Wisdom of Manoah

"Be penitent and for thy fault contrite,

But act not in my own affliction, Son,

Repent the sin, but if the punishment

Thou canst avoid, self-preservation bids;

Or th' execution leave to high disposal,

And let another hand, not thine, exact

the penal forfeit from thy self; perhaps

God will relent, and quit thee all his debt;

Who evermore approves and more accepts

(Best pleased with humble and filial submission)

Him who imploring mercy sues for life,

Then who self-rigorous chooses death as due;

Which argues over-just, and self-displeas'd

For self-offense, more then for God offended.

Reject not then what offerd means, who knows

But God hath sent before us (502-517)."

In this passage Manoah has come to his son pleading that Samson not give himself up for dead.  He wants his son to recognize that giving one's self over to God does not mean giving up.  Manoah argues that in repenting Samson may still preserve his own life; in the life he has left he may still please God and merit His mercy.  Do not act in your own affliction, others will do that for you, yet repent and live the life God still has given you.  Manoah tells Samson to put his life in his own hand's and his death in someone else's.  I wonder how the poem's ending relates to this wisdom.  Samson takes his life into his hands and dies by them as well.  Is this a vindication of Manoah's wisdom, and is that why he can rejoice at the end of the poem?  Is Manoah's wisdom an overarching theme of the poem?

"But what is strength without a double share / Of wisdom?" (ln 53-4)

Samson is caught between many things. He has great strength but poor judgment. His "intimate impulse" (in response to patt-man) is possibly part prophetic, part hormonal. He loves his own people but leaves their protection and ventures as an individual into his enemies' circle (885ff). No one would doubt his "manliness" yet he blames himself for being "effeminate" (562). He is attracted to, and hates his attraction to Dalila (and consequently hates Dalila). He wants to demonstrate the great power of God, yet "walks obscure" like those who do not believe in God (295-6). His divided torment comprehends him entirely.

The play itself seems to resonate with this tension of opposites. Dagon vs God of Israel, oppressed vs oppressor, male vs female, love vs hate, purity vs defilement, and so on. With such a warring premise, could it end otherwise than great destruction? Also, is the God of Israel proven by the ending? Or has said God only stooped to the power struggle of pagans, and incidentally won?

'Milton is a subtle student of evil.'

There is a lot in here that I hope we get to -- the similarities between Samson and Milton (in blindness, marital history, etc.), the apparent masculinity/femininity and/or mind/body dualities, etc. But since I have to pick one, here is a question on evil.

Towards the beginning Samson takes ownership over his problems:

Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to Man

But justly, I myself have brought them [evils] on.
Sole author I, sole cause.

But the line between good and evil becomes less clear as the play goes on. Harapha gives reasons why Samson could be understood as a murderer; Delilah suggests that she will be remembered as a traitor by one side, and a patriot by another; and the chorus bemoans the apparent lack of justice:

God of our fathers, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various,
Or might I say contrarious,
Temperst thy providence through his short course,
Not evenly...
Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering
The punishment of dissolute days, in fine,
just or unjust, alike seem miserable,
For oft alike, both come to evil end.

What is the role of evil in this work? How does the title of this post, a paraphrase (or possibly exact quote) of Professor Fallon's comment on Milton regarding Paradise Lost, play into this?

Imprisonment

"Which shall I first bewail, / Thy Bondage or lost Sight, / Prison within Prison / Inseparably dark? / Thou art become ( O worst imprisonment!) / The Dungeon of thy self; thy Soul..." (151-156)
"Mess. Then take the worst in brief, Samson is dead. / Man. The worst indeed, O all my hope's defeated / To free him hence! but death who sets all free / Hath paid his ransom now and full discharge..." (1570-1573)

The first quote stuck out right away when I read it, and it stayed with me throughout the reading, keeping my mind on the different ways Samson was imprisoned at different times in the story. The end of the story and the second quote surprised me, because though Samson was able to break free in one sense and defeat his Philistine captives, his final and absolute(?) freedom was brought about only by death. Considering the many ways Samson was imprisoned; blindness, lack of strength, physical imprisonment, etc; I think it might be interesting to explore from which of his imprisonments could only death free him, and how we might encounter similar imprisonments now.

Nature of women

"What e're 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 intestin, far within defensive arms. A cleaving mischief, in his way to verture adverse and turbulent, or by her charms, draws him awry enslv'd."

(p93, 1034-1041)

Milton's perception of the deception of women is noted through this passage. It seems that with regard to Dallia, and women in general, they cannot be trusted. Even when Dallia tries to approach Samson in the page before, he will not let her come near, for he is afraid of her trickery. What is Milton saying about the character of  woman? Is he merely showing the deception of Dallia, or is he speaking about all women? 

Samson a charismatic?

"That what I motion'd was of God; I knew / From intimate impulse, and therefore urg'd / The Marriage on; that by occasion hence / I might begin Israel's Deliverance, / The work to which I was divenly call'd" (Samson, 222-226).

"I cannot praise thy Marriage choises, Son, / Rather approv'd them not; but thou didst plead / Divine impulsion prompting how thou might'st / Find some occasion to infest our Foes. /...[who] found soon occasion therby to make thee / Their Captive" (Manoa, 420-426).

"I begin to feel / Some rouzing motions in me which dispose / To something extraordinary my thoughts. / I with this Messenger will go along, / Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour / Our Law, or stain my vow of Nazarite. / ... This day will be remarkable in my life / By some great act, or of my days the last" (Samson, 1381-1389).

"Which when Samson / Felt in his arms, with head a while enclin'd / And eyes fixt he stood, as one who pray'd, / Or some great matter in his mind revolv'd (Messenger, 1635-1638)."

These quotes may give insight on how Samson knows what God requires of him. Do they give evidence that he is a charismatic, receiving direct inspiration from God? Or else, is he just a very religious man who does the best thing he can think of? Or worse, does he determine God's will by his own inclinations?

The first quote is about his first wife, who proved false (227). He then picked a second wife, Dalila, in the same way: "I thought it lawful from my former act, / And the same end; still watching to oppress / Israel's oppressours" (231-233). This marriage, too, he comes to think is a mistake. But before each marriage he seemed to see the marriage as part of his divine mission to destroy the Philistines. If his method for discerning these parts of his divine mission was the "intimate impulse" (223 - the footnote says "intimate" = "inward"), what becomes of the credibility of his method?

He seems to claim a similar inspiration before agreeing to be taken by the officer to the festival. What should we think of this action, then? Is it direct inspiration from God? A smart move with foresight?

Just before he has his grand finale, he has a moment of silence. Contrary to the messenger's thrust, I think it might make a difference whether he prayed or turned a matter over in his mind. Or perhaps he did both.

As much as I want to grant Samson charismatic ability and direct inspiration from God (that might come during a silent, reflective moment or during a moment of spiritedness) because its very cool, I cannot overlook his track record of being very wrong. Instead, I am inclined to think that Samson was a very good man with regards to virtue (173) --although he had his faults, as he is at pains to express--, for which reason God granted him his very strong powers. In other words, I grant that God gave Samson power because Samson was good at doing the right thing or deciding how to follow his mission (proclaimed by the angel), even though he might not have gotten it perfect (I say might because I wonder just how big a sin is trusting your wife - but then again perhaps he thought he was betraying loyalty to God). But I don't grant that God gave Samson direct inspiration, despite the fact that he might have thought so. Indeed, the kind of inspiration or desire that he may have took to be from God (at first, not later) may have been his "downfall," seeing as he "couldst repress" all other desires (541-559).

Therefore, I think that Samson is a very religious moralist (what if his strength is read as moral courage?) of sorts who God gives strength and does not abandon at the end (or how else would he have gotten the strength), but not a charismatic receiving diving inspiration, despite his own claims that evidence such a link. Some theologians (e.g. St. Paul) would say that because Jesus had not died and rose yet, a person such as Samson was still "under the law" and not able to become the "new creation" that goes with taking on the "Spirit of Christ." As such, Samson might be forced to take a much more active and much harder (in one sense, not in another) role than a true Christian might to achieve his salvation, or to do the right thing.

What do you think?