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Under his feet for proof, ere this thou feel'st
Thy wound, yet not thy last and deadlieft wound,
By this repulfe receiv'd, and hold'st in Hell
No triumph; in all her gates Abaddon rues
Thy bold attempt; hereafter learn with awe
To dread the Son of God: he all unarm'd
Shall chace thee with the terror of his voice
From thy demoniac holds, poffeffion foul,
Thee and thy legions; yelling they fhall fly,
And beg to hide them in a herd of swine,
Left he command them down into the deep
Bound, and to torment fent before their time.
Hail Son of the most High, heir of both worlds,
Queller of Satan, on thy glorious work
Now enter, and begin to fave mankind.

Thus they the Son of God our Saviour meek
Sung victor, and from heav'nly feaft refresh'd
Brought on his way with joy; he unobferv'd
Home to his mother's house private return'd.

630

635

THE END.

SAMSON AGONISTES,

A

DRAMATIC POEM.

THE AUTHOR

JOHN MILTO N.

Ariftot. Poet. Cap. 6.

Τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπυδαίας, &c. Tragoedia eft imitatio actionis feriæ, &c. per mifericordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum luftrationem.

H

1

Of that fort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy.

RAGEDY, as it was anciently_compos'd, hath been ever held the gravest, moraleft, and most profitable of all other poems: therefore faid by Ariftotle to be of power by raifing pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of thofe and fuch like paffions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, ftirr'd up by reading or feeing those paffions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his affertion: for fo in phyfic things of melancholic hue and quality are us d against melancholy, four against four, falt to remove falt humors. Hence philofophers and other graveft writers, as Cicero, Plutarch and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illuftrate their difcourfe. The Apostle Paul himfelf thought it not unworthy to infert a verfe of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. XV. 33. and Paræus commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts distinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and fong between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have labor'd not a little to be thought able to compofe a tragedy. Of that honor Dionyfius the elder was no lefs ambitious, than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Auguftus Cæfar alfo had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinish'd. Seneca the philofopher is by fome thought the author of thofe tragedies (at least the best of them) H 2

that

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