Milton's Samson agonistes, with notes by A.J. ChurchSeeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1872 - 95 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
A. J. CHURCH afflict allusion Anak arm'd arms Ashkelon assail bears behold betray'd blind captive cataphracts cause Chalybean Chalybes Chorus cloth Comp Comus Dagon Dalila dark death deeds deliverer doubt dreaded enemies etc.-comp Etham Euripides evil expression eyes fall'n father favour feast feel foes friends Gath Gaza glory Greek habergeon Harapha hath Heav'n Hebrew hence Henley-on-Thames honour hope idols Israel Judges xiv Judges xvi Kedesh labour Latin Lehi light lords loss of sight Manoa means Messenger metrical foot Milton mind mortal Mount Ephraim Nazarite Notes Ovid Paradise Paradise Regained pardon passage Philistines poem poet poet's prison punishment ransom renown'd SAMSON AGONISTES Scripture secret secular bird seems Semichorus sense Shakespeare shalt shame sons strength Tarshish thee thine thou hast thought thy hand thyself tragedy trochee unclean verse virtue woman Wootton Rivers word would'st
Popular passages
Page 19 - 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 bereaved thy prime decree?
Page 65 - Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble...
Page 19 - Why am I thus bereaved 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.
Page 17 - 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
Page 13 - Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and suchlike passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated.
Page 20 - 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, By privilege of death and burial From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs ; But made hereby obnoxious more To all the miseries of life, Life in captivity Among inhuman foes.
Page 13 - Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion : for so in physic things of melancholic hue and quality are used against, melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours.
Page 49 - All these indignities, for such they are From thine, these evils I deserve and more, Acknowledge them from GOD inflicted on me Justly, yet despair not of His final pardon Whose ear is ever open, and His eye Gracious to readmit the suppliant...
Page 32 - O madness, to think use of strongest wines And strongest drinks our chief support of health, When GOD with these forbidden made choice to rear His mighty champion, strong above compare, Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.
Page 15 - Of the style and uniformity, and that commonly called the plot, whether intricate or explicit — which is nothing indeed but such economy, or disposition of the fable, as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum — they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with yEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write Tragedy.