How would'st thou use me now, blind, and thereby
Deceivable, in most things as a child
Helpless,thence easily contemn'dand scorn'd,
And last neglected? how wouldst thou insult,
When I must live uxorious to thy will

940

In perfect thraldom, how again betray me,
Bearing my words and doings to the lords

945

To gloss upon, and censuring, frown or smile?
This jail I count the house of liberty

To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter.

Dal. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand.

950

Sams. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake

My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint,

It distance I forgive thee, go with that:
Bewail thy false hoood, and the pious works
It hath brought forth to make thee memorable
Among illustrious women, faithful wives!
Cherish thy hastened widowhood with the gold
Of matrimonial treason! so farewel.

955

Dal. I see thou art implacable, more deaf

960

To pray'rs than winds and seas; yet winds to seas

Are reconcil'd 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

965

Bid

go

For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate;
with evil omen, and the brand
Of infamy upon my name denounc'd?
To mix with thy concernments I desist
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own.
Fame, if not double-fac'd, is double-mouth'd,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,

970

Bears greatest names in his wild airy 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 mention'd, and the blot
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduc'd.
But in my country, where I most desire,
In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,
I shall be nam'd among the famousest
Of women, sung at solemn festivals,
Living and dead recorded, who, to save
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the faith of wedlock-bands; my tomb
With odours visited and annual flowers;

975

980

985

Not less renown'd than in mount Ephraim

Jael, who with inhospitable guile

Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nail'd.

990

Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy

The public marks of honour and reward,

Conferr'd upon me for the piety

Which to my country I was judg'd to have shown.
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 conceal'd.

Sams. So let her go; God sent her to debase me,

And aggravate my folly who committed

To such a viper his most sacred trust

Of secrecy, my safety, and my life.

995

[Exit.]

1000

Chor. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,

After offence returning, to regain

Love once possess'd, nor can be easily

1001

That woman's love can win or long inherit;

Repuls'd, without much inward passion felt
And secret sting of amorous remorse,

Sams. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end,
Not wedlock-treach'ry endang'ring life.

Chor. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit, Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,

But what it is, hard is to say,

Harder to hit,

1010

(Which way soever men refer it,)

1015

Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day

Or sev'n, though one should musing sit.

If any of these or all, the Timnian bride

Had not so soon preferr'd

Thy paranymph worthless to thee compar'd,
Successor in thy bed,

1020

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong!

1030

Or was too much of self-love mix'd,

Of constancy no root infix'd,

That either they love nothing, or not long?

Whate'er it be, to wisest men and best,

Seeming at first all heav'nly under virgin veil,

1035

Soft, modest, meek, demure,

Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn

Intestine, far within defensive arms

A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue

1040

Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms

Draws him awry enslav'd

With dotage, and his sense deprav’d

To folly' and shameful deeds which ruin ends.
What pilot so expert but needs must wreck,
Embark'd with such a steer's-mate at the helm?

1045

Favour'd of Heav'n, who finds

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,

1050

And all temptation can remove,

Most shines, and most is acceptable above.

But had we best retire? I see a storm.

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 enchanting voice, nor fear

The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue
Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride,
The giant Harapha of Gath, his look

Hanghty, as is his pile high-built and proud.

1060

1065

Comes he in peace? what wind hath blown him hither 1070 1 less conjecture than when first I saw

The sumptuous Dalila floating this way:

Ilis habit carries peace, his brow defiance.

Sams. Or peace or not, alike to me he comes.

Chor. His fraught we soon shall know, he now arrives, 1075 [Enter] HARAPHA,

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 renown'd
As Og, or Anak, and the Emims old

That Kiriathaim held, thou know'st me now,
If thou at all art known. Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might and feats perform'd
Incredible to me, in this displeas'd,

1080

That I was never present on the place

1065

Of those encounters, where we might have try'd

Each other's force in camp or listed field;

And now am come to see of whom such noise

Hath walk'd about, and each limb to survey,

If thy appearance answer loud report,

Sams. The way to know were not to see but taste.
Har. Dost thou already single me? I thought
Gyves and the mill had tam'd thee. O that fortune
Had hrought me to the field, where thou art fam'd
To' have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw!
I should have forc'd thee soon with other arms,
Or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown :
So had the glory of prowess been recover'd
To Palestine, won by a Philistine,

From the unforeskin'd race, of whom thou bear'st
The highest name for valiant acts; that honour,
Certain to' have won by mortal duel from thee,
lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.

1090

1095

1100