Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful concubine, who shore me,
Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece;
Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd,
Shaven, and disarm'd among mine enemies.

Cho. Desire of wine, and all delicious drinks,
Which many a famous warriour overturns,
Thou couldst repress; nor did the dancing ruby,
Sparkling, out-pour'd, the flavour, or the smell,
Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men,"
Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream▾

Sam. Wherever fountain or fresh current flow'd
Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure
With touch ethereal of Heaven's fiery rod,
I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying
Thirst, and refresh'd;, nor envied them the grape,
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
Cho. O, madness, to think use of strongest wines
And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God with these forbidden made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.

The dancing ruby, &c.

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Dr. Newton and Mr. Thyer remark, that the poet probably alludes to Prov. xxiii, 31 "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright." Milton has also "rubied nectar," ," "Par. Lost," b. v. 633. And dancing he has transferred hither from his "Comus," v. 673.

And first behold this cordial julep here,

That flames and dances in his crystal bounds.-TODD.

u Or taste that cheers the heart of gods and men.

Judges ix. 13, "Wine which cheereth God and man." Milton says "gods," which is a just paraphrase, meaning the hero-gods of the heathen. Jotham is here speaking to

an idolatrous city, that "ran a whoring after Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god;" a god sprung from among men, as may be partly collected from his name, as well as from divers other circumstances of the story. Hesiod, in a similiar expression, says that "the vengeance of the Fates pursued the crimes of gods and men," Theog. v. 220.— WARBURTON.

▾ Cool crystalline stream.

Borrowed by Mason, in his additions to Gray's fragment of an "Ode to Vicissitude." w Wherever fountain or fresh current flow'd Against the eastern ray, &c.

This circumstance was very probably suggested to our author by Tasso's poem "del Mondo creato," giorna iii. st. 8.-THYER.

Mr. Geddes, in his learned and entertaining "Essay on the Composition, &c., of Plato,” considers these lines of Milton as possessing much of the same spirit, though applied to another thing, with a passage in the philosopher's "Io," p. 533, 534, tom. i. edit. Serran., where, speaking of the poets, he says, "As soon as they enter the winding mazes of harmony, they became lymphatic, and rove like the furious Bacchanals, who in their frenzy drew honey and milk out of the rivers. The poets tell us the same thing of themselves," &c. Essay, 1748, p. 184.-TODD.

With touch ethereal of heaven's fiery rod.

This description of the first ray of light at the moment of sunrise, is eminently bold and beautiful. We might trace it to Euripides, "Suppl." 652, to which Dr. Hurd refers Milton's "long-level'd rule of streaming light," Comus, v. 340.-DUNSTER.

y Whose drink, &c.

Samson was a Nazarite, Judges xiii. 7; therefore to drink no wine, nor shave hi head. See Numb. vi. Amos ii. 12.-RICHARDSON.

Sam. But what avail'd this temperance, not complete
Against another object more enticing?

What boots it at one gate to make defence,
And at another to let in the foe,

Effeminately vanquish'd? by which means,

Now blind, dishearten'd, shamed, dishonour'd, quell'd,
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; these redundant locks,
Robustious to no purpose, clustering down,
Vain monument of strength; till length of
And sedentary numbness craze my limbs"
To a contemptible old age obscure?

years

Here rather let me drudge and earn my bread;
Till vermin, or the draff of servile food,

Consume me, and oft-invocated death

Hasten 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,

Inglorious, unemploy'd, with age outworn.
But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer

From the dry ground to spring, thy thirst to allay
After the brunt of battel; can as easy
Cause light again within thy eyes to spring,
Wherewith to serve him better than thou hast;
And I persuade me so: why else this strength
Miraculous yet remaining in those locks?

z But to sit idle on the household hearth, &c.

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It is supposed, with probability enough, that Milton chose Samson for his subject, because he was a fellow-sufferer with him in the loss of his eyes: however, one may venture to say, that the similitude of their circumstances has enriched the poem with everal very pathetic descriptions of the misery of blindness.-THYER.

a Craze my limbs.

He uses the word "craze" much in the same manner as in the "Par. Lost," b. xii. 210. NEWTON.

b Draff.

The refuse. See "Par. Lost," b. x. 630. Thus Chaucer, "Prol. to the Parsones Tale:"

Why should I sowen draf out of my fist,
When I may sowen whete if that me liste?

And Shakspeare, "Hen. IV." part 1. a. iv. s. 2. "You would think I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from cating draff and husks."-Dunster.

c But God, who caused a fountain at thy prayer

From the dry ground to spring, &c.

See Judges xv. 18, 19. But Milton differs from our translation of the Bible. The translation says, that "God clave a hollow place that was in the jaw" Milton says, that "God caused a fountain from the dry ground to spring;" and herein he follows the Chaldee paraphrast and the best commentators, who understand it that God made a cleft in some part of the ground or rock, in the place called Lehi; Lehi signifying both a jaw and a place so called.-NEWTON.

His might continues in thee not for naught,
Nor shall his wondrous gifts be frustrate thus.

Sam. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,
That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,
Nor the 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
From anguish of the mind and humours black,
That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omits a father's timely care

To prosecute the means of thy deliverance
By ransom, or how else: meanwhile be calm,

And healing words from these thy friends admit.
Sam. O, that torment should not be confined
To the body's wounds and sores,

With maladies innumerable

In heart, head, breast, and reins;
But must secret passage find

d His might continues, &c.

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614

A fine preparative, which raises our expectation of some great event to be produced by his strength.-WARBURTON.

• So much I feel my genial spirits droop, &c.

Here Milton, in the person of Samson, describes exactly his own case, what he felt, and what he thought, in some of his melancholy hours: he could not have written so well but from his own feeling and experience; and the very flow of the verses is melancholy, and excellently adapted to the subject. As Mr. Thyer expresses it, there is a remarkable solemnity and air of melancholy, in the very sound of these verses; and the reader will find it very difficult to pronounce them without that grave and serious tone of voice which is proper for the occasion.-NEWTON.

Every reader of taste must subscribe with heartiness to this testimony of Thyer and Newton. The passage is truly pathetic and melodious.

f And humours black, That mingle with thy fancy.

This very just notion of the mind or fancy's being affected, and as it were tainted with the vitiated humours of the body, Milton had before adopted in his "Paradise Lost," where he introduces Satan in the shape of a toad at the ear of Eve, b. iv. 804. Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint The animal spirits, &c.

So again in "Comus," v. 809.

'Tis but the lees

And settlings of a melancholy blood.-THYER.

g I however Must not omit, &c.

Such is also the language of Oceanus to his nephew Prometheus, Esch. "Prom. Vinct."-DUNster.

bO that torment should not be confined, &c.

Milton, no doubt, was apprehensive that this long description of Samson's grief and misery might grow tedious to the reader, and therefore here with great judgment varies both his manner of expressing it, and the versification. These sudden starts of impa tience are very natural to persons in such circumstances, and this rough and unequal measure of the verse is very well suited to it.-THYER.

To the 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;
Nor less than wounds immedicable

Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,

To black mortification.

Thoughts, my tormentors, arm'd with deadly stings,
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,

Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb
Or med'cinal liquor can asswage,

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.1
Sleep hath forsook and given me o'er

To death's benumbing opium as my only cure:
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,

And sense of Heaven's desertion.

I was his nursling once," and choice delight,

i Thoughts, my tormentors, arm'd with deadly stings,
Mangle, &c.

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630

This descriptive imagery is fine and well pursued. The idea is taken from the effects of poisonous salts in the stomach and bowels, which stimulate, tear, inflame, and exulcerate the tender fibres, and end in a mortification, which he calls "death's benumbing opium," as in that stage the pain is over.-WARBURTON.

i Or med'cinal liquor.

Here "medicinal" is pronounced with the accent upon the last syllable but one, as in Latin; which is more musical than as we commonly pronounce it, "medicinal," with the accent upon the last syllable but two, or "med'cinal" as Milton has used it in "Comus." The same pronunciation occurs in Shakspeare, "Othello," a. v. s. 2:—

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinal gum.-NEWTON.

"Medicinal" is not the reading of Milton's own edition: in that it is "medcinal." The supposed emendation of "medicinal" is made in the folio of 1688, and it has been since invariably followed.-TODD.

Nor breath of vernal air.

So, in that most delightful passage in "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 264:

1 From snowy Alp.

He uses "Alp" for mountain in general, as in "Paradise Lost," b. ii. 620. "Alp," in the strict etymology of the word, signifies a mountain white with snow. We have indeed appropriated the name to the high mountains which separate Italy from France and Germany; but any high mountain may be so called, and so Sidonius Apollinaris calls Mount Athos, speaking of Xerxes cutting through it, "Carm." ii. 510.-NEWTON. Milton took this use of the word from the Italian poets, amongst whom it was very common.-HURD.

m I was his nursling once, &c.

This part of Samson's speech is little more than a repetition of what he had said before, v. 23:

O, wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an angel, &c.

His destined from the womb,

Promised by heavenly message twice descending.
Under his special eye

Abstemious I grew up, and thrived amain:

He led me on to mightiest deeds,

Above the nerve of mortal arm,

Against the uncircumcised, our enemies:
But now hath cast me off as never known,
And to those cruel enemies,

Whom I by his appointment had provoked,
Left me all helpless, with the irreparable loss
Of sight, reserved alive to be repeated
The subject of their 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,
No long petition; speedy death,

The close of all my miseries, and the balm.

Cho. Many are the sayings of the wise,
In ancient and in modern books inroll'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:

But with the afflicted in his pangs their 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!

But yet it cannot justly be imputed as a fault to our author. Grief, though eloquent, is not tied to forms; and is besides apt in its own nature frequently to recur to, and repeat, its source and subject.-THYER.

And much persuasion sought.

suppose an error of the press for fraught.-WARBURTON.

But "sought" may mean, collected studiously or with pains; or it may be used in the Bense of recherché in French; curious, refined, far-fetched.-DUNSTER.

• Lenient of grief.

Expressed from what we quoted before from Horace, "Ep." 1. i. 34:

Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem
Possis.-NEWTON.

P Or rather seems a tune

Harsh, and of dissonant mood, &c.

Alluding to Ecclus. xxii. 6:-"A tale out of season is as music in mourning."THYER.

q God of our fathers, what is man! &c.

This, and the following paragraph, to ver. 705, seem to be an imitation of the Chorus in Seneca's "Hippolytus," where the immature and undeserved fate of that young herc is lamented, a, iv. 971: