Among illustrious women, faithful wives : Cherish thy hasten'd widowhood with the gold Of matrimonial treason: so farewel.
DAL. I see thou art implacable, more deaf 960 To prayers 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 For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate? Bid go 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 proclames most deeds; On both his wings, one black, the other white, Bears greatest names in his wild aery 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 falshood 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 odors visited and annual flowers;
Not less renown'd than in Mount Ephraim Jael, who with inhospitable guile
Smote Sisera sleeping through the temples nail'd.
Nor shall I count it hainous to enjoy
The public marks of honor and reward
Conferr'd upon me for the piety
Which to my country I was judg'd to' have shown.
At this who ever 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.
SAM. 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.
CHOR. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange
After offense returning, to regain
Love once possess'd, nor can be easily Repuls'd, without much inward passion felt And secret sting of amorous remorse.
SAM. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end,
Not wedlock-treachery indang'ring 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; But what it is, hard is to say,
(Which way soever men refer it) 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, 1020
Successor in thy bed,
Nor both so loosly disally'd
Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.
Is it for that such outward ornament
Was lavish'd on their sex, that inward gifts Were left for haste unfinish'd, judgment scant, Capacity not rais'd to apprehend
Or value what is best
In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
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 Intestin, far within defensive arms A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms Draws him awry inslav'd
With dotage, and his sense deprav'd To folly' and shameful deeds which ruin ends. What pilot so expert but needs must wreck Imbark'd with such a steers-mate at the helm ? 1045 Favor'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.
Therefore God's universal law
Gave to the man despotic power Över his female in due awe, Nor from that right to part an hour, Smile she or lour:
So shall he least confusion draw On his whole life, not sway'd By female usurpation, or dismay'd.
But had we best retire, I see a storm? SAM. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain. CHOR. But this another kind of tempest brings. SAM. Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past. CHOR. Look now for no inchanting voice, nor fear The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue 1066 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 The sumptuous Dalila floting this way: His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.
SAM. Or peace or not,alike to me he comes. [rives. CHOR. His fraught we soon shall know, he now ar- HAR. I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance,
As these perhaps, yet wish it had not been, Volume III.
Though for no friendly intent. I am of Gath, Men call me Harapha, of stock renown'd As Og or Anak and the Emmims 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, That I was never present on the place 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.
SAM. 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 brought 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 carcase where the ass lay thrown: So had the glory of prowess been recover'd To Palestine, won by a Philistine,
From the unforeskinn'd race, of whom thou bear'st The highest name for valiant acts; that honor 1101 Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee, I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out. SAM. Boast not of what thouwould'st havedone, but What then thouwould'st, thou seest it in thyhand. HAR. To combat with a blind man I disdain, 1106 And thou hast need much washing to be touch'd.
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