_Chor_. 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_.--
And yet more despicable are the lines in which Manoah's paternal
kindness is commended by the chorus:
Fathers are wont to _lay up_ for their sons,
Thou for thy son art bent to _lay out_ all.
Samson's complaint of the inconveniencies of imprisonment is not wholly
without verbal quaintness:
--I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air, imprison'd also, close and damp.
From the sentiments we may properly descend to the consideration of the
language, which, in imitation of the ancients, is through the whole
dialogue remarkably simple and unadorned, seldom heightened by epithets,
or varied by figures; yet sometimes metaphors find admission, even where
their consistency is not accurately preserved. Thus Samson confounds
loquacity with a shipwreck:
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who, like a foolish _pilot_, have _shipwreck'd_
My _vessel_ trusted to me from above,
Gloriously _rigg'd_; and for a word, a tear,
Fool! have _divulg'd_ the _secret gift_ of God
To a deceitful woman?--
And the chorus talks of adding fuel to flame in a report:
He's gone, and who knows how he may _report_
Thy _words_, by _adding fuel to the flame_?
The versification is in the dialogue much more smooth and harmonious,
than in the parts allotted to the chorus, which are often so harsh and
dissonant, as scarce to preserve, whether the lines end with or without
rhymes, any appearance of metrical regularity:
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,
That heroic, that renown'd,
Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand;
Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid.
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