The Philistine Warrior (55 page)

Bards, then sing out loud these ancient battle lays! Our fathers

Stalked across this land

With giant steps! They fought, and reigned—and died—as heroes

Should, and left

This land to us; to honor them in song and deed is duty clear!

Philistines! Recall the Hawk-eyed King who stood before the foe

In armor clad!

Raise your spears on high and shout! Thus the
Nomiad
!

End

Historical Note

I. Samson and Delilah in Song and Story

The story of Samson and Delilah has fascinated millions of people for 3,000 years or more. But commentators over the centuries have constructed many different interpretations of the tale.
Saint Paul
considered Samson to be a hero who triumphed through faith; the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus admired Samson’s courage, but regarded him as flawed in character—like the rest of mankind—hence open to temptation. There was a Renaissance tradition which saw Samson as a kind of proto-Christ, sacrificed by wicked men. A Reformation author, on the other hand, saw Samson as a proto-Protestant: the twin pillars which he destroyed, therefore, symbolized the Catholic Papacy and Moslem Turkey, both enemies of the “true,” that is, the Protestant, faith.

Some authors, such as the Renaissance writer, Boccaccio, denounced Delilah, and by implication all women, for her faithlessness. But the opposite viewpoint can also be found: very frequently, writers of plays and novels have portrayed Delilah in a favorable light. An early 17
^th
Century German author, for example, claimed that Delilah truly loved Samson—but was successfully tempted to betray him. In the l8th Century, a man named Weise portrayed Delilah as a shy girl who ensnared Samson out of Philistine patriotism—and because Samson (according to Weise) had murdered the son of Delilah’s maid! Another playwright claimed that Samson murdered Delilah’s husband out of jealousy, giving her a motive for revenge. Others showed Delilah as the guilty party, but then had her repent after the death of Samson.

Occasionally, however, the commentators depict her as totally innocent. In one novel, for example, Delilah’s friends betray
her
: they eavesdrop on her conversation with Samson, and thereby learn his hairy secret. Or (in another version) she is innocent, but framed by her own sister! Sometimes, authors have Delilah commit suicide

out of sorrow when Samson is destroyed. Yet another author maintains that Delilah was kidnapped. Her uncle then gets her to ferret out Samson’s secret; but, after doing so, Delilah realizes that she truly loves the Danite, so she goes to die with him.

There is considerable precedent, therefore, for my treatment of the story. Something about that girl makes men want to defend her character. They either uphold her innocence, or at least justify her in some way or other.

And yet, such authors seldom case serious aspersions on Samson’s character. They show him as essentially a hero, even though sometimes as something of a rogue. And he is always portrayed as heroic in his moment of triumph and death. So far as I know, I am the only author to portray Samson as almost entirely a villain—and Delilah as a true heroine. That is because I have tried to imagine the story as the Philistines might have told it, regardless of the “truth” of the matter—which is something no one will ever know for certain, anyway.

As for song, there is an oratorio by Handel, and a late 19
^th
Century opera by Camille Saint-Saens, the libretto by Ferdinant Lemaire:
Samson et
Dalila
. There have also been a number of movies, some quite recent.

II. In Search of the Real Samson and Delilah

Once Higher Biblical Criticism—that is, the secularized, scholarly study of the Bible as an historical document—secured its right to academic freedom, scholars could consider the possibility that the Bible’s version of the Samson legend might be inaccurate, or garbled—or even utterly false, a mere myth. We now have to admit that we don’t even know for certain when Samson lived, if he actually even existed. Some authorities place the story in the late 12
^th
Century

B.C., as I have done, while others put it earlier, or later—for example, at the time of the Battle of Shiloh in the 11
^th
Century. It does seem that the earliest written version of the story may have appeared in the 10
^th
Century, but probably got edited in the 7
^th
Century, or later, to make it more morally edifying.

The great British anthropologist, Sir James G. Frazer (early 20
^th
Century), said that Samson’s story was no more than a re-telling of a “solar myth,” that is, a story about the Sun God. According to this view, the Hebrews progressed from polytheism to monotheism, and were therefore obliged gradually to demote Samson from Sun God to the status of human folk-hero. Another scholar of the same period, A. S. Palmer, agreed with Frazer. He pointed out that the word “Samson” actually
means
“sun.” (Cf. the Semitic word “shimshon,” or “Shemesh,” meaning “sun-man,” or “sun,” like the modern Arabic “shams.”) There was a Danite sun-god cult near Zorah, Palmer maintained—and that is where Samson supposedly was buried.

If the solar-myth theory be true, then Samson’s hair may represent the rays of the Sun; the cutting of his hair thus would equal the destruction of light, an end to his power. The blinding of Samson may therefore be analygous to the darkening, or death, of the Sun. Palmer further says that the word “Delilah” is a variant of a word meaning “enfeeblement,” or “darkness.” Hence the “night” of Delilah extinguishes the “sun” of Samson. “Enfeeblement” may also signify castration.

We should remember, however, that it is all too easy to interpret any legend so as to prove that it is a “nature myth,” that is, a primitive explanation of such natural events as the disappearance of the sun into night, or the shortening of the days in the depths of winter. Andrew Lang, a British writer of some generations ago, wrote a satire on this sort of scholarship. He “proved,” using such scholarly reasoning as Palmer’s, that the British Prime Minister of that time, Mr. Gladstone, was
himself
nothing but a sun-god! All right: but that does not prove Palmer necessarily to be wrong.

Frazer compared Samson’s story with a tale from Greek mythology. King Nisus of
Megara
has golden hair, but he will die if his hair gets pulled out. It is plucked, of course—by his daughter, Scylla, who loves his enemy, Minos. Frazer claimed that there are also parallels between the stories of Samson and Nisus on the one hand, and stories from Slavic and Celtic folk-lore on the other. It was obvious to Frazer that all primitive peoples tend to believe in the magical power of hair, and so they all tell stories about it.

Such myths are likely to be invented independently by various tribes (as Frazer claimed), but they may also be diffused by wandering story tellers, or the migration of whole tribes, although changing somewhat with each re-telling. Perhaps the story of Samson’s hair originated in the Aegean area, and then spread to
Canaan
, when certain Aegean peoples migrated there around 1200 B.C. We know that the Philistines originally came from near the
Aegean
, from a land called Karia (east of
Troy
), though they may have mixed with people from
Crete
.

Some scholars now believe that the Danites also migrated to
Canaan
from the Aegean area; so they, too, like the Philistines, were “Sea Peoples,” as the Egyptians called them—among other tribes with that title. The Bible says that the Danites were aliens “in ships,” and identifies Dan as the son of one of Jacob’s concubines—suggesting that the tribe of Dan resulted from a mixture of Hebrew and
Aegean Sea
peoples. Perhaps, then, the Danites brought the story of Nisus, or a similar story, from the
Aegean
into
Canaan
, hence into the Bible. Or, as some scholars suspect, the story may have been brought to
Canaan
by the Philistines themselves, and then garbled before showing up in the Bible.

As for Delilah, tradition has it that she was a Philistine. But there is reason to believe that she was not. If she had been Philistine, then presumably the Bible would have mentioned that fact. The Bible does identify a certain
wife
of Samson as a Philistine—but this wife was not Delilah. Concerning Delilah, all the Bible says is that she lived in the
Sorek
River
Valley
. Furthermore, the reward she got for betraying Samson (in the Bible’s story) was enormous; presumably a Philistine girl would have tricked Samson from patriotic motives, not because of a bribe. And “Delilah” seems to be a Hebrew name, not Philistine.

Thus the various arguments against a Fundamentalist interpretation of the Biblical Samson were set down in the late 19
^th
and early 20
^th
Centuries, and have continued to this day. I have elected, for fictional purposes, to accept some of what (some) scholars have said, but also to accept some of what tradition has said. Thus I have chosen to follow the tradition that Delai was Philistine, and so I had to explain her monetary reward in another fashion, not as

mere bribery. And I invented the name “Delai” as my (fictional) Philistine equivalent of “Delilah.”

III.
Fact, Theory, and Fiction

I have taken poetic license to mix together information from the

Bible; from historical fact and speculation; and from my own imagination. For purposes of my novel, I had to pick one of the several theories concerning when Samson and Delilah lived—and assert it as fact. I chose the late 12
^th
Century. Some scholars maintain that the northern Hebrew tribes never went into, or came out of,
Egypt
; I have asserted that theory as fact. The existence among the Danites of a bull-god cult, dedicated to Yahweh, is also asserted by some historians (while denied by others); I chose to assert that Yahweh was, in fact, originally worshipped as a bull-god by the Danites, but not by the Levites among the Judaeans—though some scholars argue that point as well.

My account of the origins and deeds of the Philistines is derived largely from the works of a variety of scholars, though I have, again, taken poetic license with their theories. We are told (and I have asserted) that the Philistines came from Karia, yet were influenced by Minoan (that is, Cretan) civilization. Their culture seems to have been related to Canaanite culture very soon after they invaded
Canaan
, or even before. Philistines and proto-Syrians may indeed have been culturally related, as I have said in my novel. The Philistine language is said to have been related to ancient Semitic; or to ancient Indo-European; or to Indo-European influenced by Semitic. I have asserted that third theory. Notice that we find Philistines worshiping the Semitic Astarte. As for the Philistine’s defeat at the hands of the Egyptians—and the subsequent Philistine migration to
Canaan
—all that is contained in Egyptian records.

All the deities in my novel are to be found in the ancient documents. Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter to Yahweh is found in the Biblical book of
Judges
. My description of the general course of the Philistine-Hebrew (including Danite) conflict is accurate so far

as the history books are concerned, but I have invented the details, such as the Battle of Mareshah, for fictional purposes.

The greatest persons in my novel were (usually) real. All of the pharaohs I mention, Amenhotep the High Priest of Egypt, Tiglath-Pileser, and some others, are found in the Bible, or in Egyptian sources, or elsewhere in the historical record. The names of Greek and Trojan heroes were taken, obviously, from Homer’s
Iliad
and other ancient sources. I created the name and character of Ibbi; “Menena” is a real Egyptian name, but my character is fictional.