SAMSON AGONISTES. Of that sort of Dramatick Poem which is TRAGEDY, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terrour, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those pas sions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion for so, in physick, things of melancholick hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, On man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent, Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, This tempest at this desart most was bent; Of gaining David's throne, no man knows when, May warn thee, as a sure fore-going sign. So talk'd he, while the Son of God went on And staid not, but in brief him answer'd thus. Me worse than wet thou find'st not; other harm Those terrours, which thou speak'st of did me none; I never fear'd they could, though noising loud And threatening high: what they can do, as signs As false portents, not sent from God, but thee; Me to thy will! desist, (thou art discern'd, And toil'st in vain,) nor me in vain molest. To whom the Fiend, now swoln with rage, re plied. Then hear, O Son of David, Virgin-born, Of the Messiah I had heard foretold (Though not to be baptiz'd,) by voice from Heaven In what degree or meaning thou art call'd The Son of God; which bears no single sense. And if I was, I am; relation stands ; All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought Therefore I watch'd thy footsteps from that hour, And what he is; his wisdom, power, intent; To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee Of adamant, and, as a center, firm; To the utmost of mere Man both wise and good, Not more; for honours, riches, kingdoms, glory, Have been before contemn'd, and may again. Therefore, to know what more thou art than Man, Worth naming Son of God by voice from Heaven, Another method I must now begin. So saying he caught him up, and, without wing Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime, Over the wilderness and o'er the plain, |