oft to mind
Recalling what remarkably had passed
Since first her Salutation heard, with thoughts
Meekly composed awaited the fulfilling:
The while her Son tracing the Desert wild,
110
Sole but with holiest Meditations fed,
Into himself descended, and at once
All his great work to come before him set;
How to begin, how to accomplish best
His end of being on Earth, and mission high:
For Satan with sly preface to return
Had left him vacant, and with speed was gone
Up to the middle Region of thick Air,
Where all his Potentates in Council sat;
There without sign of boast, or sign of joy,
120
Solicitous and blank he thus began.
Princes, Heavens ancient Sons, Aethereal Thrones,
Demonian Spirits now, from the Element
Each of his reign allotted, rightlier called,
Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath,
So may we hold our place and these mild seats
Without new trouble; such an Enemy
Is ris'n to invade us, who no less
Threat'ns our expulsion down to Hell;
I, as I undertook, and with the vote
Consenting in full frequence was impowr'd,
130
Have found him, viewed him, tasted him, but find
Far other labor to be undergon
Then when I dealt with
Adam
first of Men,
Though
Adam
by his Wives allurement fell,
However to this Man inferior far,
If he be Man by Mothers side at least,
With more then human gifts from Heaven adorned,
Perfections absolute, Graces divine,
And amplitude of mind to greatest Deeds.
Therefore I am returned, lest confidence
140
Of my success with
Eve
in Paradise
Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure
Of like succeeding here; I summon all
Rather to be in readiness, with hand
Or counsel to assist; lest I who erst
Thought none my equal, now be over-matched.
So spake the old Serpent doubting, and from all
With clamour was assured thir utmost aid
At his command; when from amidst them rose
Belial
the dislolutest Spirit that fell,
150
The sensuallest, and after
Asmodai
The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised.
Set women in his eye and in his walk,
Among daughters of men the fairest found;
Many are in each Region passing fair
As the noon Sky; more like to Goddesses
Then Mortal Creatures, graceful and discreet,
Expert in amorous Arts, enchanting tongues
Perswasive, Virgin majesty with mild
And sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach,
160
Skill'd to retire, and in retiring draw
Hearts after them tangl'd in Amorous Nets.
Such object hath the power to soft'n and tame
Severest temper, smooth the rugged'st brow,
Enerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,
Draw out with credulous desire, and lead
At will the manliest, resolutest breast,
As the Magnetic hardest Iron draws.
Women, when nothing else, beguile'd the heart
Of wisest
Solomon,
and made him build,
170
And made him bow to the God's of his Wives.
To whom quick answer Satan thus returned.
Belial,
in much uneven scale thou weigh'st
All others by thyself; because of old
Thou thyself doat'st on womankind, admiring
Thir shape, thir color, and attractive grace,
None are, thou thinkest, but taken with such toys,
Before the Flood thou with thy lusty Crew,
False titl'd Sons of God, roaming the Earth
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,
180
And coupl'd with them, and begot a race.
Have we not seen, or by relation heard,
In Courts and Regal Chambers how thou lurk'st,
In Wood or Grove by mossie Fountain side,
In Valley or Green Meadow to way-lay
Some beauty rare,
Calisto, Clymene,
Daphne,
or
Semele, Antiopa,
Or
Amymone, Syrinx,
many more
Too long, then lay'st thy scapes on names adored,
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter,
or
Pan,
190
Satyr, or Fawn, or Silvan? But these haunts
Delight not all; among the Sons of Men,
How many have with a smile made small account
Of beauty and her lures, easily scorned
All her assaults, on worthier things intent?
Remember that
Pellean
Conqueror,
A youth, how all the Beauties of the East
He slightly viewed, and slightly over-passed;
How he sirnam'd of
Africa
dismissed
In his prime youth the fair
Iberian
maid.
200
For
Solomon
he lived at ease, and full
Of honor, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond
Higher design then to enjoy his State;
Thence to the bait of Women lay exposed;
But he whom we attempt is wiser far
Then
Solomon,
of more exalted mind,
Made and set wholly on the accomplishment
Of greatest things; what woman will you find,
Though of this Age the wonder and the fame,
On whom his leisure will vouchsafe an eye
210
Of fond desire? or should she confident,
As sitting Queen adored on Bauties Throne,
Descend with all her winning charms beg'rt
To enamour, as the Zone of
Venus
once
Wrought that effect on
Jove,
so Fables tell;
How would one look from his Majestick brow
Seated as on the top of Virtues hill,
Discount'nance her despised, and put to rout
All her array; her female pride deject,
Or turn to reverent awe? for Beauty stands
220
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive; cease to admire, and all her Plumes
Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abashed:
Therefore with manlier objects we must try
His constancy, with such as have more show
Of worth, of honor, glory, and popular praise;
Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd;
Or that which only seems to satisfy
Lawful desires of Nature, not beyond;
230
And now I know he hungers where no food
Is to be found, in the wide Wilderness;
The rest commit to me, I shall let pass
No advantage, and his strength as oft assay.
He ceased, and heard thir grant in loud acclaim;
Then forthwith to him takes a chosen band
Of Spirits likest to himself in guile
To be at hand, and at his beck appear,
If cause were to unfold some active Scene
Of various persons each to know his part;
240
Then to the Desert takes with these his flight;
Where still from shade to shade the Son of God
After forty days fasting had remained,
Now hungering first, and to himself thus said.
Where will this end? four times ten days I have passed
Wandering this woody maze, and human food
Nor tasted, nor had appetite; that Fast
To Virtue I impute not, or count part
Of what I suffer here; if Nature need not,
Or God support Nature without repast
250
Though needing, what praise is it to endure?
But now I feel I hunger, which declares,
Nature hath need of what she asks; yet God
Can satisfy that need some other way,
Though hunger still remain: so it remain
Without this bodies wasting, I content me,
And from the sting of Famine fear no harm,
Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts that feed
Mee hungering more to do my Fathers will.
It was the hour of night, when thus the Son
260
Commun'd in silent walk, then laid him down
Under the hospitable covert nigh
Of Trees thick interwoven; there he slept,
And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream,
Of meats and drinks, Natures refreshment sweet;
Him thought, he by the Brook of
Cherith
stood
And saw the Ravens with their horny beaks
Food to
Elijah
bringing Even and Morn,
Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought:
He saw the Prophet also how he fled
270
Into the Desert, and how there he slept
Under a Juniper; then how awakt,
He found his Supper on the coals prepared,
And by the Angel was bid rise and eat,
And eat the second time after repose,
The strength whereof suffic'd him forty days;
Sometimes that with
Elijah
he partook,
Or as a guest with
Daniel
at his pulse.
Thus wore out night, and now the Herald Lark
Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry
280
The morns approach, and greet her with his Song:
As lightly from his grassy Couch up rose
Our Savior, and found all was but a dream,
Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting wak'd.
Up to a hill anon his steps he reared,
From whose high top to ken the prospect round,
If Cottage were in view, Sheep-cote or Herd;
But Cottage, Herd or Sheep-cote none he saw,
Only in a bottom saw a pleasant Grove,
With chaunt of tuneful Birds resounding loud;
290
Thither he bent his way, determined there
To rest at noon, and entr'd soon the shade
High rooft and walks beneath, and alleys brown
That opened in the midst a woody Scene,
Natures own work it seemed (Nature taught Art)
And to a Superstitious eye the haunt
Of Wood-God's and Wood-Nymphs; he viewed it round,
When suddenly a man before him stood,
Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad,
As one in City, or Court, or Palace bred,
300
And with fair speech these words to him addressed.
With granted leave officious I return,
But much more wonder that the Son of God
In this wild solitude so long should bide
Of all things destitute, and well I know,
Not without hunger. Others of some note,
As story tells, have trod this Wilderness;
The Fugitive Bond-woman with her Son
Out cast
Nebaioth,
yet found he relief
By a providing Angel; all the race
310
Of
Israel
here had famished, had not God
Rain'd from Heaven Manna, and that Prophet bold
Native of
Thebes
wandering here was fed
Twice by a voice inviting him to eat.
Of thee these forty days none hath regard,
Forty and more deserted here indeed.
To whom thus Jesus; what conclude'st thou hence?
They all had need, I as thou seest have none.
How hast thou hunger then? Satan replied,
Tell me if Food were now before thee set,
320
Would'st thou not eat? Thereafter as I like
The giver, answered Jesus. Why should that
Cause thy refusal, said the subtle Fiend,
Hast thou not right to all Created things,
Owe not all Creatures by just right to thee
Duty and Service, nor to stay till bid,
But tender all their power? nor mention I
Meats by the Law unclean, or offered first
To Idols, those young
Daniel
could refuse;
Nor proffered by an Enemy, though who
330
Would scruple that, with want oppressed? behold
Nature ashamed, or better to express,
Troubl'd that thou shouldst hunger, hath purvey'd
From all the Elements her choicest store
To treat thee as beseems, and as her Lord
With honor, only deign to sit and eat.
He spake no dream, for as his words had end,
Our Savior lifting up his eyes beheld
In ample space under the broadest shade
A Table richly spread, in regal mode,
340
With dishes pill'd, and meats of noblest sort
And savor, Beasts of chase, or Fowl of game,
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd,
Gris-amber-steam'd; all Fish from Sea or Shore,
Freshet, or purling Brook, of shell or fin,
And exquisitest name, for which was drain'd
Pontus
and
Lucrine
Bay, and
Afric
Coast.
Alas how simple, to these Cates compared,
Was that crude Apple that diverted
Eve!
And at a stately side-board by the wine
350
That fragrant smell diffused, in order stood
Tall stripling youths rich clad, of fairer hew
Then
Ganymed
or
Hylas,
distant more
Under the Trees now trip'd, now solemn stood
Nymphs of
Diana
's train, and
Naiades
With fruits and flowers from
Amalthea
's horn,
And Ladies of th'
Hesperides,
that seemed
Fairer then feigned of old, or fabl'd since
Of Fairy Damsels met in Forest wide
By Knights of
Logres,
or of
Lyones,
360
Lancelot
or
Pelleas,
or
Pellenore,
And all the while Harmonious Airs were heard
Of chiming strings, or charming pipes and winds
Of gentlest gale
Arabian
odors fanned
From their soft wings, and
Flora
's earliest smells.
Such was the Splendour, and the Tempter now
His invitation earnestly renewed.
What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?
These are not Fruits forbidden, no interdict
Defends the touching of these viands pure,
370
Thir taste no knowledge, works at least of evil,
But life preserves, destroys life's enemy,
Hunger, with sweet restorative delight.
All these are Spirits of Air, and Woods, and Springs,
Thy gentle Ministers, who come to pay
Thee homage, and acknowledge thee thir Lord:
What doubt'st thou Son of God? sit down and eat.
To whom thus Jesus temperately replied:
Said'st thou not that to all things I had right?
And who withholds my power that right to use?
380
Shall I receive by gift what of my own,
When and where likes me best, I can command?
I can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou,
Command a Table in this Wilderness,
And call swift flights of Angels ministrant
Array'd in Glory on my cup to attend:
Why shouldst thou then obtrude this diligence,
In vain, where no acceptance it can find,
And with my hunger what hast thou to do?
Thy pompous Delicacies I contemn,
390
And count thy specious gifts no gifts but guiles.
To whom thus answered Satan malcontent:
That I have also power to give thou seest,
If of that power I bring thee voluntary
What I might have bestowed on whom I pleased,
And rather opportunely in this place
Chose to impart to thy apparent need,
Why shouldst thou not accept it? but I see
What I can do or offer is suspect;
Of these things others quickly will dispose
400
Whose pains have earn'd the far fet spoil. With that
Both Table and Provision vanished quite
With sound of Harpies wings, and Talons heard;
Only the importune Tempter still remained,
And with these words his temptation pursued.
By hunger, that each other Creature tames,
Thou art not to be harm'd, therefore not moved;
Thy temperance invincible besides,
For no allurement yields to appetite,
And all thy heart is set on high designs,
410
High actions; but wherewith to be atchiev'd?
Great acts require great means of enterprise,
Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth,
A Carpenter thy Father known, thyself
Bred up in poverty and straits at home;
Lost in a Desert here and hunger-bit:
Which way or from what hope dost thou aspire
To greatness? whence Authority deriv'st,
What Followers, what Retinue canst thou gain,
Or at thy heels the dizzy Multitude,
420
Longer then thou canst feed them on thy cost?
Money brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, and Realms;
What raised
Antipater
the
Edomite,
And his Son
Herod
placed on
Judah
's Throne;
(Thy throne) but gold that got him puissant friends?
Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,
Get Riches first, get Wealth, and Treasure heap,
Not difficult, if thou hearken to me,
Riches are mine, Fortune is in my hand;
They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain,
430
While Virtue, Valour, Wisdom sit in want.
To whom thus Jesus patiently replied;
Yet Wealth without these three is impotent,
To gain dominion or to keep it gained.
Witness those ancient Empires of the Earth,
In highth of all thir flowing wealth dissolved:
But men endu'd with these have oft attained
In lowest poverty to highest deeds;
Gideon
and
Jephtha,
and the Shepherd lad,
Whose offspring on the Throne of
Judah
sat
440
So many Ages, and shall yet regain
That seat, and reign in
Israel
without end.
Among the Heathen, (for throughout the World
To me is not unknown what hath been done
Worthy of Memorial) canst thou not remember
Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus?
For I esteem those names of men so poor
Who could do mighty things, and could contemn
Riches though offered from the hand of Kings.
And what in me seems wanting, but that I
450
May also in this poverty as soon
Accomplish what they did, perhaps and more?
Extol not Riches then, the toil of Fools,
The wise man's cumbrance if not snare, more apt
To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge,
Then prompt her to do aught may merit praise.
What if with like aversion I reject
Riches and Realms; yet not for that a Crown,
Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns,
Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights
460
To him who wears the Regal Diadem,
When on his shoulders each man's burden lies;
For therein stands the office of a King,
His Honor, Virtue, Merit and chief Praise,
That for the Public all this weight he bears.
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, Desires, and Fears, is more a King;
Which every wise and virtuous man attains:
And who attains not, ill aspires to rule
Cities of men, or head-strong Multitudes,
470
Subject himself to Anarchy within,
Or lawless passions in him which he serves.
But to guide Nations in the way of truth
By saving Doctrine, and from error lead
To know, and knowing worship God aright,
Is yet more Kingly, this attracts the Soul,
Governs the inner man, the nobler part,
That other over the body only reigns,
And oft by force, which to a generous mind
So reigning can be no sincere delight.
480
Besides to give a Kingdom hath been thought
Greater and nobler done, and to lay down
Far more magnanimous, then to assume.
Riches are needless then, both for themselves,
And for thy reason why they should be sought
To gain a Scepter, oftest better missit.
The End of the Second Book.
PARADISE REGAIN'D. The Third BOOK.
SO spake the Son of God, and Satan stood
A while as mute confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing, and fallacious drift;
At length collecting all his Serpent wiles,
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts.
I see thou knowest what is of use to know,
What best to say canst say, to do canst do;
Thy actions to thy words accord, thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due, thy heart
10
Conteins of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.
Should Kings and Nations from thy mouth consult,
Thy Counsel would be as the Oracle
Urim
and
Thummim,
those oraculous gems
On
Aaron
's breast: or tongue of Seers old
Infallible; or wert thou sought to deeds
That might requireth' array of war, thy skill
Of conduct would be such, that all the world
Could not sustain thy Prowess, or subsist
In battle, though against thy few in arms.
20
These God-like Virtues wherefore dost thou hide?
Affecting private life, or more obscure
In savage Wilderness, wherefore deprive
All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself
The fame and glory, glory the reward
That sole excites to high attempts the flame
Of most erected Spirits, most tempered pure
Aetherial, who all pleasures else despise,
All treasures and all gain esteem as dross,
And dignities and powers all but the highest?
30
Thy years are ripe, and over-ripe, the Son
Of
Macedonian Philip
had e're these
Won
Asia
and the Throne of
Cyrus
held
At his dispose, young
Scipio
had brought down
The
Carthaginian
pride, young
Pompey
quelled
The
Pontic
King and in triumph had rode.
Yet years, and to ripe years judgment mature,
Quench not the thirst of glory, but augment.
Great
Julius,
whom now all the world admires
The more he grew in years, the more inflamed
40
With glory, wept that he had lived so long
Inglorious: but thou yet art not too late.
To whom our Savior calmly thus replied.
Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth
For Empires sake, nor Empire to affect
For glories sake by all thy argument.
For what is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people's praise, if always praise unmixed?
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol
50
[praise,
Things vulgar, & well weighed, scarce worth the
They praise and they admire they know not what;
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extol'd,
To live upon thir tongues and be thir talk,
Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise?
His lot who dares be singularly good.
Th' intelligent among them and the wise
Are few, and glory scarce of few is raised.
This is true glory and renown, when God
60
Looking on the Earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through Heaven
To all his Angels, who with true applause
Recount his praises; thus he did to
Job,
When to extend his fame through Heaven & Earth,
As thou to thy reproach mayst well remember,
He asked thee, hast thou seen my servant
Job?
Famous he was in Heaven, on Earth less known▪
Where glory is false glory, attributed
To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame.
70
They err who count it glorious to subdue
By Conquest far and wide, to over-run
Large Countries, and in field great Battels win,
Great Cities by assault: what do these Worthies,
But rob and spoil, burn, flaughter, and enslave
Peaceable Nations, neighbouring, or remote,
Made Captive, yet deserving freedom more
Then those thir Conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe're they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy,
80
Then swell with pride, and must be titl'd God's,
Great Benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,
Worshipit with Temple, Priest and Sacrifice;
One is the Son of
Jove,
of
Mars
the other,
Till Conqueror Death discover them scarce men,
Rowling in brutish vices, and deformed,
Violent or shameful death thir due reward.
But if there be in glory aught of good,
It may by means far different be attained
Without ambition, war, or violence;
90
By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,
By patience, temperance; I mention still
Him whom thy wrongs with Saintly patience born,
Made famous in a Land and times obscure;
Who names not now with honor patient
Job?
Poor
Socrates
(who next more memorable?)
By what he taught and suffered for so doing,
For truths sake suffering death unjust, lives now
Equal in fame to proudest Conquerors.
Yet if for fame and glory aught be done,
100
Aught suffered; if young
African
for fame
His wasted Country freed from
Pun
••
rage,
The deed becomes unprais'd, the ma
•
〈◊〉
least,
And loses, though but verbal, his
〈◊〉
Shall I seek glory then, as vain me
•
〈◊〉
Oft not deserved? I seek not mine,
〈◊〉
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.
To whom the Tempter murmuring thus replied.
Think not so slight of glory; therein least
Resembling thy great Father: he seeks glory,
110
And for his glory all things made, all things
Orders and governs, nor content in Heaven
By all his Angels glorified, requires
Glory from men, from all men good or bad,
Wise or unwise, no difference, no exemption;
Above all Sacrifice, or hallow'd gift
Glory he requires, and glory he receives
Promiscuous from all Nations, Jew, or Greek,
Or Barbarous, nor exception hath declared;
From us his foes pronouncit glory he exacts.
120
To whom our Savior fervently replied.
And reason; since his word all things produced,
Though chiefly not for glory as prime end,
But to show forth his goodness, and impart
His good communicable to every soul
Freely; of whom what could he less expect
Then glory and benediction, that is thanks,
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense
From them who could return him nothing else,
And not returning that would likeliest render
130
Contempt instead, dishonor, obloquy?
Hard recompense, unsuitable return
For so much good, so much beneficence.
But why should man seek glory? who of his own
Hath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs
But condemnation, ignominy, and shame?
Who for so many benefits received
Turn'd recreant to God, ingrate and false,
And so of all true good himself despoil'd,
Yet, sacrilegious, to himself would take
140
That which to God alone of right belongs;
Yet so much bounty is in God, such grace,
That who advance his glory, not thir own,
Them he himself to glory will advance.
So spake the Son of God; and here again
Satan had not to answer, but stood struck
With guilt of his own sin, for he himself
Insatiable of glory had lost all,
Yet of another Plea bethought him soon.
Of glory as thou wilt, said he, so deem,
150
Worth or not worth the seeking, let it pass:
But to a Kingdom thou art born, ordained
To sit upon thy Father
David
's Throne;
By Mothers side thy Father, though thy right
Be now in powerful hands, that will not part
Easily from possession won with arms;
Judea
now and all the promised land
Reducit a Province under Roman yoke,
Obeys
Tiberius;
nor is always ruled
With temperate sway; oft have they violated
160
The Temple, oft the Law with foul affronts,
Abominations rather, as did once
Antiochus:
and thinkest thou to regain
Thy right by sitting still or thus retiring?
So did not
Machabens:
he indeed
Retir'd unto the Desert, but with arms;
And over a mighty King so oft prevailed,
That by strong hand his Family obtained,
Though Priests, the Crown, and
David
's Throne usurped,
With
Modin
and her Suburbs once content.
170
If Kingdom move thee not, let move thee Zeal,
And Duty; Zeal and Duty are not slow;
But on Occasions forelock watchful wait.
They themselves rather are occasion best,
Zeal of thy Fathers house, Duty to free
Thy Country from her Heathen servitude;
So shalt thou best fullfil, best verify
The Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign,
The happier reign the sooner it begins,
Raign then; what canst thou better do the while?
180
To whom our Savior answer thus returned.
All things are best fullfil'd in their due time,
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said:
If of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told,
That it shall never end, so when begin
The Father in his purpose hath decreed,
He in whose hand all times and seasons roll.
What if he hath decreed that I shall first
Be tried in humble state, and things adverse,
By tribulations, injuries, insults,
190
Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence;
Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting
Without distrust or doubt, that he may know
What I can suffer, how obey? who best
Can suffer, best can do; best reign, who first
Well hath obeyed; just trial e're I merit
My exaltation without change or end.
But what concerns it thee when I begin
My everlasting Kingdom, why art thou
Solicitous, what moves thy inquisition?
200
Know'st thou not that my rising is thy fall,
And my promotion will be thy destruction?
To whom the Tempter inly racked replied.
Let that come when it comes; all hope is lost
Of my reception into grace; what worse?
For where no hope is left, is left no fear;
If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me then the feeling can.
I would be at the worst; worst is my Port,
My harbor and my ultimate repose,
210
The end I would attain, my final good.
My error was my error, and my crime
My crime; whatever for itself condemned,
And will alike be punished; whether thou
Raign or reign not; though to that gentle brow
Willingly I could fly, and hope thy reign,
From that placid aspect and meek regard,
Rather then aggravate my evil state,
Would stand between me and thy Fathers ire;
(Whose ire I dread more then the fire of Hell)
220
A shelter and a kind of shading cool
Interposition, as a summers cloud.
If I then to the worst that can be hast,
Why move thy feet so slow to what is best,
Happiest both to thyself and all the world,
That thou who worthiest art shouldest be thir King?
Perhaps thou linger'st in deep thoughts detained
Of the enterprize so hazardous and high;
No wonder, for though in thee be united
What of perfection can in man be found,
230
Or human nature can receive, consider
Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent
At home, scarce viewed the
Gallilean
Towns,
And once a year
Jerusalem,
few days
Short so journ; and what thence couldest thou observe?
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires, and Monarchs, and thir radiant Courts,
Best school of best experience, quickest in sight
In all things that to greatest actions lead.
The wisest, unexperiencit, will be ever
240
Timorous and loath, with novice modesty;
(As he who seeking Asses found a Kingdom)
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventrous:
But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit
Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes
The Monarchies of the Earth, thir pomp and state;
Sufficient introduction to inform
Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal Arts;
And regal Mysteries; that thou mayest know
How best their opposition to withstand.
250
With that (such power was given him then) he took
The Son of God upto a Mountain high.
It was a Mountain at whose verdant feet
A spacious plain out stretchit in circuit wide
Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
Th' one winding, the other strait and left between
Fair Champain with less rivers interveind,
Then meeting join'd thir tribute to the Sea▪
Fertil of corn the glebe, of oil and wine,
With herds the pastures thronged, with flocks the hills,
260
Huge Cities and high tower'd, that well might seem
The seats of mightiest Monarchs, and so large
The Prospect was, that here and there was room
For barren desert fountainless and dry.
To this high mountain top the Tempter brought.
Our Savior, and new train of words began.
Well have we speeded, and over hill and dale,
Forest and field, and flood, Temples and Towers
Cut shorter many a league; here thou behold'st
Assyria
and her Empires ancient bounds,
Araxes
and the
Caspian
lake, thence on
270
As far as
Indus
East,
Euphrates
West,
And oft beyond; to South the
Persian
Bay,
And inaccessible the
Arabian
drouth:
Here
Ninevee,
of length within her wall
Several days journey, built by
Ninus
old,
Of that first golden Monarchy the seat,
And
••
t of
Salmanassar,
whose success
Israel
in long captivity still mourns;
There
Babylon
the wonder of all tongues,
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
280
Judah
and all thy Father
David
's house
Led captive, and
Jerusalem
laid waste,
Till
Cyrus
set them free;
Persepolis
His City there thou seest, and
Bactra
there;
Ecbatana
her structure vast there shows,
And
Hecatompylos
her hunderd gates,
There
Susa
by
Choaspes,
amber stream,
The drink of none but Kings; of later fame
Built by
Emathian,
or by
Parthian
hands,
The great
Seleucia, Nisibis,
and there
290
Artaxata, Teredon, Tesiphon,
Turning with easy eye thou mayest behold.
All these the
Parthian,
now some Ages past,
By great
Arsaces
led, who founded first
That Empire, under his dominion holds
From the luxurious Kings of
Antioch
won.
And just in time thou comest to have a view
Of his great power; for now the
Parthian
King
In
Ctesiphon
hath gathered all his Host
Against the
Scythian,
whose incursions wild
300
Have wasted
Sogdiana;
to her aid
He marches now in hast; see, though from far,
His thousands, in what martial equipage
They issue forth, Steel Bows, and Shafts their arms
Of equal dread in flight, or in pursuit;
All Horsemen, in which fight they most excel;
See how in warlike muster they appear,
In Rhombs and wedges, and half moons, and wings.
He looked and saw what numbers numberless
The City gates out pour'd, light armed Troops
310
In coats of Mail and military pride;
In Mail thir horses clad, yet fleet and strong,
Prauncing their riders bore, the flower and choice
Of many Provinces from bound to bound;
From
Arachosia,
from
Candaor
East,
And
Margiana
to the
Hyrcanian
cliffs
Of
Caucasus,
and dark
Iberian
dales,
From
Atropatia
and the neighbouring plains
Of
Adiabene, Media,
and the South
Of
Susiana
to
Balsara
's hav'n.
320
He saw them in thir forms of battle rang'd,
How quick they wheeled, and flying behind themshot
Sharp sleet of arrowie shower against the face
Of thir pursuers, and overcame by flight;
The field all iron cast a gleaming brown,
Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor on each horn,
Cuirassiers all in steel for standing fight;
Chariots or Elephants endorst with Towers
Of Archers, nor of laboring Pioners
A multitude with Spades and Axes armed
330
To lay hills plain, fell woods, or valleys fill,
Or where plain was raise hill, or over-lay
With bridges rivers proud, as with a yoke;
Mules after these, Camels and Dromedaries,
And Waggons fraught with Utensils of war.
Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
When
Agrican
with all his Northern powers
Besieg'd
Albracca,
as Romances tell;
The City of
Gallaphrone,
from thence to win
The fairest of her Sex
Angelica
340
His daughter, sought by many Prowest Knights,
Both
Paynim,
and the Peers of
Charlemane.
Such and so numerous was thir Chivalrie;
At sight whereof the Fiend yet more presumed,
And to our Savior thus his words renewed.
That thou mayest know I seek not to engage
Thy Virtue, and not every way secure
On no slight grounds thy safety; hear, and mark
To what end I have brought thee hither and shewn
All this fair fight; thy Kingdom though foretold
350
By Prophet or by Angel, unless thou
Endeavor, as thy Father
David
did,
Thou never shalt obtain; prediction still
In all things, and all men, supposes means,
Without means used, what it predicts revokes.
But say thou wert possessed of
David
's Throne
By free consent of all, none opposite,
Samaritan
or
Jew;
how couldest thou hope
Long to enjoy it quiet and secure,
Between two such enclosing enemies
360
Roman
and
Parthian?
therefore one of these
Thou must make sure thy own, the
Parthian
first
By my advice, as nearer and of late
Found able by invasion to annoy
Thy country, and captive lead away her Kings
Antigonus,
and old
Hyrcanus
bound,
Maugre the
Roman:
it shall be my task
To render thee the
Parthian
at dispose;
Choose which thou wilt by conquest or by league.
By him thou shalt regain, without him not,
370
That which alone can truly reinstall thee
In
David's
royal seat, his true Successor,
Deliverance of thy brethren, those ten Tribes
Whose offspring in his Territory yet serve
In
Habor,
and among the
Medes
dispersit,
Ten Sons of
Jacob,
two of
Joseph
lost
Thus long from
Israel;
serving as of old
Thir Fathers in the land of
Egypt
served,
This offer sets before thee to deliver.
These if from servitude thou shalt restore
380
To thir inheritance, then, nor till then,
Thou on the Throne of
David
in full glory,
From
Egypt
to
Euphrates
and beyond
Shalt reign, and
Rome
or
Caesar
not need fear.
To whom our Savior answered thus unmov'd.
Much ostentation vain of fleshly arm,
And fragile arms, much instrument of war
Long in preparing, soon to nothing brought,
Before mine eyes thou hast set; and in my ear
Vented much policy, and projects deep
390
Of enemies, of aids, battles and leagues,
Plausible to the world, to me worth naught.
Means I must use thou sayest, prediction else
Will unpredict and fail me of the Throne:
My time I told thee, (and that time for thee
Were better farthest off) is not yet come;
When that comes think not thou to find me slack
On my part aught endeavoring, or to need
Thy politic maxims, or that cumbersome
Luggage of war there shewn me, argument
400
Of human weakness rather then of strength.
My brethren, as thou call'st them; those Ten Tribes
I must deliver, if I mean to reign
David
's true heir, and his full Scepter sway
To just extent over all
Israel
's Sons;
But whence to thee this zeal, where was it then
For
Israel,
or for
David,
or his Throne,
When thou stood'st up his Tempter to the pride
Of numbering
Israel,
which
〈◊〉
〈◊〉
Of threeseore and ten thousand
Israelites
410
By three days Pestilence? such was thy zeal
To
Israel
then, the same that now to me.
As for those captive Tribes, themselves were they
Who wrought their own captivity, fell off
From God to worship Calves, the Deities
Of
Egypt, Baal
next and
Ashtaroth,
And all the Idolatries of Heathen round,
Besides thir other worse then heathenish crimes;
Nor in the land of their captivity
Humbled themselves, or penitent besought
420
The God of their forefathers; but so died
Impenitent, and left a race behind
Like to themselves, distinguishable scarce
From Gentiles, but by Circumcision vain,
And God with Idols in their worship join'd.
Should I of these the liberty regard,
Who freed, as to their ancient Patrimony,
Unhumbl'd, unrepentant, unreform'd,
Headlong would follow; and to thir God's perhaps
Of
Bethel
and of
Dan?
no, let them serve
430
Thir enemies, who serve Idols with God.
Yet he at length, time to himself best known,
Remembering
Abraham
by some wondrous call
May bring them back repentant and sincere,
And at their passing cleave the
Assyrian
flood,
While to their native land with joy they hast,
As the Red Sea and
Jordan
once he cleft,
When to the promised land thir Fathers passed;
To his due time and providence I leave them.
So spake
Israel
's true King, and to the Fiend
440
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles
So fares it when with truth falsehood contends.
The End of the Third Book.
PARADISE REGAIN'D. The Fourth BOOK.
PErplex'd and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope,
So oft, and the persuasive Rhetoric
That sleekit his tongue, and won so much on
Eve,
So little here, nay lost; but
Eve
was
Eve,
This far his over-match, who self deceived
And rash, beforehand had no better weighed
The strength he was to cope with, or his own:
But as a man who had been matchless held
10
In cunning, over-reachit where least he thought,
To salve his credit, and for very spite
Still will be tempting him who foyls him still,
And never cease, though to his shame the more;
Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,
About the wine-press where sweet moust is pour'd,
Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;
Or surging waves against a solid rock,
Though all to shivers dashit, the assault renew,
Vain battery, and in froth or bubbles end;
20
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever; and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not over though desperate of success,
And his vain importunity pursues.
He brought our Savior to the western side
Of that high mountain, whence he might behold
Another plain, long but in breadth not wide;
Wash'd by the Southern Sea, and on the North
To equal length backed with a ridge of hills
That screen'd the fruits of the earth and seats of men
30
From cold
Septentrion
blasts, thence in the midst
Divided by a river, of whose banks
On each side an Imperial City stood,
With Towers and Temples proudly elevate
On seven small Hills, with Palaces adorned,
Porches and Theatres, Baths, Aqueducts,
Statues and Trophies, and Triumphal Arcs,
Gardens and Groves presented to his eyes,
Above the highth of Mountains interposed.
By what strange Parallax or Optic skill
40
Of vision multiplied through air, or glass
Of Telescope, were curious to inquire:
And now the Tempter thus his silence broke.
The City which thou seest no other deem
Then great and glorious
Rome,
Queen of the Earth
So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched
Of Nations; there the Capitol thou seest
Above the rest lifting his stately head
On the
Tarp
•
ian
rock, her Cittadel
Impregnable, and there Mount
Palatine
50
The Imperial Palace, compass huge, and high
The Structure, skill of noblest Architects,
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
Turrets and Terrases, and glittering Spires.
Many a fair Edifice besides, more like
Houses of God's (so well I have disposed
My Aerie Microscope) thou mayest behold
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
Carv'd work, the hand of famed Artificers
In Cedar, Marble, Ivory or Gold.
60
Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in,
Pretors, Proconsuls to thir Provinces
Hasting or on return, in robes of State;
Lictors and rods the ensigns of thir power,
Legions and Cohorts, turmes of horse and wings:
Or Embassies from Regions far remote
In various habits on the
Appian
road,
Or on the
Aemilian,
some from farthest South,
Syene,
and where the shadow both way falls,
70
Meroe Nilotic
Isle, and more to West,
The Realm of
Bocchus
to the Black-moor Sea;
From the
Asian
Kings and
Parthian
among these,
From
India
and the golden
Chersoness,
And utmost
Indian
Isle
Taprobane,
Dusk faces with white silken Turbants wreath'd:
From
Gaul, Gades,
and the
British
West,
Germans
and
Scythians,
and
Sarmatians
North
Beyond
Danubius
to the
Tauric
Pool.
All Nations now to
Rome
obedience pay,
80
To
Rome's
great Emperor, whose wide domain
In ample Territory, wealth and power,
Civility of Manners, Arts, and Arms,
And long Renown thou justly mayest prefer
Before the
Parthian;
these two Thrones except,
The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,
Shar'd among petty Kings too far removed;
These having shewn thee, I have shewn thee all
The Kingdoms of the world, and all thir glory.
This Emperor hath no Son, and now is old,
90
Old, and lascivious, and from
Rome
retired
To
Capreae
an Island small but strong
On the
Campanian
shore, with purpose there
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy,
Committing to a wicked Favorite
All public cares, and yet of him suspicious,
Hated of all, and hating; with what ease
Indu'd with Regal Virtues as thou art;
Appearing, and beginning noble deeds;
Might'st thou expel this monster from his Throne
100
Now made a stye, and in his place ascending
A victor, people free from servile yoke?
And with my help thou mayest; to me the power
Is given, and by that right I give it thee.
Aim therefore at no less then all the world,
Aim at the highest, without the highest attained
Will be for thee no sitting, or not long
On
David
's Throne, be propheci'd what will.
To whom the Son of God unmov'd replied.
Nor doth this grandeur and majestic show
110
Of luxury, though called magnificence,
More then of arms before, allure mine eye,
Much less my mind; though thou shouldest add to tell
Thir sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts
On
Cittron
tables or
Atlantic
stone;
(For I have also heard, perhaps have read)
Their wines of
Setia, Cales,
and
Falerne,
Chios
and
Crete,
and how they quaff in Gold,
Crystal and Myrrhine cups imboss'd with Gems
And studs of Pearl, to me shouldest tell who thirst
120
And hunger still: then Embassies thou show'st
From Nations far and nigh; what honor that,
But tedious wast of time to sit and hear
So many hollow complements and lies,
Outlandish flatteries? then proceed'st to talk
Of the Emperor, how easily subdued,
How gloriously; I shall, thou sayest, expel
A brutish monster: what if I withal
Expel a Devil who first made him such?
Let his tormenter Conscience find him out,
130
For him I was not sent, nor yet to free
That people victor once, now vile and base,
Deservedly made vassal, who once just,
Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,
But govern ill the Nations under yoke,
Peeling thir Provinces, exhausted all
By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown
Of triumph that insulting vanity;
Then cruel, by thir sports to blood enur'd
Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed,
140
Luxurious by thir wealth, and greedier still,
And from the daily Scene effeminate.
What wise and valiant man would seek to free
These thus degenerate, by themselves enslav'd,
Or could of inward slaves make outward free?
Know therefore when my season comes to sit
On
David
's Throne, it shall be like a tree
Spreading and over-shadowing all the Earth,
Or as a stone that shall to pieces dash
All Monarchies besides throughout the world,
150
And of my Kingdom there shall be no end:
Means there shall be to this, but what the means,
Is not for thee to know, nor me to tell.
To whom the Tempter impudent replied.
I see all offers made by me how slight
Thou valu'st, because offered, and reject'st:
Nothing will please the difficult and nice,
Or nothing more then still to contradict:
On the other side know also thou, that I
On what I ofser set as high esteem,
160
Nor what I part with mean to give for naught;
All these which in a moment thou behold'st,
The Kingdoms of the world to thee I give;
For given to me, I give to whom I please,
No trifle; yet with this reserve, not else,
On this condition, if thou wilt fall down,
And worship me as thy superior Lord,
Easily done, and hold them all of me;
For what can less so great a gift deserve?
Whom thus our Savior answered with disdain.
170
I never liked thy talk, thy offers less,
Now both abhor, since thou hast dared to utter
The abominable terms, impious condition;
But I endure the time, till which expired,
Thou hast permission on me. It is written
The first of all Commandments, Thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God, and only him shalt serve;
And darest thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee accurst, now more accurst
For this attempt bolder then that on
Eve,
180
And more blasphemous? which expect to rue.
The Kingdoms of the world to thee were given,
Permitted rather, and by thee usurpit,
Other donation none thou canst produce:
If given, by whom but by the King of Kings,
God over all supreme? if given to thee,
By thee how fairly is the Giver now
Repaid? But gratitude in thee is lost
Long since. Wert thou so void of fear or shame,
As offer them to me the Son of God,
190
To me my own, on such abhorred pact,
That I fall down and worship thee as God?
Get thee behind me; plain thou now appear'st
That Evil one, Satan forever damned.
To whom the Fiend with fear abashed replied.
Be not so sore offended, Son of God;
Though Sons of God both Angels are and Men,
If I to try whether in higher sort
Then these thou bear'st that title, have proposed
What both from Men and Angels I receive,
200
Tetrarchs of fire, air, flood, and on the earth
Nations besides from all the quartered winds,
God of this world invokit and world beneath;
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold
To me so fatal, me it most concerns.
The trial hath indamag'd thee no way,
Rather more honor left and more esteem;
Me naught advantaged, missing what I aimed.
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,
The Kingdoms of this world; I shall no more
Advise thee, gain them as thou canst, or not.
And thou thyself seemest otherwise inclined
210
Then to a worldly Crown, addicted more
To contemplation and profound dispute,
As by that early action may be judged,
When slipping from thy Mothers eye thou went'st
Alone into the Temple; there was found
Among the gravest Rabbies disputant
On points and questions fitting
Moses
Chair,
Teaching not taught; the childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day. Be famous then
By wisdom; as thy Empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind over all the world,
220
In knowledge, all things in it comprehend,
All knowledge is not couchit in
Moses
Law,
The
Pentateuch
or what the Prophets wrote,
The
Gentiles
also know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by Natures light;
And with the
Gentiles
much thou must converse,
Ruling them by persuasion as thou mean'st,
Without thir learning how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
230
Thir Idolisms, Traditions, Paradoxes?
Error by his own arms is best evincit.
Look once more e're we leave this specular Mount
Westward, much nearer by Southwest, behold
Where on the
Aegean
shore a City stands
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,
Athens
the eye of
Greece,
Mother of Arts
And Eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or Suburban, studious walks and shades;
240
See there the Olive Grove of
Academe,
Plato
's retirement, where the
Attic
Bird
Trills her thick-warbl'd notes the summer long,
There flowrie hill
Hymettus
with the sound
Of Bees industrious murmur oft invites
To studious musing; there
Ilissus
rouls
His whispering stream; within the walls then view
The schools of ancient Sages; his who bred
Great
Alexander
to subdue the world,
Lyceum
there, and painted
Stoa
next:
250
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit
By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Aeolian
charms and
Dorian Lyric
Odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind
Melesigenes
thence
Homer
called,
Whose Poem
Phoebus
challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave Tragoedians taught
In
Chorus
or
Iambic,
teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received
260
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions, and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous Orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce Democracy,
Shook the Arsenal and fulmin'd over
Greece,
To
Macedon,
and
Artaxerxes
Throne;
To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,
From Heaven descended to the low-rooft house
270
Of
Socrates,
see there his Tenement,
Whom well inspired the Oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issu'd forth
Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Sirnam'd
Peripatetics,
and the Sect
Epicurean,
and the
Stoic
severe;
These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home,
Till time mature thee to a Kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a King complete
280
Within thyself, much more with Empire join'd.
To whom our Savior sagely thus replied.
Think not but that I know these things, or think
I know them not; not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I aught: he who receives
Light from above, from the fountain of light,
No other doctrine needs, though granted true;
But these are false, or little else but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wisest of them all professed
290
To know this only, that he nothing knew;
The next to fabling-fell and smooth conceits,
A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense;
Others in virtue placed felicity,
But virtue join'd with riches and long life,
In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease,
The Stoic last in Philosophic pride,
By him called virtue; and his virtuous man,
Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing
Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer,
300
As fearing God nor man, contemning all
Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,
Which when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can,
For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,
Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.
Alas what can they teach, and not mislead;
Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,
And how the world began, and how man fell
Degraded by himself, on grace depending?
Much of the Soul they talk, but all awry,
310
And in themselves seek virtue, and to themselves
All glory arrogate, to God give none,
Rather accuse him under usual names,
Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite
Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these
True wisdom, finds her not, or by delusion
Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,
An empty cloud. However many books
Wise men have said are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
320
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)
Uncertain and unsettl'd still remains,
Deep verst in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,
And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;
As Children gathering pibles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With Music or with Poem, where so soon
As in our native Language can I find
330
That solace? All our Law and Story strewed
With Hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscrib'd,
Our Hebrew Songs and Harps in
Babylon,
That pleased so well our Victors ear, declare
That rather
Greece
from us these Arts derived;
Ill imitated, while they loudest sing
The vices of thir Deities, and thir own
In Fable, Hymn, or Song, so personating
Thir God's ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling Epithets thick laid
340
As varnish on a Harlots cheek, the rest,
Thin sown with aught of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare
With
Zion
's songs, to all true tastes excelling,
Where God is praised aright, and Godlike men,
The Holiest of Holies, and his Saints;
Such are from God inspired, not such from thee;
Unless where moral virtue is expressit
By light of Nature not in all quite lost.
Thir Orators thou then extol'st, as those
350
The top of Eloquence, Statists indeed,
And lovers of thir Country, as may seem;
But herein to our Prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of Civil Government
In thir majestic unaffected style
Then all the Oratory of
Greece
and
Rome.
In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a Nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins Kingdoms, and lays Cities flat;
360
These only with our Law best form a King.
So spake the Son of God; but Satan now
Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent,
Thus to our Savior with stern brow replied.
Since neither wealth, nor honor, arms nor arts,
Kingdom nor Empire pleases thee, nor aught
By me proposed in life contemplative,
Oractive, tended on by glory, or fame,
What dost thou in this World? the Wilderness
For thee is fittest place, I found thee there,
370
And thither will return thee, yet remember
What I foretell thee, soon thou shalt have cause
To wish thou never hadst rejected thus
Nicely or cautiously my offered aid,
Which would have set thee in short time with ease
On
David
's Throne; or Throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fullness of time, thy season,
When Prophesies of thee are best fulfill'd.
Now contrary, if I read aught in Heaven,
Or Heaven write aught of Fate, by what the Stars
380
Voluminous, or single characters,
In their conjunction met, give me to spell,
Sorrows, and labors, opposition, hate,
Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,
Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death,
A Kingdom they portend thee, but what Kingdom,
Real or Allegoric I discern not,
Nor when, eternal sure, as without end,
Without beginning; for no date prefixed
Directs me in the Starry Rubric set.
390
So saying he took (for still he knew his power
Not yet expired) and to the Wilderness
Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,
Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,
As day-light sunk, and brought in lowering night
Her shadowy offspring unsubstantial both,
Privation mere of light and absent day.
Our Savior meek and with untroubl'd mind
After his aerie jaunt, though hurried sore,
Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,
400
Wherever, under some concourse of shades
Whose branching arms thick intertwind might shield
From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head,
But shelter'd slept in vain, for at his head
The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams
Disturb'd his sleep; and either Tropic now
Can thunder; and both ends of Heaven, the Clouds
From many a horrid rift abortive poured
Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire
In ruin reconciled: nor slept the winds
410
Within thir stony caves, but rush'd abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vext Wilderness, whose tallest Pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest Oaks
Bow'd their Stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer: ill wast thou shrouded then,
O patient Son of God, yet only stoodst
Unfnaken; nor yet staid the terror there,
Infernal Ghosts, and Hellish Furies, round shriek'd,
Environ'd thee, some howl'd, some yell'd, some
420
Some bent at thee thir fiery darts, while thou
Sat'st unappall'd in calm and sinless peace.
Thus passed the night so foul till morning fair
Came forth with Pilgrim steps in amice gray;
Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar
Of thunder, chas'd the clouds, and laid the winds,
And grisly Spectres, which the Fiend had raised
To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
And now the Sun with more effectual beams
Had cheered the face of Earth, and dry'd the wet
430
From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storm so ruinous,
Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray
To gratulate the sweet return of morn;
Nor yet amidst this joy and brightest morn
Was absent, after all his mischief done,
The Prince of darkness, glad would also seem
Of this fair change, and to our Savior came,
Yet with no new device, they all were spent,
440
Rather by this his last affront resolved,
Desperate of better course, to vent his rage,
And mad despite to be so oft repel'd,
Him walking on a Sunny hill he found,
Back'd on the North and West by a thick wood,
Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape;
And in a careless mood thus to him said.
Fair morning yet betides thee Son of God,
After a dismal night; I heard the rack
As Earth and Sky would mingle; but myself
450
Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them
As dangerous to the pillard frame of Heaven,
Or to the Earths dark basis underneath,
Are to the main as inconsiderable,
And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze
To man's less universe, and soon are gone;
Yet as being oft times noxious where they light
On man, beast, plant, wastful and turbulent,
Like turbulencies in the affairs of men,
Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point,
460
They oft fore-signify and threaten ill:
This Tempest at this Desert most was bent;
Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell'st.
Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject
The perfet season offered with my aid
To win thy destined seat, but wilt prolong
All to the push of Fate, persue thy way
Of gaining
David
's Throne no man knows when,
For both the when and how is nowhere told,
Thou shalt be what thou art ordained, no doubt;
470
For Angels have proclaimed it, but concealing
The time and means: each act is rightliest done,
Not when it must, but when it may be best.
If thou observe not this, be sure to find,
What I foretold thee, many a hard assay
Of dangers, and adversities and pains,
E're thou of
Israel
's Scepter get fast hold;
Whereof this ominous night that closed thee round,
So many terrors, voices, prodigies
May warn thee, as a sure fore-going sign.
480
So talked he, while the Son of God went on
And staid not, but in brief him answered thus.
Mee worse then wet thou find'st not; other harr
•
Those terrors which thou speak'st of, did me none;
I never feared they could, though noising loud
And threatening nigh; what they can do as signs
Betok'ning, or ill boding, I contemn
As false portents, not sent from God, but thee;
Who knowing I shall reign past thy preventing,
Obtrud'st thy offered aid, that I accepting
490
Atleast might seem to hold all power of thee,
Ambitious spirit, and wouldst be thought my God,
And storm'st refused, thinking to terrify
Mee to thy will; desist, thou art discerned
And toil'st in vain, nor me in vain molest.
To whom the Fiend now swoln with rage replied:
Then hear, O Son of
David,
Virgin-born;
For Son of God to me is yet in doubt,
Of the Messiah I have heard foretold
By all the Prophets; of thy birth at length
500
Announcit by
Gabriel
with the first I knew,
And of the Angelio Song in
Bethlehem
field,
On thy birth-night, that sung thee Savior born.
From that time seldom have I ceased to eye
Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth,
Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred;
Till at the Ford of
Jordan
whither all
Flock'd to the Baptist, I among the rest,
Though not to be Baptiz'd, by voice from Heaven
Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.
510
Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view
And narrower Scrutiny, that I might learn
In what degree or meaning thou art called
The Son of God, which bears no single sense;
The Son of God I also am, or was,
And if I was, I am; relation stands;
All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought
In some respect far higher so declared.
Therefore I watched thy footsteps from that hour,
And followed thee still on to this wast wild;
520
Where by all best conjectures I collect
Thou art to be my fatal enemy.
Good reason then, if I beforehand seek
To understand my Adversary, who
And what he is; his wisdom, power, intent,
By parl, or composition, truce, or league
To win him, or win from him what I can.
And opportunity I here have had
To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee
Proof against all temptation as a rock
530
Of Adamant, and as a Center, firm
To the utmost of mere man both wise and good,
Not more; for Honors, Riches, Kingdoms, Glory
Have been before contemned, and may agen:
Therefore to know what more thou art then man,
Worth naming Son of God by voice from Heaven,
Another method I must now begin.
So saying he caught him up, and without wing
Of
Hippogrif
bore through the Air sublime
Over the Wilderness and over the Plain;
540
Till underneath them fair
Jerusalem,
The holy City lifted high her Towers,
And higher yet the glorious Temple reared
Her pile, far off appearing like a Mount
Of Alabaster, topit with Golden Spires:
There on the highest Pinacle he set
The Son of God; and added thus in scorn:
There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright
Will ask thee skill; I to thy Fathers house
Have brought thee, and highest placit, highest is best,
550
Now show thy Progeny; if not to stand,
Cast thyself down; safely if Son of God:
For it is written, He will give command
Concerning thee to his Angels, in thir hands
They shall up lift thee, lest at any time
Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.
To whom thus Jesus: also it is written,
Tempt not the Lord thy God, he said and stood.
But Satan smitten with amazement fell
As when Earths Son
Antaeus
(to compare
560
Small things with greatest) in
Irassa
strove
With
Joves Alcides,
and oft foiled still rose,
Receiving from his mother Earth new strength,
Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple join'd,
Throttl'd at length in the Air, expired and fell;
So after many a foil the Tempter proud,
Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride
Fell whence he stood to see his Victor fall.
And as that
Theban
Monster that proposed
Her riddle, and him, who solv'd it not, devoured;
570
That once found out and solv'd, for grief and spite
Cast herself headlong from th'
Ismenian
steep,
So struck with dread and anguish fell the Fiend,
And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought
Joyless triumphals of his hopit success,
Ruin, and desperation, and dismay,
Who durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.
So Satan fell and strait a fiery Globe
Of Angels on full sail of wingflew nigh,
Who on their plumy Vans received him soft
580
From his uneasy station, and upbore
As on a floating couch through the blithe Air,
Then in a flowery valley set him down
On a green bank, and set before him spread
A table of Celestial Food, Divine,
Ambrosial, Fruits fetched from the tree of life,
And from the fount of life Ambrosial drink,
That soon refreshed him wearied, and repaired
What hunger, if aught hunger had impaired,
Or thirst, and as he fed, Angelic Quires
590
Sung Heavenly Anthems of his victory
Over temptation, and the Tempter proud.
True Image of the Father whether thron'd
In the bosom of bliss, and light of light
Conceiving, or remote from Heaven, enshrin'd
In fleshly Tabernacle, and human form,
Wandering the Wilderness, whatever place,
Habit, or state, or motion, still expressing
The Son of God, with Godlike force indu'd
Against th'Attempter of thy Fathers Throne,
And Thief of Paradise; him long of old
600
Thou didst debel, and down from Heaven cast
With all his Army, now thou hast avenged
Supplanted
Adam,
and by vanquishing
Temptation, hast regain'd lost Paradise,
And frustrated the conquest fraudulent:
He never more henceforth will dare set foot
In Paradise to tempt; his snares are broke:
For though that seat of earthly bliss be failed,
A fairer Paradise is founded now
For
Adam
and his chosen Sons, whom thou
610
A Savior art come down to re-install.
Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be
Of Tempter and Temptation without fear.
But thou, Infernal Serpent, shalt not long
Rule in the Clouds; like an Autumnal Star
Or Lightning thou shalt fall from Heaven trod down
Under his feet: for proof, e're this thou feel'st
Thy wound, yet not thy last and deadliest wound
By this repulse received, and hold'st in Hell
No triumph; in all her gates
Abaddon
rues
620
Thy bold attempt; hereafter learn with awe
To dread the Son of God: he all unarm'd
Shall chase thee with the terror of his voice
From thy Demoniac holds, possession foul,
Thee and thy Legions, yelling they shall fly,
And beg to hide them in a herd of Swine,
Lest he command them down into the deep
Bound, and to torment sent before thir time.
Hail Son of the most High, heir of both worlds,
Queller of Satan, on thy glorious work
630
Now enter, and begin to save mankind.
Thus they the Son of God our Savior meek
Sung Victor, and from Heavenly Feast refreshed
Brought on his way with joy; he unobserv'd
Home to his Mothers house private returned.
The END.
SAMSON AGONISTES, A DRAMATIC POEM.
The Author JOHN MILTON.
Aristot. Poet. Cap. 6.
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c.
Tragoedia est imitatio actionis seriae, &c. Per misericordiam & metum perficiens talium affectuum lustrationem.
LONDON, Printed by J. M. for John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleetstreet, near Temple-Bar. MDCLXXI.
Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is called Tragedy.
TRagedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other Poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stir'd up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion: for so in Physic things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humors. Hence Philosophers and other gravest Writers, as Cicero, Plutarch and others, frequently cite out of Tragic Poets, both to adorn and illustrate thir discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the Text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. 15. 33. and Parsus commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole Book as a Tragedy, into Acts distinguished each by a Chorus of Heavenly Harpings and Song between. Heretofore Men in highest dignity have labor'd not a little to be thought able to compose a Tragedy. Of that honor Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious, then before of his attaining to the Tyranny. Augustus Caesar also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinisht. Seneca the Philosopher is by some thought the Author of those Tragedies (at lest the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a Tragedy, which he entitl'd, Christ suffering. This is mentioned to vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day with other common Interludes; hap'ning through the Poets error of intermixing Comic stuff with Tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And though ancient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self defense, or explanation, that which Martial calls an Epistle; in behalf of this Tragedy coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much beforehand may be Epistl'd; that Chorus is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this Poem, with good reason, the Ancients and Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of Verse used in the Chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe or Epod, which were a kind of Stanza's framed only for the Music, then used with the Chorus that sung; not essential to the Poem, and therefore not material; or being divided into Stanza's or Pauses, they may be called Allaeostropha. Division into Act and Scene referring chiefly to the Stage (to which this work never was intended) is here omitted.
It suffices if the whole Drama be found not producit beyond the fifth Act, of the style and uniformity, and that commonly called the Plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such economy, or disposition of the fable as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum; they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Aeschulus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three Tragic Poets unequal'd yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavor to write Tragedy. The circumscription of time wherein the whole Drama begins and ends, is according to ancient rule, and best example, within the space of 24 hours.
The ARGUMENT.
SAmson made Captive, Blind, and now in the Prison at Gaza, there to labor as in a common work-house, on a Festival day, in the general cessation from labor, comes forth into the open Air, to a place nigh, somewhat retired there to sit a while and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which make the Chorus, who seek to comfort him what they can; then by his old Father Manoa, who endeavors the like, and withal tells him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom; lastly, that this Feast was proclaimed by the Philistines as a day of Thanksgiving for thir deliverance from the hands of Samson, which yet more troubles him. Manoa then departs to prosecute his endeavor with the Philistian Lord's for Samson 's redemption; who in the mean while is visited by other persons; and lastly by a public Officer to require his coming to the Feast before the Lord's and People, to play or show his strength in thir presence; he at first refuses, dismissing the public Officer with absolute denial to come; at length persuaded inwardly that this was from God, he yields to go along with him, who came now the second time with great threatenings to fetch him; the Chorus yet remaining on the place, Manoa returns full of joyful hope, to procure e're long his Sons deliverance: in the midst of which discourse an Hebrew comes in haste confusedly at first; and afterward more distinctly relating the Catastrophe, what Samson had done to the Philistines, and by accident to himself; wherewith the Tragedy ends.
-
The Persons.
- Samson.
- Manoa the Father of Samson.
- Delilah his Wife.
- Harapha of Gath.
- Public Officer.
- Messenger.
- Chorus of Danites.
The Scene before the Prison in Gaza.
SAMSON AGONISTES.
Sams.
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
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common Prison else enjoin'd me,
Where I a Prisoner chained, scarce freely draw
The air imprisoned also, close and damp,
Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heaven fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
10
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn Feast the people hold
To
Dagon
thir Sea-Idol, and forbid
Laborious works, unwillingly this rest
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
Of Hornets armed, no sooner found alone,
20
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at last in sight
Of both my Parents all in flames ascended
From off the Altar, where an Off'ring burned,
As in a fiery column charioting
His Godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit revealed to
Abraham
's race?
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed
30
As of a person separate to God,
Design'd for great exploits; if I must die
Betray'd Captiv'd, and both my Eyes put out,
Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in Brazen Fetters under task
With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labor of a Beast, debasit
Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I
Should
Israel
from
Philistian
yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
40
Eyeless in
Caza
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
Had been fulfilld but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodged, how easily berest me,
Under the Seal of silence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it,
50
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, burdensome,
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 show withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my Hair.
But peace, I must not quarrel with the will
60
Of highest dispensation, which herein
Happ'lie had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,
And proves the source of all my miseries;
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask 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 beggary, 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 eased,
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,
They creep, yet see, I dark in light exposed
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;
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
The Sun to me is dark
And silent as the Moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
90
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, 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 confined?
So obvious and so easy to be quenchit,
And not as feeling through all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light;
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
100
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 privilege of death and burial
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
110
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet stearing this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Thir daily practice to afflict me more.
Chor.
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, carelessly diffused,
With languishit head unpropt,
120
As one past hope, abandoned,
And by himself given over;
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O're worn and soild;
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,
That Heroic, that Renown'd,
Irresistable
Samson?
whom unarm'd withstand;
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could
Who tore the Lion, as the Lion tears the Kid,
Ran on embattelld Armies clad in Iron,
130
And weaponless himself,
Made Arms ridiculous, useless the forgery
Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer'd Cuirass,
Chalybean
tempered steel, and frock of mail
Adamantean Proof;
But safest he who stood aloof,
When insupportably his foot advancit,
In scorn of thir proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurn'd them to death by Troops. The bold
Ascalonite
Fled from his Lion ramp, old Warriors turned
140
Thir plated backs under his heel;
Or groveling soild thir crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what trivial weapon came to hand,
The Jaw of a dead Ass, his sword of bone,
A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of
Palestin
In
Ramath-lechi
famous to this day:
Then by main force pulled 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;
150
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heaven.
Which shall I first bewail,
Thy Bondage or lost Sight,
Prison within Prison
Inseparably dark?
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)
The Dungeon of thyself; thy Soul
(Which Men enjoying sight oft without cause come plain'd)
Imprison'd now indeed,
In real darkness of the body dwells,
160
Shut up from outward light
To incorporate with gloomy night;
For inward light alas
Puts forth no visual beam.
O mirror of our fickle state,
Since man on earth unparalleled?
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 fallen.
170
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 crowned with highest praises.
Sam.
I hear the sound of words, thir sense the air
Dissolves unjointed e're it reach my ear.
Chor.
He speaks, let us draw nigh. Matchless in might,
The glory late of
Israel,
now the grief;
180
We come thy friends and neighbors not unknown
From
Eshtaol
and
Zora
's fruitful Vale
To visit or bewail thee, or if better,
Counsel or Consolation we may bring,
Salve to thy Sores, apt words have power to swage
The tumors of a troubled mind,
And are as Balm to fester'd wounds.
Sam.
Your coming, Friends, revives me, for I learn
Now of my own experience, not by talk,
How counterfeit a coin they are who friends
190
Bear in their Superscription (of the most
I would be understood) in prosperous days
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head
Not to be found, though sought. Ye see, O friends,
How many evils have enclosed me round;
Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,
Blindness, for had I sight, confused with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who like a foolish Pilot have shipwrackit,
My Vessel trusted to me from above,
200
Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear,
Fool, have divulged the secret gift of God
To a deceitful Woman: tell me Friends,
Am I not sung and proverbd for a Fool
In every street, do they not say, how well
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,
These two proportiond ill drove me transverse.
210
Chor.
Tax not divine disposal, wisest Men
Have erred, and by bad Women been deceived;
And shall again, pretend they never so wise.
Deject not then so overmuch thyself,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides;
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.
Sam.
The first I saw at
Timna,
and she pleased
220
Mee, not my Parents, that I sought to wed,
The daughter of an Infidel: they knew not
That what I montion'd was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urged
The Marriage on; that by occasion hence
I might begin
Israel's
Deliverance,
The work to which I was divinely called;
She proving false, the next I took to Wife
(O that I never had! fond wish too late.)
Was in the Vale of
Sorec, Delilah,
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
oppressors: of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I myself,
Who vanquished with a peal of words (O weakness!)
Gave up my fort of silence to a Woman.
Chor.
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.
Sam.
That fault I take not on me, but transfer
On
Israel's
Governors, and Heads of Tribes,
Who seeing those great acts which God had done
Singly by me against their Conquerors
Acknowledg'd not; or not at all considered
Deliverance offered: I on the other side
Us'd no ambition to commend my deeds,
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 Lord's the
Philistines
with gathered powers
Enterd
Judea
seeking me, who then
Safe to the rock of
Etham
was retired,
Not flying, but fore-casting in what place
To set upon them, what advantaged 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
260
To the uncircumcis'd a welcome prey,
Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threads
Toucht with the flame: on thir whole Host I flew
Unarm'd, and with a trivial weapon fell'd
Their choicest youth; they only lived who fled.
Had
Judah
that day joined, or one whole Tribe,
They had by this possessed the Towers of
Gath,
And lorded over them whom now they serve;
But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
And by thir vices brought to servitude,
270
Then to love Bondage more then Liberty,
Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect
Whom God hath of his special favor raised
As thir Deliverer; if he aught begin,
How frequent to desert him, and at last
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?
Cho.
Thy words to my remembrance bring
How
Succoth
and the Fort of
Penuel
Thir great Deliverer contemned,
280
The matchless
Gideon
in pursuit
Of
Madian
and her vanquished Kings:
And how ingrateful
Ephraim
Had dealt with
Jephtha,
who by argument,
Not worse then by his shield and spear
Defended
Israel
from the
Ammonite,
Had not his prowess quelled thir pride
In that sore battle when so many died
Without Reprieve adjudged to death,
For want of well pronouncing
Shibboleth.
290
Sam.
Of such examples add me to the roll,
Mee easily indeed mine may neglect,
But God's proposed deliverance not so.
Chor.
Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to Men;
Unless there be who think not God at all,
If any be, they walk obscure;
For of such Doctrine never was there School,
But the heart of the Fool,
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 wandering thought,
Regardless of his glories diminution;
Till by thir own perplexities involved
They ravel more, still less resolved,
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 sull right to exempt
Whom so itipleases him by choice
From National obstriction, without taint
Of sin, or legal debt;
For with his own Laws he can best dispence.
He would not else who never wanted means,
Nor in respect of the enemy just cause
To set his people free,
Have prompted this Heroic
Nazarite,
Against his vow of strictest purity,
320
To seek in marriage that fallacious Bride,
Unclean, unchaste.
Down Reason then, at least vain reasonings down,
Though Reason here aver
That moral verdit quits her of unclean:
Unchaste was subsequent, her stain not his.
But see here comes thy reverend Sire
With careful step, Locks white as down,
Old
Manoah:
advise
Forthwith how thou oughtst to receive him.
330
Sam.
Ay me, another inward grief awakit,
With mention of that name renewsth' assault.
Man.
Brethren and men of
Dan,
for such ye seem,
Though in this uncouth place; if old respect,
As I suppose, towards your once gloried friend,
My Son now Captive, hither hath informed
Your younger feet, while mine cast back with age
Came lagging after; say if he be here.
Chor.
As signal now in low dejected state,
As erst in highest, behold him where he lies.
340
Man.
O miserable change! is this the man,
That invincible
Samson,
far renowned,
The dread of
Israel
's foes, who with a strength
Equivalent to Angels walked thir streets,
None offering fight; who single combatant
Duel'd thir Armies rankit in proud array,
Himself an Army, now unequal match
To save himself against a coward armed
At one spears length. O ever failing trust
In mortal strength! and oh what not in man
350
Deceivable and vain! Nay what thing good
Pray'd for, but often proves our woe, our bane?
I prayed for Children, and thought barrenness
In wedlock a reproach; I gained a Son,
& Such a Son as all Men hail'd me happy;
Who would be now a Father in my stead?
O wherefore did God grant me my request,
And as a blessing with such pomp adorned?
Why are his gifts desirable, to tempt
Our earnest Prayers, then given with solemn hand
360
As Graces, draw a Scorpions tail behind?
For this did the Angel twice descend? for this
Ordain'd thy nurture holy, as of a Plant;
Select, and Sacred, Glorious for a while,
The miracle of men: then in an hour
Ensnar'd, assaulted, overcome, led bound,
Thy Foes derision, Captive, Poor, and Blind
Into a Dungeon thrust, to work with Slaves?
Alas methinks whom God hath chosen once
To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err,
370
He should not so o'rewhelm, and as a thrall
Subject him to so foul indignities,
Be it but for honors sake of former deeds.
Sam.
Appoint not heavenly disposition, Father,
Nothing of all these evils hath befall'n me
But justly; I myself have brought them on,
Sole Author I, sole cause: if aught seem vile,
As vile hath been my folly, who have profaned
The mystery of God given me under pledge
Of vow, and have betrayed it to a woman,
380
A
Canaanite,
my faithless enemy.
This well I knew, nor was at all surprised,
But warned by oft experience: did not she
Of
Timna
first betray me, and reveal
The secret wrested from me in her highth
Of Nuptial Love professed, carrying it strait
To them who had corrupted her, my Spies,
And Rivals? In this other was there found
More Faith? who also in her prime of love,
Spousal embraces, vitiated with Gold,
390
Though offered only, by the sent conceived
Her spurious first-born; Treason against me?
Thrice she assay'd with flattering prayers and sighs,
And amorous reproaches to win from me
My capital secret, in what part my strength
Lay stored, in what part sum'd, that she might know:
Thrice I deluded her, and turned to sport
Her importunity, each time perceiving
How openly, and with what impudence
She purposed to betray me, and (which was worse
400
Then undissembl'd hate) with what contempt
She sought to make me Traitor to myself;
Yet the fourth time, when mustering all her wiles,
With blandisht parlies, feminine assaults,
Tongue-batteries, she surceas'd not day nor night
To storm me over-watchit, and wearied out.
At times when men seek most repose and rest,
I yielded, and unlock'd her all my heart,
Who with a grain of manhood well resolved
Might easily have shook off all her snares:
410
But foul effeminacy held me yokit
Her Bond-slave; O indignity, O blot
To Honor and Religion! servile mind
Rewarded well with servile punishment!
The base degree to which I now am fallen,
These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base
As was my former servitude, ignoble,
Unmanly, ignominious, infamous,
True slavery, and that blindness worse then this,
That saw not how degeneratly I served.
420
Man.
I cannot praise thy Marriage choises, Son,
Rather approved them not; but thou didst plead
Divine impulsion prompting how thou mightest
Find some occasion to infest our Foes.
I state not that; this I am sure; our Foes
Found soon occasion thereby to make thee
Thir Captive, and thir triumph; thou the sooner
Temptation found'st, or over-potent charms
To violate the sacred trust of silence
Deposited within thee; which to have kept
430
Tacit, was in thy power; true; and thou bear'st
Enough, and more the burden of that fault;
Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying
That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains,
This day the
Philistines
a popular Feast
Here celebrate in
Gaza;
and proclaim
Great Pomp, and Sacrifice, and Praises loud
To
Dagon,
as their God who hath delivered
Thee
Samson
bound and blind into thir hand
•
Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a
〈◊〉
.
440
So
Dagon
shall be magnifi'd, and God,
Besides whom is no God, compared with Idols,
Disglorifi'd, blasphemed, and had in scorn
By th'Idolatrous rout amidst thir wine;
Which to have come to pass by means of thee,
Samson,
of all thy sufferings think the heaviest,
Of all reproach the most with shame that ever
Could have befall'n thee and thy Fathers house.
Sam.
Father, I do acknowledge and confess
That I this honor, I this pomp have brought
450
To
Dagon,
and advanced his praises high
Among the Heathen round; to God have brought
Dishonor, obloquy, and opit the mouths
Of Idolists, and Atheists; have brought scandal
To
Israel,
diffidence of God, and doubt
In feeble hearts, propense enough before
To waver, or fall off and join with Idols;
Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow;
The anguish of my Soul, that suffers not
Mine eye to harbor sleep, or thoughts to rest.
460
This only hope relieves me, that the strife
With me hath end; all the contest is now
'Twixt God and
Dagon; Dagon
hath presumed,
Me overthrown, to enter lists with God,
His Deity comparing and preferring
Before the God of
Abraham.
He, be sure,
Will not connive, or linger, thus provoked,
But will arise and his great name assert:
Dagon
must stoop, and shall e're long receive
Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him
470
Of all these boasted Trophies won on me,
And with confusion blank his Worshippers.
Man.
With cause this hope relieves thee, and these words
I as a Prophecy receive: for God,
Nothing more certain, will not long defer
To vindicate the glory of his name
Against all competition, nor will long
Endure it, doubtful whether God be Lord,
Or
Dagon.
But for thee what shall be done?
Thou must not in the mean while here forgot
480
Lie in this miserable loathsome plight
Neglected. I already have made way
To some
Philistian
Lord's, with whom to treat
About thy ransom: well they may by this
Have satisfied thir utmost of revenge
By pains and slaveries, worse then death inflicted
On thee, who now no more canst do them harm.
Sam.
Spare that proposal, Father, spare the trouble
Of that solicitation; let me here,
As I deserve, pay on my punishment;
490
And expiate, if possible, my crime,
Shameful garrulity. To have revealed
Secrets of men, the secrets of a friend,
How heinous had the fact been, how deserving
Contempt, and scorn of all, to be excluded
All friendship, and avoided as a blab,
The mark of fool set on his front?
But I God's counsel have not kept, his holy secret
Presumptuously have published, impiously,
Weakly at least, and shamefully: A sin
500
That Gentiles in thir Parables condemn
To thir abyss and horrid pains confined.
Man.
Be penitent and for thy fault contrite,
But act not in thy own affliction, Son,
Repent the sin, but if the punishment
Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids;
Of th' execution leave to high disposal,
And let another hand, not thine, exact
Thy penal forfeit from thyself; perhaps
God will relent, and quit thee all his debt;
510
Who evermore approves and more accepts
(Best pleased with humble and filial submission)
Him who imploring mercy sues for life,
Then who self-rigorous chooses death as due;
Which argues over-just, and self-displeased
For self-offense, more then for God offended.
Reject not then what offered means, who knows
But God hath set before us, to return thee
Home to thy country and his sacred house,
Where thou mayst bring thy off'rings, to avert
520
His further ire, with prayers and vows renewed.
Sam.
His pardon I implore; but as for life,
To what end should I seek it? when in strength
All mortals I excel'd, and great in hopes
With youthful courage and magnanimous thoughts
Of birth from Heaven foretold and high exploits,
Full of divine instinct, after some proof
Of acts indeed heroic, far beyond
The Sons of
Anac,
famous now and blaz'd,
Fearless of danger, like a petty God
530
I walked about admired of all and dreaded
On hostile ground, none daring my affront.
Then swoll'n with pride into the snare I fell
Of fair fallacious looks, venereal trains,
Softn'd with pleasure and voluptuous life;
At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me
Like a tame Weather, all my precious fleece,
Then turned me out ridiculous, despoil'd,
540
Shav'n, and disarmed among my enemies.
Chor.
Desire of wine and all delicious drinks,
Which many a famous Warriour overturns,
Thou couldst repress, nor did the dancing Rubie
Sparkling, out-pow'rd, the flavor, or the smell,
Or taste that cheers the heart of God's and men,
Allure thee from the cool Crystalline stream.
Sam.
Where ever fountain or fresh current flowed
Against the Eastern ray, translucent, pure.
With touch aetherial of Heavens fiery rod
550
I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying
Thirst, and refreshed; nor envy'd them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
Chor.
O madness, to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God with these forbid'n made choice to rear
His mighty Champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
Sam.
But what avail'd this temperance, not complete
Against another object more enticing?
560
What boots it at one gate to make defense,
And at another to let in the foe
Effeminatly vanquishit? by which means,
Now blind, disheartn'd, shamed, dishonor'd, quelled,
To what can I be useful, wherein serve
My Nation, and the work from Heaven imposed,
But to sit idle on the household hearth,
A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,
Or pitied object, thief redundant locks
Robustious to no purpofe clustring down,
570
Vain monument of strength; till length of years
And sedentary numness craze my limbs
To a contemptible old age obscure.
Here rather let me drudge and earn my bread,
Till vermin or the draff of servile food
Consume me, and oft-invocated death
Hast'n the welcome end of all my pains.
Man.
Wilt thou then serve the
Philistines
with that gift
Which was expressly given thee to annoy them?
Better at home lie bed-rid, not only idle,
580
Inglorious, unimploy'd, with age out-worn.
But God who caused a fountain at thy prayer
From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay
After the brunt of battle, can as easy
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring,
Wherewith to serve him better then thou hast;
And I persuade me so; why else this strength
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?
His might continues in thee not for naught,
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.
590
Sam.
All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,
Nor th' other light of life continue long,
But yield to double darkness nigh at hand:
So much I feel my genial spirits droop,
My hopes all flat, nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself;
My race of glory run, and race of shame,
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.
Man.
Believe not these suggestions which proceed
600
From anguish of the mind and humors black,
That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omit a Fathers timely care
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance
By ransom or how else: mean while be calm,
And healing words from these thy friends admit.
Sam.
O that torment should not be confined
To the bodies wounds and sores
With maladies innumerable
In heart, head, breast, and reins;
610
But must secret passage find
To th' inmost mind,
There exercise all his fierce accidents,
And on her purest spirits prey,
As on entrails, joints, and limbs,
With answerable pains, but more intense,
Though void of corporal sense.
My griefs not only pain me
As a lingering disease,
But finding no redress, ferment and rage,
620
Nor less then wounds immedicable
Ranckle, and fester, and gangrene,
To black mortification.
Thoughts my Tormenters armed with deadly stings
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,
Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise
Dire inflammation which no cooling herb
Or medcinal liquor can asswage,
Nor breath of Vernal Air from snowy
Alp.
Sleep hath forsook and given me over
630
To deaths benumbing Opium as my only cure.
Thence faintings, swounings of despair,
And sense of Heavens desertion.
I was his nurssing once and choice delight,
His destined from the womb,
Promisd by Heavenly message twice descending.
Under his special eye
Abstemious I grew up and thriv'd amain;
He led me on to mightiest deeds
Above the nerve of mortal arm
640
Against the uncircumcis'd, our enemies.
〈◊〉
hath cast me off as never known,
〈◊〉
those cruel enemies,
Whom I by his appointment had provokit,
Left me all helpless with th' irreparable loss
Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated
The subject of thir cruelty, or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope;
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless;
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,
650
No long petition, speedy death,
The close of all my miseries, and the balm.
Chor.
Many are the sayings of the wise
In ancient and in modern books enroll'd;
Extolling Patience as the truest fortitude;
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man's frail life.
Consolatories writ
With studied argument, and much persuasion sought
Lenient of grief and anxious thought,
660
But with' afflicted in his pangs thir sound
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune,
Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint,
Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above;
Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.
God of our Fathers, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,
670
Temperst thy providence through his short course,
Not evenly, as thou rul'st
The Angelic orders and inferior creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.
Nor do I name of men the common rout,
That wandering loose about
Grow up and perish, as the summer fly,
Heads without name no more rememberd,
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorned
680
To some great work, thy glory,
And people's safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignified, thou oft
Amidst thir highth of noon,
Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard
Of highest favors past
From thee on them, or them to thee of service.
Nor only dost degrade them, or remit
To life obscured, which were a fair dismission,
But throw'st them lower then thou didst exalt them high,
690
Unseemly falls in human eye,
Too grievous for the trespass or omission,
Oft leave'st them to the hostile sword
Of Heathen and profane, thir carcasses
To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captiv'd:
Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude.
If these they scape, perhaps in poverty
With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down,
Painful diseases and deformed,
700
In crude old age;
Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering
The punishment of dissolute days, in fine,
Just or unjust, alike seem miserable,
For oft alike, both come to evil end.
So deal not with this once thy glorious Champion,
The Image of thy strength, and mighty minister.
What do I beg? how hast thou dealt already?
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn
710
His labors, for thou canst, to peaceful end.
But who is this, what thing of Sea or Land?
Femal of sex it seems,
That so bedeckt, ornate, and gay,
Comes this way sailing
Like a stately Strip
Of
Tarsus,
bound for th' Isles
Of
Javan
or
Gadier
With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,
Sails filled, and streamers waving,
Courted by all the winds that hold them play,
720
An Amber sent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger, a damsel train behind;
Some rich
Philistian
Matron she may seem,
And now at nearer view, no other certain
Then
Delilah
thy wife.
Sam.
My Wife, my Traytress, let her not come near me.
Cho.
Yet on she moves, now stands & eyes thee fixed,
About t' have spoke, but now, with head declined
Like a fair flower surcharg'd with dew, she weeps
730
And words addrest seem into tears dissolved,
Wetting the borders of her silk'n veil:
But now again she makes address to speak.
Dal.
With doubtful feet and wavering resolution
I came, still dreading thy displeasure,
Samson,
Which to have merited, without excuse,
I cannot but acknowledge; yet if tears
May expiate (though the fact more evil drew
In the perverse event then I foresaw)
My penance hath not slack'n'd, though my pardon
No way assured. But conjugal affection
740
Prevailing over fear, and timorous doubt
Hath led me on desirous to behold
Once more thy face, and know of thy estate.
If aught in my ability may serve
To light'n what thou suffer'st, and appease
Thy mind with what amends is in my power,
Though late, yet in some part to recompense
My rash but more unfortunate misdeed.
Sam.
Out, out
Hyaena;
these are thy wonted arts,
And arts of every woman false like thee,
750
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray,
Then as repentant to submit, beseech,
And reconcilement move with feigned remorse,
Confess, and promise wonders in her change,
Not truly penitent, but chief to try
Her husband, how far urged his patience bears,
His virtue or weakness which way to assail:
Then with more cautious and instructed skill
Again transgresses, and again submits;
That wisest and best men full oft beguile'd
760
With goodness principl'd not to reject
The penitent, but ever to forgive,
Are drawn to wear out miserable days,
Entangl'd with a poysnous bosom snake,
If not by quick destruction soon cut off
As I by thee, to Ages an example.
Dal.
Yet hear me
Samson;
not that I endeavor
To lessen or extenuate my offense,
But that on the other side if it be weighed
By itself, with aggravations not surcharg'd,
770
Or else with just allowance counterpois'd,
I may, if possible, thy pardon find
The easier towards me, or thy hatred less.
First granting, as I do, it was a weakness
In me, but incident to all our sex,
Curiosity, inquisitive, importune
Of secrets, then with like infirmity
To publish them, both common female faults:
Was it not weakness also to make known
780
For importunity, that is for naught,
Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety?
To what I did thou shewdst me first the way.
But I to enemies revealed, and should not.
Nor shouldst thou have trusted that to woman's frailty
E're I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel.
Let weakness then with weakness come to parl
So near related, or the same of kind,
Thine forgive mine; that men may censure thine
The gentler, if severely thou exact not
790
More strength from me, then in thyself was found.
And what if Love, which thou interpret'st hate,
The jealousy of Love, powerful of sway
In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee,
Caus'd what I did? I saw thee mutable
Of fancy, feared lest one day thou wouldst leave me
As her at
Timna,
sought by all means therefore
How to endear, and hold thee to me firmest:
No better way I saw then by importuning
To learn thy secrets, get into my power
800
Thy key of strength and safety: thou wilt say,
Why then revealed? I was assured by those
Who tempted me, that nothing was designed
Against thee but safe custody, and hold:
That made for me, I knew that liberty
Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises,
While I at home sat full of cares and fears
Wailing thy absence in my widow'd bed;
Here I should still enjoy thee day and night
Mine and Loves prisoner, not the
Philistines,
Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad,
810
Fearless at home of partners in my love.
These reasons in Loves law have past for good,
Though fond and reasonless to some perhaps;
And Love hath oft, well meaning, wrought much woe,
Yet always pity or pardon hath obtained.
Be not unlike all others, not austere
As thou art strong, inflexible as steel.
If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed,
In uncompassionate anger do not so.
Sam.
How cunningly the sorceress displays
820
Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine?
That malice not repentance brought thee hither,
By this appears: I gave, thou sayest, th' example,
I led the way; bitter reproach, but true,
I to myself was false e're thou to me,
Such pardon therefore as I give my folly,
Take to thy wicked deed: which when thou seest
Impartial, self-severe, inexorable,
Thou wilt renounce thy seeking, and much rather
Confess it feigned, weakness is thy excuse,
830
And I believe it, weakness to resist
Philistian
gold: if weakness may excuse,
What Murderer, what Traitor, Parricide,
Incestuous, Sacrilegious, but may plead it?
All wickedness is weakness: that plea therefore
With God or Man will gain thee no remission.
But Love constrained thee; call it furious rage
To satisfy thy lust: Love seeks to have Love;
My love how couldst thou hope, who tookst the way
To raise in me inexpiable hate,
840
Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betrayed?
In vain thou striv'st to cover shame with shame,
Or by evasions thy crime uncoverst more.
Dal.
Since thou determinst weakness for no plea
In man or woman, though to thy own condemning,
Hear what assaults I had, what snares besides,
What sieges girt me round, e're I consented;
Which might have awe'd the best resolved of men,
The constantest to have yielded without blame.
It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay'st,
850
That wrought with me: thou knowest the Magistrates
And Princes of my country came in person,
Sollicited, commanded, threatn'd, urged,
Adjur'd by all the bonds of civil Duty
And of Religion, pressed how just it was,
How honorable, how glorious to entrap
A common enemy, who had destroyed
Such numbers of our Nation: and the Priest
Was not behind, but ever at my ear,
Preaching how meritorious with the gods
860
It would be to ensnare an irreligious
Dishonourer of
Dagon:
what had I
To oppose against such powerful arguments?
Only my love of thee held long debate;
And combated in silence all these reasons
With hard contest: at length that grounded maxim
So rife and celebrated in the mouths
Of wisest men; that to the public good
Private refpects must yield; with grave authority
870
Took full possession of me and prevailed;
Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty so enjoining.
Sam.
I thought where all thy circling wiles would end;
In feigned Religion, smooth hypocrisy.
But had thy love, still odiously pretended,
Bin, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee
Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds.
I before all the daughters of my Tribe
And of my Nation chose thee from among
My enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knew'st,
880
Too well, unbosom'd all my secrets to thee,
Not out of levity, but over-pour'd
By thy request, who could deny thee nothing;
Yet now am judged an enemy. Why then
Didst thou at first reccive me for thy husband?
Then, as since then, thy countries foe professed:
Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave
Parents and country; nor was I their subject,
Nor under their protection but my own,
Thou mine, not theirs: if aught against my life
Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly,
890
Against the law of nature, law of nations,
No more thy country, but an impious crew
Of men conspiring to uphold thir state
By worse then hostile deeds, violating the ends
For which our country is a name so dear;
Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee;
To please thy gods thou didst it; gods unable
To acquit themselves and prosecute their foes
But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction
Of their own deity, God's cannot be:
900
Less therefore to be pleased, obeyed, or feared,
These false pretexts and varnish'd colors failing,
Bare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear?
Dal.
In argument with men a woman ever
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause.
Sam.
For want of words no doubt, or lack of breath,
Witness when I was worried with thy peals.
Dal.
I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken
In what I thought would have succeeded best.
Let me obtain forgiveness of thee,
Samson,
910
Afford me place to show what recompense
Towards thee I intend for what I have misdone,
Misguided; only what remains past cure
Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist
To afflict thyself in vain: though sight be lost,
Life yet hath many solaces, enjoyed
Where other senses want not their delights
At home in leisure and domestic ease,
Exempt from many a care and chance to which
Eye-sight exposes daily men abroad.
920
I to the Lord's will intercede, not doubting
Thir favorable ear, that I may fetch thee
From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide
With me, where my redoubl'd love and care
With nursing diligence, to me glad office,
May ever tend about thee to old age
With all things grateful cheered, and so suppli'd,
That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss.
Sams.
No, no, of my condition take no care;
It fits not; thou and I long since are twain;
930
Nor think me so unwary or accurst
To bring my feet again into the snare
Where once I have been caught; I know thy trains
Though dearly to my cost, thy ginns, and toils;
Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms
No more on me have power, their force is null'd,
So much of Adders wisdom I have learned
To fence my ear against thy sorceries.
If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men
Lov'd, honor'd, feared me, thou alone could hate me
940
Thy Husband, slight me, sell me, and forgo me;
How wouldst thou use me now, blind, and thereby
Deceiveable, in most things as a child
Helpless, thence eafily contemned, and scorned,
And last neglected? How wouldst thou insult
When I must live uxorious to thy will
In perfet thralldom, how again betray me,
Bearing my words and doings to the Lord's
To gloss upon, and censuring, frown or smile?
This Gaol I count the house of Liberty
950
To thine whose doors my feet shall never enter.
Dal.
Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand.
Sam.
Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake
My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint.
At distance I forgive thee, go with that;
Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable
Among illustrious women, faithful wives:
Cherish thy hast'n'd widowhood with the gold
Of Matrimonial treason: so farewell.
960
Dal.
I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To prayers, then winds and seas, yet winds to seas
Are reconciled at length, and Sea to Shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages,
Eternal tempest never to be calm'd.
Why do I humble thus myself, and suing
For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate?
Bid go with evil omen and the brand
Of infamy upon my name denouncit?
To mix with thy concernments I desist
970
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own.
Fame if not double-facit is double-mouthed,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds,
On both his wings, one black, th' other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aerie flight.
My name perhaps among the Circumcis'd
In
Dan,
in
Judah,
and the bordering Tribes,
To all posterity may stand defam'd,
With malediction mentioned, and the blot
Of falsehood most unconjugal traducit.
980
But in my country where I most desire,
In
Ecron, Gaza, Asdod,
and in
Gath
I shall be named among the famousest
Of Women, sung at solemn festivals,
Living and dead recorded, whoto save
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the faith of wedlock-bands, my tomb
With odors visited and annual flowers.
Not less renowned then in Mount
Ephraim,
Jael,
who with in hospitable guile
990
Smote
Sisera
sleeping through the Temples nailed.
Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy
The public marks of honor and reward
Conferr'd upon me, for the piety
Which to my country I was judged to have shewn.
At this whoever envies or repines
I leave him to his lot, and like my own.
Chor.
She's gone, a manifest Serpent by her sting
Discover'd in the end; till now concealed.
Sam.
So let her go, God sent her to debase me,
10
And aggravate my folly who committed
To such a viper his most sacred trust
Of secrecy, my safety, and my life.
Chor.
Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,
After offense returning, to regain
Love once possessed, nor can be easily
Repulsit, without much inward passion felt
And secret sting of amorous remorse.
Sam.
Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end,
Not wedlock-treachery endangering life.
20
Cho.
It is not virtue, wisdom, valor, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit
That woman's love can win or long inherit;
But what it is, hard is to say:
Harder to hit,
(Which way soever men refer it)
Much like thy riddle,
Samson,
in one day
Or seven, though one should musing sit;
If any of these or all, the
Timnian
bride
Had not so soon prefer'd
30
Thy Paranymph, worthless to thee compared,
Successor in thy bed,
Nor both so loosely disally'd
Thir nuptials, nor this last so treacherously
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.
Is it for that such outward ornament
Was lavishit on thir Sex, that inward gifts
Were left for hast unfinishit, judgment scant,
Capacity not raised to apprehend
Or value what is best
40
In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-love mixed,
Of constancy no root infixt,
That either they love nothing, or not long?
What e'reit 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
Intestin, far within defensive arms
A cleaving mischief; in his way to virtue
50
Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms
Draws him awry enslav'd
With dotage, and his sense depraved
To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends.
What Pilot so expert but needs must wreck
Embarqu'd with such a Stears-mate at the Helm?
Favor'd of Heaven who finds
One virtuous rarely found,
That in domestic good combines:
Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth:
60
But virtue which breaks through all opposition,
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 lowre:
So shall he least confusion draw
On his whole life, not swayed
70
By female usurpation, nor dismayed.
But had we best retire, I see a storm?
Sam.
Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
Chor.
But this another kind of tempest brings.
Sam.
Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past.
Chor.
Look now for no enchanting 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.
80
Comes he in peace? what wind hath blown him hither
I less conjecture then when first I saw
The sumptuous
Delilah
floating this way:
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.
Sam.
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
90
As
Og
or
Anak
and the
Emims
old
That
Kiriathaim
held, thou knowest me now
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats performed
Incredible to me, in this displeased,
That I was never present on the place
Of those encounters, where we might have tried
Each others force in camp or listed field:
And now am come to see of whom such noise
Hath walked about, and each limb to survey,
100
If thy appearance answer loud report.
Sam.
The way to know were not to see but taste.
Har.
Dost thou already single me; I thought
Gives 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 Asses 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
110
From the unforeskinn'd race, of whom thou bear'st
The highest name for valiant Acts, that honor
Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee,
I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.
Sam.
Boast not of what thou wouldst have done,
〈◊〉
What then thou wouldest, thou seest it in thy hand.
Har.
To combat with a blind man I disdain,
And thou hast need much washing to be touched.
Sam.
Such usage as your honorable Lord's
Afford me assassinated and betrayed,
120
Who durst not with thir whole united powers
In fight withstand me single and unarm'd,
Nor in the house with chamber Ambushes
Close-banded durst attaque me, no not sleeping,
Till they had hir'd a woman with their gold
Breaking her Marriage Faith to circumvent me.
Therefore without feigned shifts let be assigned
Some narrow place enclosed, where sight may give thee,
Or rather flight, no great advantage on me;
Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy Helmet
130
And Brigandine of brass, thy broad Habergeon,
Vant-brass and Greves, and Gauntlet, add thy Spear
A Weavers beam, and seven-times-folded shield,
I only with an Oak'n staff will meet thee,
And raise such out-cries on thy clatter'd Iron.
Which long shall not with-hold me from thy head,
That in a little time while breath remains thee,
Thou oft shalt wish thyself at
Gath
to boast
Again in safety what thou wouldst have done
To
Samson,
but shalt never see
Gath
more.
140
Har.
Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms
Which greatest Heroes have in battle worn,
Thir ornament and safety, had not spells
And black enchantments, some Magicians Art
Arm'd thee or charmed thee strong, which thou from Heaven
Feigndst at thy birth was given thee in thy hair,
Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs
Were bristles rang'd like those that ridge the back
Of chafit wild Boars, or ruffl'd Porcupines.
Sam.
I know no Spells, use no forbidden Arts;
150
My trust is in the living God who gave me
At my Nativity this strength, diffused
No less through all my sinews, joints and bones,
Then thine, while I preserved these locks unshorn,
The pledge of my unviolated vow.
For proof hereof, if
Dagon
be thy god,
Go to his Temple, invocate his aid
With solemnest devotion, spread before him
How highly it concerns his glory now
To frustrate and dissolve these Magic spells,
Which I to be the power of
Israel
's God
160
Avow, and challenge
Dagon
to the test,
Offering to combat thee his Champion bold,
With th' utmost of his Godhead seconded:
Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow
Soon feel, whose God is strongest, thine or mine.
Har.
Presume not on thy God, what e're he be,
〈◊〉
he regards not, owns not, hath cut off
Quite from his people, and delivered up
〈◊〉
thy Enemies hand, permitted them
〈…〉
out both thine eyes, and fettered send thee
〈…〉
common Prison, there to grind
Among the Slaves and Asses thy comrades,
As good for nothing else, no better service
With those thy boyst'rous locks, no worthy match
For valor to assail, nor by the sword
Of noble Warriour, so to stain his honor,
But by the Barbers razor best subdued.
Sam.
All these indignities, for such they are
From thine, these evils I deserve and more,
180
Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me
Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon
Whose ear is ever open; and his eye
Gracious to re-admit the suppliant;
In confidence whereof I once again
Defie thee to the trial of mortal fight,
By combat to decide whose god is God,
Thine or whom I with
Israel
's Sons adore.
Har.
Fair honor that thou dost thy God, in trusting
He will accept thee to defend his cause,
190
A Murderer, a Revolter, and a Robber.
Sam.
Tongue-doubtie Giant, how dost thou prove me these?
Har.
Is not thy Nation subject to our Lord's?
Thir Magistrates confessed it, when they took thee
As a League-breaker and delivered bound
Into our hands: for hadst thou not committed
Notorious murder on those thirty men
At
Askalon,
who never did thee harm,
Then like a Robber stripdst them of thir robes?
The
Philistines,
when thou hadst broke the league,
200
Went up with armed powers thee only seeking,
To others did no violence nor spoil.
Sam.
Among the Daughters of the
Philistines
I chose a Wife, which argu'd me no foe;
And in your City held my Nuptial Feast:
But your ill-meaning Politician Lord's,
Under pretence of Bridal friends and guests,
Appointed to await me thirty spies,
Who threatening cruel death constrained the bride
To wring from me and tell to them my secret,
210
That solv'd the riddle which I had proposed.
When I perceived all set on enmity,
As on my enemies, where ever chanced,
I used hostility, and took thir spoil
To pay my underminers in thir coin.
My Nation was subjected to your Lord's.
It was the force of Conquest; force with force
Is well ejected when the Conquer'd can.
But I a private person, whom my Country
As a league-breaker gave up bound, presumed
Single Rebellion and did Hostile Acts.
I was no private but a person raised
With strength sufficient and command from Heaven
To free my Country; if their servile minds
Me their Deliverer sent would not receive,
But to thir Masters gave me up for naught,
Th'unworthier they; whence to this day they serve.
I was to do my part from Heaven assigned,
And had performed it if my known offense
Had not disabl'd me, not all your force:
230
These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant
Though by his blindness maim'd for high attempts,
Who now defies thee thrice to single fight,
As a petty enterprise of small enforce.
Har.
With thee a Man condemned, a Slave enrol'd,
Due by the Law to capital punishment?
To fight with thee no man of arms will deign.
Sam.
Cam'st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me,
To descant on my strength, and give thy verdit?
Come nearer, part not hence so slight informed;
240
But take good heed my hand survey not thee.
Har.
O
Baal-zebub!
can my ears unus'd
Hear these dishonors, and not render death?
Sam.
No man with-holds thee, nothing from thy hand
Fear I incurable; bring up thy van,
My heels are fettered, but my fist is free.
Har.
This insolence other kind of answer fits.
Sams.
Go baffl'd coward, left I run upon thee,
Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast,
And with one buffet lay thy structure low,
250
Or swing thee in the Air, then dash thee down
To the hazard of thy brains and shattered sides.
Har.
By
Astaroth
e're long thou shalt lament
These braveries in Irons loaden on thee.
Chor.
His Giantship is gone somewhat crest-fallen,
Stalking with less unconsci'nable strides,
And lower looks, but in a sultrie chafe.
Sam.
I dread him not, nor all his Giant-brood,
Though Fame divulged him Father of five Sons
All of Gigantic size,
Goliath
chief.
260
Chor.
He will directly to the Lord's, I fear,
And with malicious counsel stir them up
Some way or other yet further to afflict thee.
Sam.
He must allege some cause, and offered fight
Will not dare mention, lest a question rise
Whether he durst accept the offer or not,
And that he durst not plain enough appeared.
Much more affliction then already felt
They cannot well impose, nor I sustain;
If they intend advantage of my labors
270
The work of many hands, which earns my keeping
With no small profit daily to my owners.
But come what will, my deadliest foe will prove
My speediest friend, by death to rid me hence,
The worst that he can give, to me the best.
Yet so it may fall out, because thir end
Is hate, not help to me, it may with mine
Draw thir own ruin who attempt the deed.
Chor.
Oh how comely it is and how reviving
To the Spirits of just men long oppressed!
280
When God into the hands of thir deliverer
Puts invincible might
To quell the mighty of the Earth, th' oppressor,
The brute and boist'rous force of violent men
Hardy and industrious to support
Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue
The righteous and all such as honor Truth;
He all thir Ammunition
And feats of War defeats
With plain Heroic magnitude of mind
290
And celestial vigor armed,
Thir Armories and Magazins contemns,
Renders them useless, while
With winged expedition
Swift as the lightning glance he executes
His errand on the wicked, who surprised
Lose thir defense distracted and amazed.
But patience is more oft the exercise
Of Saints, the trial of thir fortitude,
Making them each his own Deliverer,
300
And Victor over all
That tyranny or fortune can inflict,
Either of these is in thy lot,
Samson,
with might endu'd
Above the Sons of men; but sight bereaved
May chance to number thee with those
Whom Patience finally must crown.
This Idols day hath been to thee no day of rest,
Labouring thy mind
More then the working day thy hands,
310
And yet perhaps more trouble is behind.
For I descry this way
Some other tending, in his hand
A Scepter or quaint staff he bears,
Comes on amain, speed in his look.
By his habit I discern him now
A Public Officer, and now at hand.
His message will be short and voluble.
Off.
Ebrews,
the Pris'ner
Samson
here I seek.
Chor.
His manacles remark him, there he fits.
320
Off.
Samson,
to thee our Lord's thus bid me say;
This day to
Dagon
is a solemn Feast,
With Sacrifices, Triumph, Pomp, and Games;
Thy strength they know surpassing human rate,
And now some public proof thereof require
To honor this great Feast, and great Assembly;
Rise therefore with all speed and come along,
Where I will see thee heartn'd and fresh clad
To appear as fits before th'illustrious Lord's.
Sam.
Thou knowest I am an
Hebrew,
therefore tell them,
330
Our Law forbids at thir Religious Rites
My presence; for that cause I cannot come.
Off.
This answer, be assured, will not content them.
Sam.
Have they not Sword-players, and every sort
Of Gymnic Artists, Wrestlers, Riders, Runners,
Jugglers and Dancers, Antics, Mummers, Mimics,
But they must pick me out with shackles tired,
〈…〉
labor'd at thir public Mill,
〈…〉
them sport with blind activity?
〈…〉
not seek occasion of new quarrels
340
On my refusal to distress me more,
Or make a game of my calamities?
Return the way thou camest, I will not come.
Off.
Regard thyself, this will offend them highly.
Sam.
My self? my conscience and internal peace.
Can they think me so broken, so debas'd
With corporal servitude, that my mind ever
Will condescend to such absurd commands?
Although thir drudge, to be thir fool or jester,
And in my midst of sorrow and heart-grief
350
To show them feats, and play before thir god,
The worst of all indignities, yet on me
Join'd with extreme contempt? I will not come.
Off.
My message was imposed on me with speed,
Brooks no delay: is this thy resolution?
Sam.
So take it with what speed thy message needs.
Off.
I am sorry what this stoutness will produce.
Sa.
Perhaps thou shalt have cause to sorrow indeed.
Chor.
Consider,
Samson;
matters now are strained
Up to the highth, whether to hold or break;
360
He's gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Expect another message more imperious,
More Lordly thund'ring then thou well wilt bear.
Sam.
Shall I abuse this Consecrated gift
Of strength, again returning with my hair
After my great transgression, so requite
Favor renewed, and add a greater sin
By prostituting holy things to Idols;
A
Nazarite
in place abominable
370
Vaunting my strength in honor to thir
Dagon?
Besides, how vile, contemptible, ridiculous,
What act more execrably unclean, profane?
Chor.
Yet with this strength thou serv'st the
Philistines,
Idolatrous, uncircumcis'd, unclean.
Sam.
Not in thir Idol-worship, but by labor
Honest and lawful to deserve my food
Of those who have me in thir civil power.
Chor.
Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not.
Sam.
Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds
380
But who constrains me to the Temple of
Dagon,
Not dragging? the
Philistian
Lord's command.
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them,
I do it freely; venturing to displease
God for the fear of Man, and Man prefer,
Set God behind: which in his jealousy
Shall never, unrepented, find forgiveness.
Yet that he may dispense with me or thee
Present in Temples at Idolatrous Rites
For some important cause, thouneedst not doubt.
390
Chor.
How thou wilt here come off surmounts my reach.
Sam.
Be of good courage, I begin to feel
Some rousing motions in me which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts.
I with this Messenger will go along,
Nothing do, be sure, that may dishonor
Our Law, or stain my vow of
Nazarite.
If there be aught of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last.
400
Chor.
In time thou hast resolved, the man returns.
Off.
Samson,
this second message from our Lord's
To thee I am bid say. Art thou our Slave,
Our Captive, at the public Mill our drudge,
And darest thou at our sending and command
Dispute thy coming? come without delay;
Or we shall find such Engines to assail
And hamper thee, as thou shalt come of force,
Though thou wert firmlier fasten'd then a rock.
Sam.
I could be well content to try thir Art,
410
Which to no few of them would prove pernicious:
Yet knowing thir advantages too many,
Because they shall not trail me through thir streets
Like a wild Beast, I am content to go.
Masters commands come with a power resistless
To such as owe them absolute subjection;
And for a life who will not change his purpose?
(So mutable are all the ways of men)
Yet this be sure, in nothing to comply
Scandalous or forbidden in our Law.
420
Off.
I praise thy resolution, doff these links:
By this compliance thou wilt win the Lord's
To favor, and perhaps to set thee free.
Sam.
Brethren farewell, your company along
I will not wish, lest it perhaps offend them
To see me girt with Friends; and how the sight
Of me as of a common Enemy,
So dreaded once may now exasperate them
I know not. Lord's are Lordliest in thir wines
And the well-feasted Priest then soonest fired
430
With zeal, if aught Religion seem concerned:
No less the people on thir Holy-days
Impetuous, insolent, unquenchable;
Happ'n what may, of me expect to hear
Nothing dishonorable, impure, unworthy
Our God, our Law, my Nation, or myself,
The last of me or no I cannot warrant.
Chor.
Go, and the Holy One
Of
Israel
be thy guide
To what may serve his glory best, & spread his name
440
Great among the Heathen round:
Send thee the Angel of thy Birth, to stand
Fast by thy side, who from thy Fathers field
Rode up in flames after his message told
Of thy conception, and be now a shield
Of fire; that Spirit that first rusht on thee
In the Camp of
Dan
Be efficacious in thee now at need.
For never was from Heaven imparted
Measure of strength so great to mortal seed.
450
As in thy wondrous actions hath been seen.
But wherefore comes old
Manoa
in such hast
With youthful steps? much livelier then e're while
He seems: supposing here to find his Son,
Or of him bringing to us some glad news?
Man.
Peace with you brethren; my inducement hither
Was not at present here to find my Son,
By order of the Lord's new parted hence
To come and play before them at thir Feast.
I heard all as I came, the City rings
460
And numbers thither flock, I had no will,
Lest I should see him forced to things unseemly.
But that which moved my coming now, was chiefly
To give ye part with me what hope I have
With good success to work his liberty.
Cho.
That hope would much rejoice us to partake
With thee; say reverend Sire, we thirst to hear.
Man.
I have attempted one by one the Lord's
Either at home, or through the high street passing,
With supplication prone and Fathers tears
470
To accept of ransom for my Son thir pris'ner,
Some much averse I found and wondrous harsh,
Contemptuous, proud, set on revenge and spite;
That part most reverenc'd
Dagon
and his Priests,
Others more moderate seeming, but thir aim
Private reward, for which both God and State
They easily would set to sale, a third
More generous far and civil, who confessed
They had enough revenged, having reducit
Thir foe to misery beneath thir fears,
480
The rest was magnanimity to remit,
If some convenient ransom were proposed.
What noise or shout was that? it tore the Sky.
Chor.
Doubtless the people shouting to behold
Thir once great dread, captive, & blind before them,
Or at some proof of strength before them shown.
Man.
His ransom, if my whole inheritance
May compass it, shall willingly be paid
And numberd down: much rather I shall choose
To live the poorest in my Tribe, then richest,
490
And he in that calamitous prison left.
No, I am fixed not to part hence without him.
•
or his redemption all my Patrimony,
If need be, I am ready to forgo
And quit: not wanting him, I shall want nothing.
Chor.
Fathers are wont to lay up for thir Sons,
Thou for thy Son art bent to lay out all;
Sons wont to nurse thir Parents in old age,
Thou in old age car'st how to nurse thy Son.
Made older then thy age through eye-sight lost.
500
Man.
It shall be my delight to tend his eyes,
And view him sitting in the house, enobl'd
With all those high exploits by him atchiev'd,
And on his shoulders waving down those locks,
That of a Nation armed the strength contained:
And I persuade me God had not permitted
His strength again to grow up with his hair
Garrison'd round about him like a Camp
Of faithful Soldiery, were not his purpose
To use him further yet in some great service,
510
Not to sit idle with so great a gift
Useless, and thence ridiculous about him.
And since his strength with eye-sight was not lost,
God will restore him eye-sight to his strength.
Chor.
Thy hopes are not ill founded nor seem vain
Of his delivery, and thy joy thereon
Conceiv'd, agreeable to a Fathers love,
In both which we, as next participate.
Man.
I know your friendly minds and—O what noise!
Mercy of Heaven what hideous noise was that!
520
Horribly loud unlike the former shout.
Chor.
Noise call you it or universal groan
As if the whole inhabitation perished,
Blood, death, and deathful deeds are in that noise,
Ruin, destruction at the utmost point.
Man.
Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise,
Oh it continues, they have slain my Son.
Chor.
Thy Son is rather slaying them, that outcry
From slaughter of one foe could not ascend.
Man.
Some dismal accident it needs must be;
530
What shall we do, stay here or run and see?
Chor.
Best keep together here, lest running thither
We unawares run into dangers mouth.
This evil on the
Philistines
is fallen,
From whom could else a general cry be heard?
The sufferers then will scarce molest us here,
From other hands we need not much to fear.
A little stay will bring some notice hither,
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
And to our wish I see one hither speeding,
540
An
Hebrew,
as I guess, and of our Tribe.
Mess.
O whither shall I run, or which way fly
The sight of this so horrid spectacle
Which erst my eyes beheld and yet behold;
For dire imagination still pursues me.
But providence or instinct of nature seems,
Or reason though disturbed, and scarce consulted
To have guided me aright, I know not how,
To thee first reverend
Manoa,
and to these
My Countrymen, whom here I knew remaining,
550
As at some distance from the place of horror,
So in the sad event too much concerned.
Man.
The accident was loud, & heard before thee
With rueful cry, yet what it was we hear not,
No Preface needs, thou seest we long to know.
Mess.
It would burst forth, but I recover breath
And sense distract, to know well what I utter.
Man.
Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer.
Mess.
Gaza
yet stands, but all her Sons are fallen,
All in a moment overwhelmed and fallen.
560
Man.
Sad, but thou knowest to
Israelites
not saddest
The desolation of a Hostile City.
Mess.
Feed on that first, there may in grief be surfeit.
Man.
Relate by whom.
Mess.
By
Samson.
(Man.
That still lessens
The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy.
Mess.
Ah
Manoa
I refrain, too suddenly
To utter what will come at lasttoosoon;
Lest evil tidings with too rude irruption
Hitting thy aged ear should pierce too deep.
Man.
Suspense in news is torture, speak them out.
570
Mess.
Then take the worst in brief,
Samson
is dead.
Man.
The worst indeed, O all my hope's defeated
To free him hence! but death who sets all free
Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge.
What windy joy this day had I conceived
Hopeful of his Delivery, which now proves
Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring
Nipt with the lagging rear of winters frost.
Yet e're I give the rains to grief, say first,
How died he? death to life is crown or shame.
580
All by him fell thou sayest, by whom fell he,
What glorious hand gave
Samson
his deaths wound?
Mess.
Unwounded of his enemies he fell.
Man.
Wearied with slaughter then or how? explain.
Mess.
By his own hands.
Man.
Self-violence? what cause
Brought him so soon at variance with himself
Among his foes?
Mess.
Inevitable cause
At once both to destroy and be destroyed;
The Edifice where all were met to see him
Upon thir heads and on his own he pulled.
590
Man.
O lastly over-strong against thyself!
A dreadful way thou tookest to thy revenge.
More then enough we know; but while things yet
Are in confusion, give us if thou canst,
Eye-witness of what first or last was done,
Relation more particular and distinct.
Mess.
Occasions drew me early to this City,
And as the gates I entered with Sun-rise,
The morning Trumpets Festival proclaimed
Through each high street: little I had dispatchit
600
When all abroad was rumour'd that this day
Samson
should be brought forth to show the people
Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games;
I sorrow'd at his captive state, but minded
Not to be absent at that spectacle.
The building was a spacious Theatre
Half round on two main Pillars vaulted high,
With seats where all the Lord's and each degree
Of sort, might sit in order to behold,
The other side was op'n, where the throng
610
On banks and scaffolds under Sky might stand;
I among these aloof obscurely stood.
The Feast and noon grew high, and Sacrifice
Had filled thir hearts with mirth, high cheer, & wine,
When to thir sports they turned. Immediately
Was
Samson
as a public servant brought,
In thir state Livery clad; before him Pipes
And Timbre's, on each side went armed guards,
Both horse and foot before him and behind
Archers, and Slingers, Cataphracts and Spears.
620
At sight of him the people with a shout
Rifted the Air clamouring thir god with praise,
Who had made thir dreadful enemy thir thrall.
He patient but undaunted where they led him,
Came to the place, and what was set before him
Which without help of eye, might be assay'd,
To heave, pull, draw, or break, he still performed
All with incredible, stupendous force,
None daring to appear Antagonist.
At length for intermission sake they led him
630
Between the pillars; he his guide requested
(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 arched roof gave main support.
He unsuspitious led him; which when
Samson
Felt in his arms, with head a while inclined,
And eyes fast fixed he stood, as one who prayed,
Or some great matter in his mind revolv'd.
At last with head erect thus cried aloud,
640
Hitherto, Lord's, what your commands imposed
I have performed, as reason was, obeying,
Not without wonder or delight beheld.
Now of my own accord such other trial
I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater;
As with amaze shall strike all who behold.
This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed,
As with the force of winds and waters pent,
When Mountains tremble, those two massy Pillars
With horrible convulsion to and fro,
650
He tugg'd, 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,
Lord's, Ladies, Captains, Counselors, or Priests,
Thir choice nobility and flower, not only
Of this but each
Philistian
City round
Met from all parts to solemnize this Feast.
Samson
with these immixt, inevitably
Pulld down the same destruction on himself;
The vulgar only scaped who stood without.
660
Chor.
O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious!
Living or dying thou hast fulfilled
The work for which thou wast foretold
To
Israel,
and now lie'st victorious
Among thy slain self-killed
Not willingly, but tangl'd in the fold,
Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoined
Thee with thy slaughtered foes in number more
Then all thy life had slain before.
Semichor.
While thir hearts were jocund and sublime,
670
Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with Wine,
And fat regorg'd of Bulls and Goats,
Chaunting thir Idol, and preferring
Before our living Dread who dwells
In
Silo
his bright Sanctuary:
Among them he a spirit of frenzy sent,
Who hurt thir minds,
And urged them on with mad desire
To call in hast for thir destroyer;
They only set on sport and play
680
Unweetingly importuned
Thir own destruction to come speedy upon them.
So fond are mortal men
Fall'n into wrath divine,
As thir own ruin on themselves to invite,
Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,
And with blindness internal struck.
Semichor.
But he though blind of sight,
Despis'd and thought extinguishit quite,
With inward eyes illuminated
690
His fiery virtue rouz'd
From under ashes into sudden flame,
And as an ev'ning Dragon came,
Assailant on the perched roosts,
And nests in order rang'd
Of tame villatic Fowl; but as an Eagle
His cloudless thunder bolted on thir heads.
So virtue given for lost,
Deprest, and overthrown, as seemed,
Like that self-begott'n bird
700
In the
Arabian
woods embost,
That no second knows nor third,
And lay e're while a Holocaust,
From out her ashie womb now teem'd,
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed,
And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.
Man.
Come, come, no time for lamentation now,
Nor much more cause,
Samson
hath quit himself
710
Like
Samson,
and heroicly hath finished
A life Heroic, on his Enemies
Fully revenged, hath left them years of mourning,
And lamentation to the Sons of
Caphtor
Through all
Philistian
bounds. To
Israel
Honor hath left, and freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion,
To himself and Fathers house eternal fame;
And which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,
720
But favoring and assisting to the end.
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
Sokit in his enemies blood, and from the stream
With lavers pure and cleansing herbs wash off
The clotted gore. I with what speed the while
(Gaza
is not in plight to say us nay)
730
Will send for all my kindred, all my friends
To fetch him hence and solemnly attend
With silent obsequie and funeral train
Home to his Fathers 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 enroll'd
In copious Legend, or sweet Lyric Song.
Thither shall all the valiant youth resort,
And from his memory inflame thir breasts
740
To matchless valor, and adventures high:
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' unsearchable dispose
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft he seems to hide his face,
750
But unexpectedly returns
And to his faithful Champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence
Gaza
mourns
And all that band them to resist
His uncontrollable intent,
His servants he with new acquist
Of true experience from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismissed,
And calm of mind all passion spent.
THE END.
Omissa.
Page 89 after verse 537. which ends, Not much to fear, insert these.
What if his eye-sight (for to
Israel's
God
Nothing is hard) by miracle restored,
He now be dealing dole among his foes,
And over heaps of slaughtered walk his way?
Man.
That were a joy presumptuous to be thought.
Chor.
Yet God hath wrought things as incredible
For his people of old; what hinders now?
Man.
He can I know, but doubt to think he will;
Yet Hope would fain subscribe, and tempts Belief.
After the next verse which begins, A little stay, insert this.
Chor.
Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner;
Then follows in order,
For evil news,
&c.
Errata in the former Poem.
PAge 4. verse 62. after being no stop, p. 13. verse 226. for destroy, r. subdue, p. 21. v. 373. for demuring, r. demurring, p. 22. v. 400. for never, r. nearer, p. 23. v. 407. for Imports, r. Imparts, p. 35. v. 127. after threat'ns, insert then, p. 44. v. 313. for Thebes, r. Thebez, p. 46. v. 341. for pill'd, r. pil'd, p. 47. v. 371. no comma after knowledge, but after works, p. 71. v. 323. for shower, r. showers, p. 83. v. 102. no stop after victor.
Errata in the latter Poem.
PAge 16. verse 127. for Irresistable, r. Irresistible, p. 17. v. 158. for complained, r. complain, p. 21. v. 222. for mentioned, r. motion'd, p. 28. v. 255. before, such r. And, p. 43. v. 657. no stop at the end, p. 44. v. 661. for to, r. with, p. 75. v. 259. for divulged, r. divulge, p. 78. v. 324. for race r. rate, p. 79. v. 336. for Mimirs, r. Mimics, p. 90. v. 553. for heard r. here.