To mix with thy concernments I desist
Henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own.
Fame, if not double-fac'd, is double-mouth'd,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.
My name perhaps among the circumcis'd
In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes,
To all posterity may stand defam'd,
With malediction mention'd, and the blot
Of falshood most unconjugal traduc'd.
But in my country, where I most desire,
In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,
I shall be nam'd 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
With odours visited and annual flowers;
Not less renown'd than in mount Ephraim
Jael, who with inhospitable guile

Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nail'd.

Nor shall I count it heinous to enjoy

The publick marks of honour and reward,

Conferr'd upon me, for the piety

Which to my country I was judg'd to have shown.

At this whoever envies or repines,

I leave him to his lot, and like my own.

[Exit.]

Chorus. She's gone, a manifest serpent by her

sting

Discover'd in the end, till now conceal'd.

Samson. So let her go; God sent her to debase

me,

And aggravate my folly, who committed

To such a viper his most sacred trust
Of secresy, my safety, and my life.

Chorus. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath
strange power,

After offence returning, to regain

Love once possess'd, nor can be easily

Repuls'd, without much inward passion felt

And secret sting of amorous remorse.

Samson. Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end,

Not wedlock-treachery endangering life.

Chorus. It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,
That woman's love can win or long inherit;
But what it is, hard is to say,

Harder to hit,

(Which way soever men refer it,)

Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day

Or seven, though one should musing sit.
If any of these, or all, the Timnian bride
Had not so soon preferr'd

Thy paranymph, worthless to thee compar'd,
Successor in thy bed,

Nor both so loosly disallied

Their nuptials, nor this last so treacherously
Had shorn the fatal harvest of thy head.
Is it for that such outward ornament
Was lavish'd on their sex, that inward gifts
Were left for haste unfinish'd, judgement scant,
Capacity not rais'd to apprehend

Or value what is best

In choice, but oftest to affect the wrong?
Or was too much of self-love mix'd,
Of constancy no root infix'd,

That either they love nothing, or not long?
Whate'er it be, to wisest men and best
Seeming at first all heavenly under virgin veil,
Soft, modest, meek, demure,

Once join'd, the contrary she proves, a thorn
Intestine, far within defensive arms

A cleaving mischief, in his way to virtue
Adverse and turbulent, or by her charms
Draws him
awry enslav'd

With dotage, and his sense deprav'd

To folly and shameful deeds which ruin ends. What pilot so expert but needs must wreck Imbark'd with such a steers-mate at the helm ? Favour'd of Heaven, who finds

One virtuous, rarely found,

That in domestick good combines ;

Happy that house! his way to peace is smooth:
But virtue, which breaks through all opposition,
And all temptation can remove,

Most shines, and most is acceptable above.

Therefore God's universal law

Gave to the man despotick 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 enchanting 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

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.

Enter HARAPHA.

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 Kiriathaim 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.

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