| |
| To such a viper his most sacred trust | 1000 |
| Of secrecy, my safety, and my life. | |
| Chor. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, | |
| After offence returning, to regain | |
| Love once possessed, nor can be easily | |
| Repulsed, without much inward passion felt, | 1005 |
| And secret sting of amorous remorse. | |
| Sams. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end; | |
| Not wedlock-treachery endangering life. | |
| Chor. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, | |
| Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, | 1010 |
| 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 | 1015 |
| Or seven though one should musing sit. | |
| If any of these, or all, the Timnian bride | |
| Had not so soon preferred | |
| Thy Paranymph, worthless to thee compared, | |
| Successor in thy bed, | 1020 |
| Nor both so loosely disallied | |
| Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously | |
| Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head. | |
| Is it for that such outward ornament | |
| Was lavished on their sex, that inward gifts | 1025 |
| Were left for haste unfinished, judgment scant, | |
| Capacity not raised to apprehend | |
| Or value what is best, | |
| In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong? | |
| Or was too much of self-love mixed, | 1030 |
| Of constancy no root infixed, | |
| That either they love nothing, or not long? | |
| Whate’er it be, to wisest men and best, | |
| Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil, | |
| Soft, modest, meek, demure, | 1035 |
| Once joined, the contrary she proves—a thorn | |
| Intestine, far within defensive arms | |
| A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue | |
| Adverse and turbulent; or by her charms | |
| Draws him awry, enslaved | 1040 |
| With dotage, and his sense depraved | |
| To folly and shameful deeds, which ruin ends. | |
| What pilot so expert but needs must wreck, | |
| Embarked with such a steers-mate at the helm? | |
| Favoured of Heaven who finds | 1045 |
| One virtuous, rarely found, | |
| That in domestic good combines! | |
| Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth: | |
| But virtue which breaks through all opposition, | |
| And all temptation can remove, | 1050 |
| 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, | 1055 |
| Smile she or lour: | |
| So shall he least confusion draw | |
| On his whole life, not swayed | |
| By female usurpation, nor dismayed. | |
| But had we best retire? I see a storm. | 1060 |
| Sams. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. | |
| Chor. But this another kind of tempest brings. | |
| Sams. Be less abstruse; my riddling days are past. | |
| Chor. Look now for no inchanting voice, nor fear | |
| The bait of honeyed words; a rougher tongue | 1065 |
| Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride, | |
| The giant Harapha of Gath, his look | |
| Haughty, as is his pile high-built and proud. | |
| Comes he in peace? What wind hath blown him hither | |
| I less conjecture than when first I saw | 1070 |
| The sumptuous Dalila floating this way: | |
| His habit carries peace, his brow defiance. | |
| Sams. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes. | |
| Chor. His fraught we soon shalt know: he now arrives. | |
| Har. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance, | 1075 |
| As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been, | |
| Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath; | |
| Men call me Harapha, of stock renowned | |
| As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old | |
| That Kiriathaim held. Thou know’st me now, | 1080 |
| 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 | 1085 |
| Each other’s force in camp or listed field; | |
| And now am come to see of whom such noise | |
| Hath walked about, and each limb to survey, | |
| If thy appearance answer loud report. | |
| Sams. The way to know were not to see, but taste. | 1090 |
| Har. Dost thou already single me? I thought | |
| Gyves and the mill had tamed thee. O that fortune | |
| Had brought me to the field where thou art famed | |
| To have wrought such wonders with an ass’ jaw! | |
| I should have forced thee soon with other arms, | 1095 |
| Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown; | |
| So had the glory of prowess been recovered | |
| To Palestine, won by a Philistine | |
| From the unforeskinned race, of whom thou bear’st | |
| The highest name for valiant acts. That honour, | 1100 |
| Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee, | |
| I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out. | |
| Sams. Boast not of what thou would’st have done, but do | |
| What then thou would’st; thou seest it in thy hand. | |
| Har. To combat with a blind man I disdain, | 1105 |
| And thou hast need much washing to be touched. | |
| Sams. Such usage as your honourable Lords | |
| Afford me, assassinated and betrayed; | |
| Who durst not with their whole united powers | |
| In fight withstand me single and unarmed, | 1110 |
| Nor in the house with chamber-ambushes | |
| Close-banded durst attack me, no, not sleeping, | |
| Till they had hired a woman with their gold, | |
| Breaking her marriage-faith, to circumvent me. | |
| Therefore, without feign’d shifts, let be assigned | 1115 |
| Some narrow place enclosed, where sight may give thee, | |
| Or rather flight, nor great advantage on me; | |
| Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy helmet | |
| And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon, | |
| Vant-brass and greaves and gauntlet; add thy spear, | 1120 |
| A weaver’s beam, and seven-times-folded shield: | |
| I only with an oaken staff will meet thee, | |
| And raise such outcries on thy clattered iron, | |
| Which long shall not withhold me from thy head, | |
| That in a little time, while breath remains thee, | 1125 |
| Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath, to boast | |
| Again in safety what thou would’st have done | |
| To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more. | |
| Har. Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms | |
| Which greatest heroes have in battle worn, | 1130 |
| Their ornament and safety, had not spells | |
| And black inchantments, some magician’s art, | |
| Armed thee or charmed thee strong, which thou from Heaven | |
| Feign’dst at thy birth was given thee in thy hair, | |
| Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs | 1135 |
| Were bristles ranged like those that ridge the back | |
| Of chafed wild boars or ruffled porcupines. | |
| Sams. I know no spells, use no forbidden arts; | |
| My trust is in the Living God, who gave me, | |
| At my nativity, this strength, diffused | 1140 |
| No less through all my sinews, joints, and bones, | |
| Than 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 | 1145 |
| 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 | |
| Avow, and challenge Dagon to the test, | 1150 |
| Offering to combat thee, his Champion bold, | |
| With the 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. Whate’er he be, | 1155 |
| Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off | |
| Quite from his people, and delivered up | |
| Into thy enemies’ hand; permitted them | |
| To put out both thine eyes, and fettered send thee | |
| Into the common prison, there to grind | 1160 |
| Among the slaves and asses, thy comrades, | |
| As good for nothing else, no better service | |
| With those thy boisterous locks; no worthy match | |
| For valour to assail, nor by the sword | |
| Of noble warrior, so to stain his honour, | 1165 |
| But by the barber’s razor best subdued. | |
| Sams. All these indignities, for such they are | |
| From thine, these evils I deserve and more, | |
| Acknowledge them from God inflicted on me | |
| Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon, | 1170 |
| Whose ear is ever open, and his eye | |
| Gracious to re-admit the suppliant; | |
| In confidence whereof I once again | |
| Defy thee to the trial of mortal fight, | |
| By combat to decide whose god is God, | 1175 |
| Thine, or whom I with Israel’s sons adore. | |
| Har. Fair honour that thou dost thy God, in trusting | |
| He will accept thee to defend his cause, | |
| A murtherer, a revolter, and a robber! | |
| Sams. Tongue-doughty giant, how dost thou prove me these? | 1180 |
| Har. Is not thy nation subject to our Lords? | |
| Their 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 | 1185 |
| At Ascalon, who never did thee harm, | |
| Then, like a robber, stripp’dst them of their robes? | |
| The Philistines, when thou hadst broke the league, | |
| Went up with armed powers thee only seeking, | |
| To others did no violence nor spoil. | 1190 |
| Sams. Among the daughters of the Philistines | |
| I chose a wife, which argued me no foe, | |
| And in your city held my nuptial feast; | |
| But your ill-meaning politician lords, | |
| Under pretence of bridal friends and guests, | 1195 |
| Appointed to await me thirty spies, | |
| Who, threatening cruel death, constrained the bride | |
| To wring from me, and tell to them, my secret, | |
| That solved the riddle which I had proposed. | |
| When I perceived all set on enmity, | 1200 |
| As on my enemies, wherever chanced, | |
| I used hostility, and took their spoil, | |
| To pay my underminers in their coin. | |
| My nation was subjected to your lords! | |
| It was the force of conquest; force with force | 1205 |
| Is well ejected when the conquered 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, | 1210 |
| With strength sufficient, and command from Heaven, | |
| To free my country. If their servile minds | |
| Me, their Deliverer sent, would not receive, | |
| But to their masters gave me up for nought, | |
| The unworthier they; whence to this day they serve. | 1215 |
| I was to do my part from Heaven assigned, | |
| And had performed it if my known offence | |
| Had not disabled me, not all your force. | |
| These shifts refuted, answer thy appellant, | |
| Though by his blindness maimed for high attempts, | 1220 |
| Who now defies thee thrice to single fight, | |
| As a petty enterprise of small enforce. | |
| Har. With thee, a man condemned, a slave enrolled, | |
| Due by the law to capital punishment? | |
| To fight with thee no man of arms will deign. | 1225 |
| Sams. Cam’st thou for this, vain boaster, to survey me, | |
| To descant on my strength, and give thy verdict? | |
| Come nearer; part not hence so slight informed; | |
| But take good heed my hand survey not thee. | |
| Har. O Baal-zebub! can my ears unused | 1230 |
| Hear these dishonours, and not render death? | |
| Sams. No man withholds 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. | 1235 |
| Sams. Go, baffled coward, lest I run upon thee, | |
| Though in these chains, bulk without spirit vast, | |
| And with one buffet lay thy structure low, | |
| Or swing thee in the air, then dash thee down, | |
| To the hazard of thy brains and shattered sides. | 1240 |
| Har. By Astaroth, ere long thou shalt lament | |
| These braveries, in irons loaden on thee. | |
| Chor. His Giantship is gone somewhat crest-fallen, | |
| Stalking with less unconscionable strides, | |
| And lower looks, but in a sultry chafe. | 1245 |
| Sams. I dread him not, nor all his giant brood, | |
| Though fame divulge him father of five sons, | |
| All of gigantic size, Goliah chief. | |
| Chor. He will directly to the lords, I fear, | |
| |
