Analysis of Samson Agonistes (excerpts)
John Milton 1608 (Cheapside) – 1674 (Chalfont St Giles)
[Samson's Opening Speech]
A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade,
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me,
Where I a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprison'd also, close and damp,
Unwholesome draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn feast the people hold
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works; unwillingly this rest
Their superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease;
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of hornets arm'd, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an angel, who at last in sight
Of both my parents all in flames ascended
From off the altar, where an off'ring burn'd,
As in a fiery column charioting
His godlike presence, and from some great act
Of benefit reveal'd to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd
As of a person separate to God,
Design'd for great exploits; if I must die
Betray'd, captiv'd, and both my eyes put out,
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in brazen fetters under task
With this Heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labour of a beast, debas'd
Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke.
Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine prediction; what if all foretold
Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodg'd, how easily bereft me,
Under the seal of silence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it
O'ercome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom? vast, unwieldy, burdensome,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command.
God, when he gave me strength, to show withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my hair.
But peace, I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation, which herein
Haply had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,
And proves the source of all my miseries;
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd,
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me:
They creep, yet see, I, dark in light, expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first created Beam, and thou great Word,
"Let there be light, and light was over all,"
Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,
She all in every part, why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd?
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd,
And not as feeling through all parts diffus'd,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exil'd from light,
As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave;
Buried, yet not exempt
Scheme Text too long Poetic Form Metre 11001 0101011101 1111010101 1101111111 1111111101 0111111101 100010101011 11010011101 0101010101 11111101 0111110101 111111111 1101010101 1101110001 01001010011 101011111 01010100111 1111111 1101011101 1101110101 1101110101 110111010 1111110111 1111111001 1111011101 11110101010 1101011111 100100101 111001111 110001111 1111010001 110101011 011111111 011011111 1111000101 1101010101 11110111001 110110101 101110111 1100111010 111101001011 1001010111 01011011 111111101 0101011101 1101111101 111101111 11111101011 01111100011 1001110111 11010101011 11101 1100110101 1111010101 1101010100 1001110011 1101001111 111110101 111111111 1101111011 1111110101 110010101 111011111 0101111111 0101111100 1100111101 1101111111 1111111101 1011001111 101110101 10111111101 01010010101 1011011111 0100101101 1111011011 1111110101 1101010101 0111011101 01011010011 1111111111 1111010111 111001 011111 1101010111 1111011101 1111011101 011111 010101 111001 1001011 111100111 011011111 111001 11010011101 110101111101 11000110111 0111011101 11111111001 111111111 1001110101 1101110101 01011111000 1110101 1011011 Closest metre Iambic pentameter Characters 4,372 Words 783 Sentences 22 Stanzas 1 Stanza Lengths 104 Lines Amount 104 Letters per line (avg) 32 Words per line (avg) 8 Letters per stanza (avg) 3,293 Words per stanza (avg) 782 Font size:Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 4:03 min read
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"Samson Agonistes (excerpts)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/23856/samson-agonistes-%28excerpts%29>.
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