The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (159 page)

And last
⁷⁷⁴⁴
neglected? How would’st thou insult
⁷⁷⁴⁵

When I must live uxorious
⁷⁷⁴⁶
to thy will

In perfect
⁷⁷⁴⁷
thraldom?
⁷⁷⁴⁸
How again betray me,

Bearing my words and doings to the lords

To gloss
⁷⁷⁴⁹
upon, and censuring,
⁷⁷⁵⁰
frown or smile?

This jail I count
⁷⁷⁵¹
the house of liberty

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’ned widowhood with the gold

Of matrimonial treason. So farewell.

DAL. I see thou art implacable,
⁷⁷⁵²
more deaf

To prayers than 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 calmed.

Why do I humble thus myself, and suing
⁷⁷⁵³

For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate—

Bid go,
⁷⁷⁵⁴
with evil omen and the brand

Of infamy upon my name denounced?

To mix with thy concernments
⁷⁷⁵⁵
I desist

Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own.

Fame if not double-faced 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 airy flight.

My name perhaps among the circumcised
⁷⁷⁵⁶

In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes,

To all posterity may stand defamed,

With malediction mentioned, and the blot

Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced.
⁷⁷⁵⁷

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,
⁷⁷⁵⁸
who to save

Her country from a fierce destroyer chose

Above
⁷⁷⁵⁹
the faith of wedlock-bands
⁷⁷⁶⁰
—my tomb

With odors
⁷⁷⁶¹
visited and annual flowers.

Not less renowned than in Mount Ephraim

Jael, who with inhospitable guile

Smote Sisera sleeping through the temples nailed.
⁷⁷⁶²

Nor shall I count it heinous
⁷⁷⁶³
to enjoy

The public marks of honor and reward

Conferred upon me, for the piety

Which to my country I was judged t’ have shown.

At this whoever envies or repines
⁷⁷⁶⁴

I leave him to his lot, and like my own.

CHOR. She’s gone, a manifest
⁷⁷⁶⁵
serpent by her sting

Discovered in the end, till now concealed.

SAM. So let her go. God sent her to debase me

And aggravate my folly, who committed 1000

To such a viper his most sacred trust

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

And secret sting of amorous remorse.

SAM. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end.

Not wedlock-treachery, endangering life.

CHOR. It is not virtue, wisdom, valor, wit, 1010

Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit

That woman’s love can win or long inherit,
⁷⁷⁶⁶

But what it is, hard is to say,

Harder to hit
⁷⁷⁶⁷

(Which way soever men refer
⁷⁷⁶⁸
it),

Much like thy riddle, Samson,
⁷⁷⁶⁹
in one day

Or seven, though one should musing sit.

If any of these or all, the Timnian bride

Had not so soon preferred

Thy paranymph,
⁷⁷⁷⁰
worthless to thee compared, 1020

Successor in thy bed,

Nor both
⁷⁷⁷¹
so loosely disallied

Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously

Had shorn the fatal
⁷⁷⁷²
harvest of thy head.

Is it for that
⁷⁷⁷³
such outward ornament

Was lavished on their sex, that inward gifts

Were left for haste unfinished, judgment scant,
⁷⁷⁷⁴

Capacity not raised
⁷⁷⁷⁵
to apprehend

Or value what is best

In choice, but oftest to affect
⁷⁷⁷⁶
the wrong? 1030

Or was too much of self-love mixed,

Of constancy no root
⁷⁷⁷⁷
infixed,
⁷⁷⁷⁸

That either they love nothing, or not long?

What e’er it be, to wisest men and best

Seeming at first all Heav’nly under virgin veil,

Soft, modest, meek, demure,
⁷⁷⁷⁹

Once joined the contrary she proves, a thorn

Intestine, far within defensive
⁷⁷⁸⁰
arms

A cleaving
⁷⁷⁸¹
mischief, in
⁷⁷⁸²
his way to virtue

Adverse and turbulent,
⁷⁷⁸³
or by her charms 1040

Draws him awry,
⁷⁷⁸⁴
enslaved

With dotage,
⁷⁷⁸⁵
and his sense depraved
⁷⁷⁸⁶

To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends.

What pilot so expert but needs must wreck,

Embarked with such a steer-mate at the helm?

Favored of Heav’n who finds

One
⁷⁷⁸⁷
virtuous (rarely found),

That in domestic good combines.
⁷⁷⁸⁸

Happy that house! His way to peace is smooth.

But virtue which breaks through all opposition, 1050

And all temptation can remove

Most shines and most is acceptable above.

Therefore God’s universal Law

Gave to the man despotic
⁷⁷⁸⁹
power

Over his female in due
⁷⁷⁹⁰
awe,
⁷⁷⁹¹

Nor from that right to part
⁷⁷⁹²
an hour,

Smile she
⁷⁷⁹³
or lour.
⁷⁷⁹⁴

So shall he least confusion draw

On his whole life, not swayed

By female usurpation, nor dismayed. 1060

But had we best retire, I see a storm?

SAM. Fair days have oft contracted
⁷⁷⁹⁵
wind and rain.

CHOR. But this another kind of tempest brings.

SAM. Be less abstruse,
⁷⁷⁹⁶
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
⁷⁷⁹⁷
of Gath, his look

Haughty as is his pile
⁷⁷⁹⁸
high-built and proud.

Comes he in peace? What wind hath blown him hither 1070

I less conjecture
⁷⁷⁹⁹
than when first I saw

The sumptuous
⁷⁸⁰⁰
Dalila floating this way.

His habit
⁷⁸⁰¹
carries peace, his brow defiance.

SAM. Or
⁷⁸⁰²
peace or not, alike to me he comes.

CHOR. His fraught
⁷⁸⁰³
we soon shall know. He now arrives.

HAR. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance,
⁷⁸⁰⁴

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
⁷⁸⁰⁵
or Anak
⁷⁸⁰⁶
and the Emims
⁷⁸⁰⁷
old 1080

That Kiriathaim
⁷⁸⁰⁸
held: thou knowst me now,

If thou at all art known. Much I have heard

Of thy prodigious
⁷⁸⁰⁹
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
⁷⁸¹⁰

Each other’s force in camp
⁷⁸¹¹
or listed field:
⁷⁸¹²

And now am come to see of whom such noise

Hath walked about, and each limb to survey,

If thy appearance answer loud report.
⁷⁸¹³
1090

SAM. The way to know were not to see but taste.

HAR. Dost thou already single
⁷⁸¹⁴
me? I thought

Gyves
⁷⁸¹⁵
and the mill had tamed thee. O that fortune

Had brought me to the field where thou art famed

T’ have wrought such wonders with an ass’s 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

From
⁷⁸¹⁶
the unforeskinned race,
⁷⁸¹⁷
of whom thou bear’st 1100

The highest name for valiant acts. That honor

Certain t’ have won by mortal
⁷⁸¹⁸
duel from thee,

I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.

SAM. Boast not of what thou would’st have done, but do

What then thou would’st. Thou see’st it in thy hand.

HAR. To combat with a blind man I disdain.

And thou hast need much washing to be
⁷⁸¹⁹
touched.

SAM. Such usage as your honorable lords

Afford me, assassinated
⁷⁸²⁰
and betrayed,

Who durst not with their whole united powers 1110

In fight withstand me single and unarmed,

Nor in the house with chamber
⁷⁸²¹
ambushes

Close-banded
⁷⁸²²
durst attack me—no, not sleeping—

Till they had hired a woman with their gold,

Breaking her marriage faith to circumvent
⁷⁸²³
me.

Therefore without feigned shifts
⁷⁸²⁴
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
⁷⁸²⁵
arms,
⁷⁸²⁶
thy helmet

And brigandine
⁷⁸²⁷
of brass, thy broad habergeon,
⁷⁸²⁸
1120

Vant-brass
⁷⁸²⁹
and greves,
⁷⁸³⁰
and gauntlet,
⁷⁸³¹
add thy spear,

A weaver’s beam,
⁷⁸³²
and seven-times-folded
⁷⁸³³
shield.

I only with an oaken staff will meet thee,

And raise such out-cries on thy clattered
⁷⁸³⁴
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