His soliloquy is interrupted by a chorus or company of men of his own
tribe, who condole his miseries, extenuate his fault, and conclude with
a solemn vindication of divine justice. So that at the conclusion of the
first act there is no design laid, no discovery made, nor any
disposition formed towards the consequent event.
In the second act, Manoah, the father of Samson, comes to seek his son,
and, being shewn him by the chorus, breaks out into lamentations of his
misery, and comparisons of his present with his former state,
representing to him the ignominy which his religion suffers, by the
festival this day celebrated in honour of Dagon, to whom the idolaters
ascribed his overthrow.
--Thou bear'st
Enough, and more, the burthen of that fault;
Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying
That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains,
This day the Philistines a popular feast
Here celebrate in Gaza; and proclaim
Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud
To Dagon, as their God who hath deliver'd
Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands,
Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a slain.
Samson, touched with this reproach, makes a reply equally penitential
and pious, which his father considers as the effusion of prophetick
confidence:
_Samson_.
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