1055

1060

Most shines and most is acceptable above.

Therefore God's universal law
Gave to the man despotic power
Over 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?

SAMSON.
Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.

CHORUS.
But this another kind of tempest brings.

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

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.
Comes he in peace? what wind hath blown him hither
I less conjecture than when first I saw

1071 The sumptuous Dalila floating this way: His habit carries peace, his brow defiance.

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

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

1065

1075. His fraught] For fraught read freight. Meadow court.

1080

HARAPHA.
I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance,
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
As Og or Anak and the Emims old
That Kiriathairn 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 tried
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.

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

1085

1090

1079. Men call me Harapha, accounted giants or Rephaim, as &c.] This character is fictitious, the Anakims, but the Moabites but is properly introduced by cull them Emims. That Kiriathe poet, and not without some thaim held, for Gen. xiv. 5. Chefoundation in Scripture. Arapha, dorlaomer, and the kings that were or rather Rapha, (says Calmet,) with him, smote the Rephaims in was father of the giants of Re- Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuphaim. The word Rapha may zims in Ham, and the Emims in likewise signify simply a giant. Shareh Kiriathaim, or the plain Of stock renowned as Og, for Og of Kiriathaim. the king of Bashan was of the 1081. thou know'st me now race of the Rephaim, whose bed If thou at all art known.] was nine cubits long, and four He is made to speak in the spibroad, Deut. iii. 11. Or Anak, rit, and almost in the language, the father of the Anakims, and of Satan, Paradise Lost, iv. the Enims old, Deut. ii. 10, 11, a. 830. people great, and many, and tall

Not to know me argues yourselves as the Anakims ; which also were

HARAPHA. 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; 1095 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 1100 The highest name for valiant acts; that honour Certain to have won by mortal duel from thee, I lose, prevented by thy eyes put out.

SAMSON.
Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do
What then thou would'st, thou seest it in thy hand. 1105

HARAPHA.
To combat with a blind man I disdain,
And thou hast need much washing to be touch’d.

SAMSON.
Such usage as your honourable lords
Afford me assassinated and betray'd,
Who durst not with their whole united powers 1110
In fight withstand me single and unarm’d,

1093. Gyves] Chains, fetters. That lets it hop a little from her Cymbeline, act v. sc. 3.

1115

Nor in the house with chamber ambushes
Close-banded durst attack me, no not sleeping,
Till they had hir'd a woman with their gold
Breaking her marriage faith to circumvent me.
Therefore without feign'd shifts let be assign'd
Some narrow place inclos'd, where sight may give thee,
Or rather flight, no great advantage on me;
Then put on all thy gorgeous arıns, thy helmet
And brigandine of brass, thy broad habergeon,
Vant-brass and greves, and gauntlet, add thy spear,
A weaver's beam, and seven-times-folded shield,
I only with an oaken staff will meet thee,

1120

1120. And brigandine of brass,

His left arm wounded had the knight &c] Brigandine, a coat of mail.

of France,

His shield was pierc'd, his vantbrace Jer. li. 3. Against him that bend

cleft and split. eth, let the archer bend his low,

Greves, armour for the legs. and against him that lifteth him

1 Sam. xvii. 6. And he had greves self up in his brigandine. Haber

of brass upon

his legs. Gauntlet, geon, a coat of mail for the neck and shoulders. Spenser, Faery i. sc. 3. old Northumberland

an iron glove. 2 Henry IV. act Queen, b. ii. cant. 6. st. 29.

speaks. Their mighty strokes, their haber- -Hence therefore, thou nice crutch; geons dismail'd,

A scaly guuntlet now with joints of And naked made each other's manly

steel spalles.

Must glove this hand. Spalles, that is, shoulders. Fair- 1121. --add thy spear, &c.] fa cant. i. st. 72.

This is Milton's own reading:

the other editions have and thy Some shirts of mail, some coats of

spear,

which is not so proper, plate put on, and some a habergeon.

for it cannot well be said in construction, put on thy spear.

A Vant-brass or Vantbrace, avant- weaver's beam, as Goliath's was, bras, armour for the

1 Sam. xvii. 7. And the staff of Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc.

his spear was like a weaver's beam: 6. Nestor speaks.

and his brother's, 2 Sam. xxi. l'll hide my silver beard in a gold 19. the staff of whose spear was beaver,

like a weaver's beam. And sevenAnd in my vantbrace put this wither'd

times folded shield, as was Ajax's, brawn.

arms.

1130

And raise such outcries on thy clatter'd iron,
Which long shall not withhold me from thy head, 1125
That in a little time while breath remains thee,
Thou oft shalt wish thyself at Gath to boast
Again in safety what thou would'st have done
To Samson, but shall never see Gath more.

HARAPHA.
Thou durst not thus disparage glorious arms,
Which greatest heroes have in battle worn,
Their ornament and safety, had not spells
And black inchantment, some magician's art,
Arm’d thee or charm'd thee strong, which thou from

heaven Feign’dst at thy birth was giv'n thee in thy hair, 1155 Where strength can least abide, though all thy hairs Were bristles rang'd like those that ridge the back

1132. —had not spells &c.] or any inchantment about him. This is natural enough in the Dugd. Warw. p. 73. or, in the mouth of Harapha, and no ways

exact words of the oath of the inconsistent with the manners of Judicial combat, “ that

ye

have the age in which this scene is no stone of virtue, nor hearb laid, since we are informed in “ of virtue, nor none other inScripture that they were at that • chantment by you, &c.” Dugd. time much addicted to magical Orig. Jurid. p. 166. And this superstition. But yet it is very was injoined so early as in the probable, that Milton adopted Laws of the Longobards. “Nulthis notion from the Italian Epics, “ lus campio adversus alterum who are very full of inchanted pugnaturus audeat arms, and sometimes represent “ bere herbas, nec res ad maletheir heroes invulnerable by this '“ ficia pertinentes, &c." Comart. So Ariosto's Orlando is de- pare Comus, 647. Milton's Hascribed. Thyer.