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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,
Ruin, destruction at the utmost point.

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
We unawares run into danger's mouth.
This evil on the Philistines is fall'n;

From whom could else a general cry be heard?
The sufferers then will scarce molest us here,
From other hands we need not much to fear.
What if his eye-sight (for to Israel's God
Nothing is hard) by miracle restor❜d,
He now be dealing dole among his foes,

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

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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.
CHORUS.

Yet God hath wrought things as incredible
For his people of old; what hinders now?
MANOAH.

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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;
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
And to our wish I see one hither speeding,
An Hebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe.
MESSENGER.

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

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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
beheld and yet behold?
For dire imagination still pursues me,

But providence or instinct of nature seems,
Or reason though disturb'd, and scarce consulted,
To' have guided me aright, I know not how,
To thee first reverend Manoah, and to these
My countrymen, whom here I knew remaining,
As at some distance from the place of horror,
So in the sad event too much concern'd.
MANOAH.

The accident was loud, and here before thee
With rueful cry, yet what it was we hear not;
No preface needs, thou seest we long to know.
MESSENGER.

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.

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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
To utter what will come at last too soon;
Lest evil tidings with too rude irruption
Hitting thy aged ear should pierce too deep.

MANOAH.

Suspense in news is torture, speak them out.
MESSENGER.

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

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justness and propriety. One cannot possibly imagine a more exact and perfect image of the dawning hope which Manoah

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Nipt with the lagging rear of winter's frost!
Yet ere I give the reins to grief, say first,
How died he; death to life is crown or shame.
All by him fell thou say'st, by whom fell he,
What glorious hand gave Samson his death's wound?
MESSENGER.

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.
Inevitable cause

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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.

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