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My hopes all flat, nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself,
My race of glory run, and race of shame,
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.
MANOAH.

Believe not these suggestions which proceed
From anguish of the mind and humours black,
That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omit a father's timely care

To prosecute the means of thy deliverance

By ransom, or how else: mean while be calm,
And healing words from these thy friends admit.
SAMSON.

O that torment should not be confin'd

To the body's wounds and sores,
With maladies innumerable
In heart, head, breast, and reins ;

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duces Satan in the shape of a toad at the ear of Eve. iv. 804. Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint Th' animal spirits &c.

felt, and what he thought in
some of his melancholy hours.
He could not have wrote so well
but from his own feeling and
experience, and the very flow of
the verses is melancholy, and ex- So again in the Mask,
cellently adapted to the subject.
As Mr. Thyer expresses it, there
is a remarkable solemnity and
air of melancholy in the very
sound of these verses, and the
reader will find it very difficult
to pronounce them without that
grave and serious tone of voice
which is proper for the occasion.
600. and humours black,
That mingle with thy fancy.]
This very just notion of the
mind or fancy's being affected,
and as it were tainted, with the
vitiated humours of the body,
Milton had before adopted in his
Paradise Lost, where he intro-

-'tis but the lees
And settlings of a melancholy blood.
Thyer.

606. 0 that torment should not be confin'd &c.] Milton, no doubt, was apprehensive that this long description of Samson's grief and misery might grow tedious to the reader, and therefore here with great judgment varies both his manner of expressing it and the versification. These sudden starts of impatience are very natural to persons in such circumstances, and this rough and unequal measure of the verses is very well suited to it. Thyer.

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Though void of corporal sense.

My griefs not only pain me

As a ling'ring disease,

But finding no redress, ferment and rage,
Nor less than wounds immedicable

Rankle, and fester, and gangrene,

To black mortification.

Thoughts my tormentors arm'd with deadly stings
Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts,
Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise

Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb
Or medicinal liquor can asswage,
Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.

623. Thoughts my tormentors

arm'd with deadly stings Mangle &c.] This descriptive imagery is fine and well pursued. The idea is taken from the effects of poisonous salts in the stomach and bowels, which stimulate, tear, inflame, and exulcerate the tender fibres, and end in a mortification, which he calls death's benumbing opium, as in that stage the pain is over. Warburton.

627. Or medicinal liquor can asswage,] Here medicínal is pronounced with the accent upon the last syllable but one, as in Latin: which is more musical

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than as we commonly pronounce it medicinal with the accent upon the last syllable but two, or med' cinal as Milton has used it in the Mask. The same musical pronunciation occurs in Shakespeare. Othello, act v. sc. 10.

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian

trees

Their medicinal gum.

628. from snowy Alp.] He uses Alp for mountain in general, as in the Paradise Lost, ii. 620.

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp. Alp in the strict etymology of the word signifies a mountain white with snow. We have in

Sleep hath forsook and giv'n me o'er

To death's benumbing opium as my only cure:
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,

And sense of heav'n's desertion.

630

I was his nursling once, and choice delight,

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But now hath cast me off as never known,
And to those cruel enemies,

Whom I by his appointment had provok'd,
Left me all helpless with th' irreparable loss
Of sight, reserv'd alive to be repeated
The subject of their cruelty or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope;
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless;
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,

deed appropriated the name to
the high mountains which sepa-
rate Italy from France and Ger-
many; but any high mountain
may be so called, and so Sido-
nius Apollinaris calls mount
Athos, speaking of Xerxes cut-
ting through it, Carmen ii. 510.
-cui ruptus Athos, cui remige Medo
Turgida sylvosam currebant vela per
Alpem.

And the old Glossary interprets
Alps by ogniλ high mountains.

633. I was his nursling once

645

&c.] This part of Samson's speech is little more than a repetition of what he had said before, ver. 23.

O wherefore was my birth from heav'n foretold

Twice by an angel &c. But yet it cannot justly be imputed as a fault to our author. Grief though eloquent is not tied to forms, and is besides apt in its own nature frequently to recur to and repeats its source and object. Thyer.

No long petition, speedy death,

The close of all my miseries, and the balm.
CHORUS.

Many are the sayings of the wise

In ancient and in modern books inroll'd,
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude;
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man's frail life,
Consolatories writ

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With studied argument, and much persuasion sought Lenient of grief and anxious thought:

But with th' afflicted in his pangs their sound

Little prevails, or rather seems a tune

Harsh, and of dissonant mood from his complaint;

Unless he feel within

Some source of consolation from above,

Secret refreshings, that repair his strength,

656. All chances incident to man's frail life, &c.] There is a full stop at the end of this line in all the editions, but there should be only a comma, as the sense evinces, the construction being And consolatories writ with &c. to the bearing well &c. Milton himself corrected it in the first edition; but when an error is once made, it is sure to be perpetuated through all the editions.

658. and much persuasion sought] I suppose an error of the press for fraught. Warbur

ton.

I conceive the construction to be, consolatories are writ with studied argument, and much persuasion is sought &c.

659. Lenient of grief] Ex

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pressed from what we quoted before from Horace, epist. i. i. 34.

Sunt verba et voces quibus hunc lenire dolorem

Possis.

660. But with th' afflicted &c.] Here was another error perpetuated through all the editions,

But to th' afflicted &c.

Milton himself corrected it, and certainly their sound prevails with th' afflicted is better than prevails to th afflicted.

661. -or rather seems a tune Harsh, and of dissonant mood &c.] Alluding to Ecclus. xxii. 6. A tale out of season is as music in mourning. Thyer.

And fainting spirits uphold.

God of our fathers, what is man!

That thou tow'ards him with hand so various,

Or might I say contrarious,

Temper❜st thy providence through his short course, 670 Not ev'nly, as thou rul'st

Th' angelic orders and inferior creatures mute,

Irrational and brute.

Nor do I name of men the common rout,
That wand'ring loose about

Grow up and perish, as the summer fly,
Heads without name no more remember'd,
But such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd
To some great work, thy glory,

And people's safety, which in part they' effect:
Yet toward these thus dignified, thou oft
Amidst their height of noon

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term for this lower class of mortals. They style them avagioμos or avagiunto, men not numbered, or not worth the numbering. Thyer.

683. Amidst their height of noon] Milton is accustomed to this expression. See below, v. 1612. The feast and noon grew high. So in P. L. iv. 564.

This day at height of noon came to my sphere.

Compare P. L. v. 174. and Il Pens. 68. So in Harrison's Description of Britaine, prefixed to Hollingshead, "The husbandmen dine at high noone, as they call it." T. Warton.

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