| |
| Then, as repentant, to submit beseech, | 750 |
| And reconcilement move with feigned remorse, | |
| Confess, and promise wonders in her change— | |
| Not truly penitent, but chief to try | |
| Her husband, how far urged his patience bears, | |
| His virtue or weakness which way to assail: | 755 |
| Then, with more cautious and instructed skill, | |
| Again transgresses, and again submits; | |
| That wisest and best men, full oft beguiled, | |
| With goodness principled not to reject | |
| The penitent, but ever to forgive, | 760 |
| Are drawn to wear out miserable days, | |
| Entangled with a poisonous bosom-snake, | |
| If not by quick destruction soon cut off, | |
| As I by thee, to ages an example. | |
| Dal. Yet hear me, Samson; not that I endeavour | 765 |
| To lessen or extenuate my offence, | |
| But that, on the other side, if it be weighed | |
| By itself, with aggravations not surcharged, | |
| Or else with just allowance counterpoised, | |
| I may, if possible, thy pardon find | 770 |
| The easier towards me, or thy hatred less. | |
| First granting, as I do, it was a weakness | |
| In me, but incident to all our sex, | |
| Curiosity, inquisitive, importune | |
| Of secrets, then with like infirmity | 775 |
| To publish them—both common female faults— | |
| Was it not weakness also to make known | |
| For importunity, that is for naught, | |
| Wherein consisted all thy strength and safety? | |
| To what I did thou shew’dst me first the way. | 780 |
| But I to enemies revealed, and should not! | |
| Nor should’st thou have trusted that to woman’s frailty: | |
| Ere I to thee, thou to thyself wast cruel. | |
| Let weakness, then, with weakness come to parle, | |
| So near related, or the same of kind; | 785 |
| Thine forgive mine, that men may censure thine | |
| The gentler, if severely thou exact not | |
| More strength from me than in thyself was found. | |
| And what if love, which thou interpret’st hate, | |
| The jealousy of love, powerful of sway | 790 |
| In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee, | |
| Caused what I did? I saw thee mutable | |
| Of fancy; feared lest one day thou would’st leave me | |
| As her at Timna; sought by all means, therefore, | |
| How to endear, and hold thee to me firmest: | 795 |
| No better way I saw than my importuning | |
| To learn thy secrets, get into my power | |
| Thy key of strength and safety. Thou wilt say, | |
| “Why, then, revealed?” I was assured by those | |
| Who tempted me that nothing was designed | 800 |
| Against thee but safe custody and hold. | |
| That made for me; I knew that liberty | |
| Would draw thee forth to perilous enterprises, | |
| While I at home sat full of cares and fears, | |
| Wailing thy absence in my widowed bed; | 805 |
| Here I should still enjoy thee, day and night, | |
| Mine and love’s prisoner, not the Philistines’, | |
| Whole to myself, unhazarded abroad, | |
| Fearless at home of partners in my love. | |
| These reasons in Love’s law have passed for good, | 810 |
| Though fond and reasonless to some perhaps; | |
| And love hath oft, well meaning, wrought much woe, | |
| Yet always pity or pardon hath obtained. | |
| Be not unlike all others, not a stere | |
| As thou art strong, inflexible as steel. | 815 |
| If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed, | |
| In uncompassionate anger do not so. | |
| Sams. How cunningly the Sorceress displays | |
| Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine! | |
| That malice, not repentance, brought thee hither | 820 |
| By this appears. I gave, thou say’st, the example, | |
| I led the way—bitter reproach, but true; | |
| I to myself was false ere thou to me. | |
| Such pardon, therefore, as I give my folly | |
| Take to thy wicked deed; which when thou seest | 825 |
| Impartial, self-severe, inexorable, | |
| Thou wilt renounce thy seeking, and much rather | |
| Confess it feigned. Weakness is thy excuse, | |
| And I believe it—weakness to resist | |
| Philistian gold. If weakness may excuse, | 830 |
| What murtherer, what traitor, parricide, | |
| Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? | |
| All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore, | |
| With God or Man will gain thee no remission. | |
| But love constrained thee! Call it furious rage | 835 |
| To satisfy thy lust. Love seeks to have love; | |
| My love how could’st thou hope, who took’st the way | |
| To raise in me inexpiable hate, | |
| Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betrayed? | |
| In vain thou striv’st to cover shame with shame, | 840 |
| Or by evasions thy crime uncover’st more. | |
| Dal. Since thou determin’st weakness for no plea | |
| In man or woman, though to thy own condemning, | |
| Hear what assaults I had, what snares besides, | |
| What sieges girt me round, ere I consented; | 845 |
| Which might have awed the best-resolved of men, | |
| The constantest, to have yielded without blame. | |
| It was not gold, as to my charge thou lay’st, | |
| That wrought with me. Thou know’st the Magistrates | |
| And Princes of my country came in person, | 850 |
| Solicited, commanded, threatened, urged, | |
| Adjured by all the bonds of civil duty | |
| And of religion—pressed how just it was, | |
| How honourable, how glorious, to entrap | |
| A common enemy, who had destroyed | 855 |
| Such numbers of our nation: and the Priest | |
| Was not behind, but ever at my ear, | |
| Preaching how meritorious with the gods | |
| It would be to ensnare an irreligious | |
| Dishonourer of Dagon. What had I | 860 |
| To oppose against such powerful arguments? | |
| Only my love of thee held long debate, | |
| And combated in silence all these reasons | |
| With hard contest. At length, that grounded maxim, | |
| So rife and celebrated in the mouths | 865 |
| Of wisest men, that to the public good | |
| Private respects must yield, with grave authority | |
| Took full possession of me, and prevailed; | |
| Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty, so enjoining. | |
| Sams. I thought where all thy circling wiles would end— | 870 |
| In feigned religion, smooth hypocrisy! | |
| But, had thy love, still odiously pretended, | |
| Been, as it ought, sincere, it would have taught thee | |
| Far other reasonings, brought forth other deeds. | |
| I, before all the daughters of my tribe | 875 |
| And of my nation, chose thee from among | |
| My enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knew’st; | |
| Too well; unbosomed all my secrets to thee, | |
| Not out of levity, but overpowered | |
| By thy request, who could deny thee nothing; | 880 |
| Yet now am judged an enemy. Why, then, | |
| Didst thou at first receive me for thy husband— | |
| Then, as since then, thy country’s foe professed? | |
| Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave | |
| Parents and country; nor was I their subject, | 885 |
| Nor under their protection, but my own; | |
| Thou mine, not theirs. If aught against my life | |
| Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly, | |
| Against the law of nature, law of nations; | |
| No more thy country, but an impious crew | 890 |
| Of men conspiring to uphold their state | |
| By worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends | |
| For which our country is a name so dear; | |
| Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee; | |
| To please thy gods thou didst it! Gods unable | 895 |
| To acquit themselves and prosecute their foes | |
| But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction | |
| Of their own deity, Gods cannot be— | |
| Less therefore to be pleased, obeyed, or feared. | |
| These false pretexts and varnished colours failing, | 900 |
| Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear! | |
| Dal. In argument with men a woman ever | |
| Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause. | |
| Sams. For want of words, no doubt, or lack of breath! | |
| Witness when I was worried with thy peals. | 905 |
| Dal. I was a fool, too rash, and quite mistaken | |
| In what I thought would have succeeded best. | |
| Let me obtain forgiveness, of thee Samson; | |
| Afford me place to shew what recompense | |
| Towards thee I intend for what I have misdone, | 910 |
| Misguided. Only what remains past cure | |
| Bear not too sensibly, nor still insist | |
| To afflict thyself in vain. Though sight be lost, | |
| Life yet hath many solaces, enjoyed | |
| Where other senses want not their delights— | 915 |
| At home, in leisure and domestic ease, | |
| Exempt from many a care and chance to which | |
| Eyesight exposes, daily, men abroad. | |
| I to the Lords will intercede, not doubting | |
| Their favourable ear, that I may fetch thee | 920 |
| From forth this loathsome prison-house, to abide | |
| With me, where my redoubled love and care, | |
| With nursing diligence, to me glad office, | |
| May ever tend about thee to old age, | |
| With all things grateful cheered, and so supplied | 925 |
| That what by me thou hast lost thou least shalt miss. | |
| Sams. No, no; of my condition take no care; | |
| It fits not; thou and I long since are twain; | |
| Nor think me so unwary or accursed | |
| To bring my feet again into the snare | 930 |
| Where once I have been caught. I know thy trains, | |
| Though dearly to my cost, thy gins, and toils. | |
| Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms, | |
| No more on me have power; their force is nulled; | |
| So much of adder’s wisdom I have learned, | 935 |
| To fence my ear against thy sorceries. | |
| If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men | |
| Loved, honoured, feared me, thou alone could hate me, | |
| Thy husband, slight me, sell me, and forgo me, | |
| How would’st thou use me now, blind, and thereby | 940 |
| Deceivable, in most things as a child | |
| Helpless, thence easily contemned and scorned, | |
| And last neglected! How would’st thou insult, | |
| When I must live uxorious to thy will | |
| In perfect thraldom! how again betray me, | 945 |
| Bearing my words and doings to the lords | |
| To gloss upon, and, censuring, frown or smile! | |
| This gaol I count the house of Liberty | |
| To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter. | |
| Dal. Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand. | 950 |
| Sams. Not for thy life, lest fierce remembrance wake | |
| My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint. | |
| At distance I forgive thee; go with that; | |
| Bewail thy falsehood, and the pious works | |
| It hath brought forth to make thee memorable | 955 |
| Among illustrious women, faithful wives; | |
| Cherish thy hastened widowhood with the gold | |
| Of matrimonial treason: so farewell. | |
| Dal. I see thou art implacable, more deaf | |
| To prayers than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas | 960 |
| Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore: | |
| Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, | |
| Eternal tempest never to be calmed. | |
| Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing | |
| For peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate, | 965 |
| Bid go with evil omen, and the brand | |
| Of infamy upon my name denounced? | |
| To mix with thy concernments I desist | |
| Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own. | |
| Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed, | 970 |
| And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds; | |
| On both his wings, one black, the other white, | |
| Bears greatest names in his wild aerie flight. | |
| My name, perhaps, among the Circumcised | |
| In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering Tribes, | 975 |
| To all posterity may stand defamed, | |
| With malediction mentioned, and the blot | |
| Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced. | |
| But in my country, where I most desire, | |
| In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath, | 980 |
| I shall be named 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 | 985 |
| With odours visited and annual flowers; | |
| Not less renowned than in Mount Ephraim | |
| Jael, who, with inhospitable guile, | |
| Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nailed. | |
| Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy | 990 |
| The public marks of honour and reward | |
| Conferred upon me for the piety | |
| Which to my country I was judged to have shewn. | |
| At this whoever envies or repines, | |
| I leave him his lot, and like my own. | 995 |
| Chor. she’s gone—a manifest Serpent by her sting | |
| Discovered in the end, till now concealed. | |
| Sams. So let her go. God sent her to debase me, | |
| And aggravate my folly, who committed | |
| |
