The Complete Poetry of John Milton (152 page)

   1020   
Thy Paranymph,
⁸⁷
worthless to thee compar’d,

               
Successour in thy bed,

               
Nor both so loosly disally’d

               
Thir nuptials, nor this last so trecherously

               
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.

   1025   
Is it for that such outward ornament

               
Was lavish’t on thir Sex, that inward gifts

               
Were left for hast unfinish’t, judgment scant,

               
Capacity not rais’d to apprehend

               
Or value what is best

   1030   
In choice, but oftest to affect
⁸⁸
the wrong?

               
Or was too much of self-love mixt,

               
Of constancy no root infixt,

               
That either they love nothing, or not long?

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

   1035   
Seeming at first all heav’nly under virgin veil,

               
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 vertue

   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

   1045   
Embarqu’d with such a Stears-mate at the Helm?

            
      
       Favour’d of Heav’n who finds

               
One vertuous rarely found,

               
That in domestic good combines:

               
Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth:

   1050   
But vertue which breaks through all opposition,

               
And all temptation can remove,

               
Most shines and most is acceptable above.

            
      
       Therefore Gods universal Law

               
Gave to the man despotic power

   1055   
Over his female in due awe,

               
Nor from that right to part an hour,

               
Smile she or lowr:

               
So shall he least confusion draw

               
On his whole life, not sway’d

   1060   
By female usurpation, nor dismay’d.

            
      
       But had we best retire, I see a storm?

            
      
       
Samson.
Fair days have oft contracted
⁸⁹
wind and rain.

            
      
       
Chorus.
But this another kind of tempest brings.

            
      
       
Samson.
Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past.

   1065
      
       
Chorus.
Look now for no inchanting 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

               
Haughty as is his pile high-built and proud.

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

               
I less conjecture then when first I saw

               
The sumptuous
Dalila
floating this way:

               
His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.

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

   1075
      
       
Chorus.
His fraught
⁹⁰
we soon shall know, he now arrives.

            
      
       
Harapha.
I come not
Samson
, to condole thy chance,
⁹¹

               
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

   1080   
As
Og
or
Anak
and the
Emims
old

               
That
Kiriathaim
held; thou knowst 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,

   1085   
That I was never present on the place

               
Of those encounters, where we might have tri’d

               
Each others force in camp or listed field:
⁹²

               
And now am come to see of whom such noise

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

   1090   
If thy appearance answer loud report.

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

            
      
       
Harapha.
Dost thou already single
⁹³
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

   1095   
T’ have wrought such wonders with an Asses Jaw;

               
I should have forc’d thee soon wish other arms,

               
Or left thy carkass where the Ass lay thrown:

               
So had the glory of Prowess been recover’d

               
To
Palestine
, won by a
Philistine

   1100   
From the unforesldnn’d race, of whom thou bear’st

               
The highest name for valiant Acts; that honour

               
Certain t’ have won by mortal duel from thee,

               
I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.

            
      
       
Samson.
Boast not of what thou wouldst have done, but do

   1105   
What then thou would’st, thou seest it in thy hand.

            
      
       
Harapha.
To combat with a blind man I disdain,

               
And thou hast need much washing to be toucht.

            
      
       
Samson.
Such usage as your honourable Lords

               
Afford me assassinated
⁹⁴
and betray’d,

   1110   
Who durst not with thir whole united powers

               
In fight withstand me single and unarm’d,

               
Nor in the house with chamber Ambushes

               
Close-banded durst attaque me, no not sleeping,

               
Till they had hir’d a woman with their gold

   1115   
Breaking her Marriage Faith to circumvent me.

               
Therefore without feign’d shifts let be assign’d

               
Some narrow place enclos’d, where sight may give thee,

               
Or rather flight, no great advantage on me;

               
Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy Helmet

   1120   
And Brigandine
⁹⁵
of brass, thy broad Habergeon,
⁹⁶

               
Vant-brass and Greves, and Gauntlet,
⁹⁷
add thy Spear

               
A Weavers beam,
⁹⁸
and seven-times-folded shield,

               
I only with an Oak’n staff will meet thee,

               
And raise such out-cries on thy clatter’d Iron,

   1125   
Which long shall not with-hold mee from thy head,

               
That in a little time while breath remains thee,

               
Thou oft shalt wish thy self at
Gath
to boast

               
Again in safety what thou wouldst have done

               
To
Samson
, but shalt never see
Gath
more.

   1130
      
       
Harapha.
Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms

               
Which greatest Heroes have in battel worn,

               
Thir ornament and safety, had not spells

               
And black enchantments, some Magicians Art

               
Arm’d thee or charm’d thee strong, which thou from Heav’n

   1135   
Feign’dst at thy birth was giv’n thee in thy hair,

               
Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs

               
Were bristles rang’d like those that ridge the back

               
Of chaf’t wild Boars, or ruffl’d Porcupines.

            
      
       
Samson.
I know no Spells, use no forbidden Arts;

   1140   
My trust is in the living God who gave me

               
At my Nativity this strength, diffus’d

               
No less through all my sinews, joints and bones

               
Then thine, while I preserv’d these locks unshorn,

               
The pledge of my unviolated vow.

   1145   
For proof hereof, if
Dagon
be thy god,

               
Go to his Temple, invocate his aid

               
With solemnest devotion, spread before him

               
How highly it concerns his glory now

               
To frustrate and dissolve these Magic spells,

   1150   
Which I to be the power of
Israel
’s God

               
Avow, and challenge
Dagon
to the test,

               
Offering to combat thee his Champion bold,

               
With th’ utmost of his Godhead seconded:

               
Then thou shalt see, or rather to thy sorrow

   1155   
Soon feel, whose God is strongest, thine or mine.

            
      
       
Harapha.
Presume not on thy God, what e’re he be,

               
Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off

               
Quite from his people, and deliver’d up

               
Into thy Enemies hand, permitted them

   1160   
To put out both thine eyes, and fetter’d send thee

               
Into the common Prison, there to grind

               
Among the Slaves and Asses thy comrades,

               
As good for nothing else, no better service

               
With those thy boyst’rous
⁹⁹
locks, no worthy match

   1165   
For valour to assail, nor by the sword

               
Of noble Warriour, so to stain his honour,

               
But by the Barbers razor best subdu’d.

            
      
       
Samson.
All these indignities, for such they are

               
From thine,
¹
these evils I deserve and more,