Horribly loud, unlike the former shout. CHORUS. Noise call you it or universal groan, As if the whole inhabitation perish'd! Blood, death, and deathful deeds are in that noise, MANOAH. Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise: Oh it continues, they have slain my son. CHORUS. Thy son is rather slaying them, that outcry From slaughter of one foe could not ascend. MANOAH. Some dismal accident it needs must be ; What shall we do, stay here or run and see? CHORUS. Best keep together here, lest running thither From whom could else a general cry be heard? 1512.-inhabitation] Oxovern. Richardson. 1514. at the utmost point.] Al ultimo segno. Richardson. 1529. be dealing dole] Distributing his gifts and portions among his enemies, from a Saxon word, says Skinner, but Mr. Upton in his remarks upon Ben 1510 1515 1520 1525 Jonson's three plays, p. 31. derives the word dole from the Greek ano Tov daλuv, distribuere. By the way we may observe, that the Chorus here entertains the same pleasing hope of Samson's eye-sight being by miracle restored, which he had before tacitly reproved in Manoah, and And over heaps of slaughter'd walk his way? MANOAH. That were a joy presumptuous to be thought. Yet God hath wrought things as incredible 1530 He can I know, but doubt to think he will; Yet hope would fain subscribe, and tempts belief. 1535 A little stay will bring some notice hither. CHORUS. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner; O whither shall I run, or which way fly Manoah who had before encouraged the same hope in himself, now desponds and reckons it presumptuous in another. Such changes of our thoughts are natural and common, especially in any change of our situation and circumstances. Fear and hope usually succeed each other like ague and fever. And it was not a slight observation of mankind, that could have enabled Milton to have understood and described the human passions so exactly. 1536. A little stay will bring some notice hither.] The text of the first edition wants the nine lines preceding this, and the line that follows it: but they are supplied in the Errata. This line in that edition is in the part of the Chorus, as I think it ought to 1540 be: and so is the next but one, in that and all the editions; though it seems to belong rather to Manoah. The line between them, which is wanting (as I just now observed) in the text of the first edition, in the Errata and in all the editions since is given to the Chorus, but the poet certainly intended both them and Manoah a share in it. CHOR. A little stay will bring some notice hither Of good or bad so great. MAN. Of bad the sooner; For evil news rides post, while good news baits. CHOR. And to our wish I see one hither speeding, An Hebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe. Calton. The sight of this so horrid spectacle, Which erst my eyes beheld and But providence or instinct of nature seems, The accident was loud, and here before thee It would burst forth, but I recover breath And sense distract, to know well what I utter. MANOAH. Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer. MESSENGER. Gaza yet stands, but all her sons are fall'n, All in a moment overwhelm'd and fall'n. 1552. -and here before thee] Here again the old error was carefully preserved through all the editions. In the first edition it was printed and heard before thee; but we have corrected it, as Milton himself corrected it in the table of Errata. 1545 1550 1555 1556. And sense distract.] The word is used likewise as an adjective in Shakespeare. Julius Cæsar, act iv. sc. 4. -With this she fell distract, And (her attendants absent) swallow'd fire. 1554. No preface needs,] No Twelfth-Night, act v. sc. 5. preface is wanting. Needs is a verb neuter here as in Paradise Lost x. 80. where see the note. They say, poor gentleman! he's much distract. MANOAH. Sad, but thou know'st to Israelites not saddest 1560 The desolation of a hostile city. MESSENGER. Feed on that first, there may in grief be surfeit. Relate by whom. MANOAH. MESSENGER. By Samson. MANOAH. That still lessens The sorrow, and converts it nigh to joy. MESSENGER. Ah Manoah, I refrain, too suddenly MANOAH. Suspense in news is torture, speak them out. Take then the worst in brief, Samson is dead. MANOAH. The worst indeed, O all my hope's defeated To free him hence! but death who sets all free Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge. What windy joy this day had I conceiv'd Hopeful of his delivery, which now proves Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring 1576. Abortive as the first-born bloom of spring &c.] As Mr. Thyer says, this similitude is to be admired for its remarkable 1565 1570 1575 justness and propriety. One cannot possibly imagine a more exact and perfect image of the dawning hope which Manoah Nipt with the lagging rear of winter's frost! Unwounded of his enemies he fell. MANOAH. Wearied with slaughter then or how? explain. By his own hands. MESSENGER. MANOAH. Self-violence? what cause Brought him so soon at variance with himself Among his foes? MESSENGER. 1580 1585 And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening, nips his root; And then he falls, as I do, Upon which Mr. Warburton remarks, that as spring-frosts are not injurious to the roots of fruittrees, he should imagine the poet wrote shoot, that is, the tender shoot on which are the young leaves and blossoms. The comparison, as well as expression of nips, is juster too in this reading. Shakespeare has the same thought in Love's Labour Lost. Byron is like an envious sneaping frost That bites the first-born infants of the spring. See Warburton's Shakespeare, vol. v. p. 413. |