The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (153 page)

To whom thus Jesus: “Also it is written,

‘Tempt not the Lord thy God. ’” He said, and stood,

But Satan, smitten with amazement, fell.

As when Earth’s son, Antaeus
⁷²⁷³
(to compare

Small things with greatest), in Irassa
⁷²⁷⁴
strove

With Jove’s Alcides
⁷²⁷⁵
and, oft foiled,
⁷²⁷⁶
still rose,

Receiving from his mother Earth new strength,

Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joined,

Throttled at length in th’ air, expired and fell,

So after many a foil, the Tempter proud,

Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride

Fell whence he stood to see
⁷²⁷⁷
his victor fall.

And as that Theban monster
⁷²⁷⁸
that proposed

Her riddle and, him who solved it not, devoured,

That
⁷²⁷⁹
once found out and solved, for grief and spite

Cast herself headlong from the Ismenian
⁷²⁸⁰
steep,

So strook
⁷²⁸¹
with dread and anguish fell the fiend,

And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought

Joyless triumphals
⁷²⁸²
of his hoped success,

Ruin, and desperation, and dismay,

Who durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.

So Satan fell, and straight a fiery globe
⁷²⁸³

Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh,

Who on their plumey vans
⁷²⁸⁴
received him
⁷²⁸⁵
soft

From his uneasy
⁷²⁸⁶
station,
⁷²⁸⁷
and upbore,

As on a floating couch, through the blithe
⁷²⁸⁸
air,

Then, in a flow’ry valley, set him down

On a green bank, and set before him spread

A table of celestial food, divine

Ambrosial fruits fetched from the Tree of Life,

And from the fount of life ambrosial drink,

That soon refreshed him, wearied, and repaired
⁷²⁸⁹

What hunger, if aught hunger, had impaired,
⁷²⁹⁰

Or thirst. And, as he fed, Angelic choirs

Sung Heavenly anthems
⁷²⁹¹
of his victory

Over temptation and the Tempter proud:

“True Image of the Father, whether throned

In the bosom of bliss, and light of light

Conceiving, or remote from Heav’n, enshrined

In fleshly tabernacle
⁷²⁹²
and human form,

Wand’ring the wilderness—whatever place,

Habit, or state, or motion, still expressing

The Son of God, with Godlike force endued
⁷²⁹³

Against th’ attempter of thy Father’s throne

And thief of Paradise! Him long of old

Thou didst debel,
⁷²⁹⁴
and down from Heav’n cast

With all his army. Now thou hast avenged

Supplanted
⁷²⁹⁵
Adam and, by vanquishing

Temptation, hast regained lost Paradise,

And frustrated the conquest fraudulent.

He never more henceforth will dare set foot

In Paradise to tempt. His snares are broke.

For though that seat of earthly bliss be failed,

A fairer Paradise is founded now

For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou,

A Savior, art come down to reinstall,

Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be,

Of Tempter and temptation without fear.

“But thou, Infernal Serpent! shalt not long

Rule in the clouds. Like an autumnal star,

Or lightning, thou shalt fall from Heav’n, trod down

Under his feet. For proof, ere this thou feel’st

Thy wound (yet not thy last and deadliest wound)

By this repulse received, and hold’st in Hell

No triumph. In all her gates
⁷²⁹⁶
Abaddon
⁷²⁹⁷
rues

Thy bold attempt. Hereafter learn with awe

To dread the Son of God. He, all unarmed,

Shall chase thee, with the terror of his voice,

From thy demoniac holds, possession foul—

Thee and thy legions. Yelling they shall fly,

And beg to hide them in a herd of swine,

Lest he command them down into the deep,

Bound, and to torment
⁷²⁹⁸
sent before their time.

“Hail, Son of the Most High, heir of both worlds,

Queller
⁷²⁹⁹
of Satan! On thy glorious work

Now enter, and begin to save mankind.”

Thus they the Son of God, our Savior meek,

Sung victor and, from Heav’nly feast refreshed,

Brought on his way with joy. He, unobserved,

Home to his mother’s house private
⁷³⁰⁰
returned.

SAMSON AGONISTES
⁷³⁰¹

date uncertain: everything from 1646 to 1670 has been proposed

OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATIC POEM
WHICH IS CALLED TRAGEDY

Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest,
⁷³⁰²
moralest, and most profitable of all other poems—therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions. That is, to temper
⁷³⁰³
and reduce
⁷³⁰⁴
them to just,
⁷³⁰⁵
with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated.

Nor is Nature wanting
⁷³⁰⁶
in her own effects
⁷³⁰⁷
to make good his assertion, for so, in physic,
⁷³⁰⁸
things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humors.
⁷³⁰⁹
Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch and others, frequently cite out of
⁷³¹⁰
tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides
⁷³¹¹
into the text of Holy Scripture (I Cor. 15:33 ), and Paraeus,
⁷³¹²
commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts distinguished each by a chorus of Heavenly harpings and song between.
⁷³¹³

Heretofore men in highest dignity have labored not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious, then
⁷³¹⁴
before of his attaining to the Tyranny.
⁷³¹⁵
Augustus Caesar also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca the philosopher is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen,
⁷³¹⁶
a Father of the Church, thought it not unbe-seeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which he entitled,
Christ Suffering.

This is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day, with other common interludes
⁷³¹⁷
—happening through the poets’ error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness
⁷³¹⁸
and gravity, or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious
⁷³¹⁹
hath been counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And though ancient tragedy use no prologue (yet using sometimes, in case of self defense or explanation, that which Martial calls an “epistle”), in behalf of this tragedy coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much beforehand may be “epistled.”

The chorus is here introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the ancients and Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and fame. The measure
⁷³²⁰
of verse used in the chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks monostrophic, or rather apolelymenon,
⁷³²¹
without regard had to strophe, antistrophe or epode (which were a kind of stanza framed only for the music, then
⁷³²²
used with the chorus that sung; not essential to the poem, and therefore not material)
⁷³²³
or being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be call’d allaeostropha.
⁷³²⁴
Division into act and scene, referring chiefly to the stage (to which this work never was intended), is here omitted.

It suffices if the whole drama be found
⁷³²⁵
not produced
⁷³²⁶
beyond the fifth act, of the style and uniformity, and that
⁷³²⁷
commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such economy
⁷³²⁸
or disposition
⁷³²⁹
of the fable
⁷³³⁰
as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum. They only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Aeschulus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavor to write tragedy. The circumscription
⁷³³¹
of time wherein the whole drama begins and ends is, according to ancient rule and best example, within the space of 24 hours.

THE ARGUMENT

Samson (made captive, blind, and now in the prison at Gaza, there to labor as in a common work-house), on a festival day, in the general cessation from labor, comes forth into the open air, to a place nigh,
⁷³³²
somewhat retired,
⁷³³³
there to sit a while and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which make
⁷³³⁴
the chorus, who seek to comfort him what
⁷³³⁵
they can, then
⁷³³⁶
by his old father, Manoa, who endeavors the like, and withal
⁷³³⁷
tells him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom, [and] lastly, that this feast was proclaimed by the Philistines as a day of thanksgiving for their deliverance from the hands of Samson, which yet more troubles him.

Manoa then departs to prosecute
⁷³³⁸
his endeavor
⁷³³⁹
with the Philistian lords for Samson’s redemption, who in the meanwhile is visited by other persons, and lastly by a public officer to require his coming to the feast, before
⁷³⁴⁰
the lords and people, to play
⁷³⁴¹
or show his strength in their presence. He at first refuses, dismissing the public officer with absolute denial to come. At length, persuaded inwardly that this was from God, he yields to go along with him, who came now, the second time, with great threatenings, to fetch him.