,,built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil;
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts.
And eloquence, native to famous wits,

Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks or shades,

and he continues to give a glowing description of the poetry, eloquence, and philosophy of ancient Athens; advising Christ to study these and promising his help for this purpose, in order to prepare him for his great vocation. But Jesus speaks lightly of the philosophers of Greece, the wisest of whom professed

,,to know this only, that he nothing knew."

With these he contrasts the man who receives light from above, from the fountain of light and therefore needs no other doctrine. Why should he read the books of those philosophers? The insatiate reader

And as to studying the Greek poets and orators, why should he not be satisfied with the great singers of the Hebrew tongue and with the grand oratory of the divinely inspired prophets, for,,these only with our law best form a king". Now all the shafts of Satan have been spent.

and saying this he carries Jesus back to the desert, then feigns to leave him.

Night comes on; hungry and cold and troubled by horrid dreams Jesus in vain seeks sleep and repose. And now a terrible storm bursts over his resting place and grim demons assemble around him with fiendish shrieks bending at him fiery darts. But Christ

,,Sat unappall'd in calm and sinless peace."

At last the terrible night ended and

,,morning fair

Came forth with pilgrim's steps, in amice grey;
Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar
Of thunder, chas'd the clouds, and laid the winds.
And grisly spectres, which the fiend had raised."

And with the morning Satan returns though he has not discovered any new device. He only warns Jesus, saying that this storm is of evil augury, pointed at him. Jesus answers that he despises such omens, which do not come from God but from the Devil. Satan is at last stung to the quick.,,You say you are the Son of God", he says; „perhaps no more so than I or even all men; it is true you have withstood all my temptations, but others have done that before. To show that you are really the Son of God, throw yourself down from the roof of the Temple without sustaining any injury." So saying Satan lifts Jesus up a second time and places him on the edge of the highest pinnacle of the Temple of Jerusalem. But Christ answers: ,,Do you not know, that it is written: Tempt not the Lord thy God?" Then at last Satan is baffled and foiled; he gives up his cause for lost, and struck with dread and anguish he falls down like the Theban Sphinx

and brings,,ruin and desperation and dismay" back to his hellish compeers; return from that which he enjoyed when triumphing over Eve.

a very different

In the meantime ministering angels bear Jesus to a flowery valley and set before him celestial food,

,,divine

Ambrosial fruits, fetch'd from the tree of life,

And from the fount of life, ambrosial drink,“

whilst they extol his victory over temptation, saying that Christ has thereby avenged Adam and regained the Paradise which our first parents lost.

c. Samson Agonistes.

Prometheus bound with iron chains to the rocks of Caucasus while vultures feed on his liver, as the noble representative of a grand cause that is fallen, this sublime conception of Aeschylus, may have suggested to Milton the idea of the dramatic treatment of his subject. But the classical studies and tastes of his bright youth had been superseded by the sterner forms and images of Hebrew tradition, nay the Puritans identified themselves with the chosen people of the Old Testament. And so Milton turned to the grand figure of the Hebrew Prometheus, Samson, blinded and fettered, grinding in the bondage of the Philistines, in order to give utterance to his grief at the fall of the Puritan cause and to his hope of its ultimate triumph. The interest of the play is purely personal; it is the intensest expression of feeling of the most intense of English poets. And indeed the likeness of the Hebrew martyr to Milton and to the Puritan cause in general is most striking. The victory of the godfearing Puritans over Charles and his Cavaliers seemed as marvelous as that of Samson over the idolatrous Philistines; but dissensions arose among the conquerors, the purity and justice of the cause suffered, and as Samson's weakness and disobedience was punished through the triumph of the Philistines feasting in the temple of their idol, so the Puritans succumbed to the lewd Cavaliers who returned in triumph and reveled in the land of the Children of God. But the time would come when the righteous would rise from their deep fall and would overwhelm the insolent revelers with ruin, as Samson buried his exulting foes even under the falling columns of their own temple. And looking upon himself as the truest type of all that was great and noble in that lost cause, Milton found in his own life two points of striking resemblance with that of Samson, his marriage with a Philistine woman, his first wife of royalist blood, and his blindness forcing him to impotent idleness

whilst his enemies rejoiced..

Milton's drama, Samson Agonistes, which appeared together with Paradise Regained in 1671, is written in imitation of the Greek drama with a strict observance of the unities; a chorus is introduced formed of Hebrew captives. The play is written in blank verse with the exception of the songs of the chorus in which freer metres have been introduced. The scene lies outside the prison of Gaza, the capital of the Philistines. On the day represented in the play a great festival is solemnized in honour of Dagon, the Philistine deity; in consequence the prisoners of state are allowed a cessation of their labour, and Samson, blind and in chains, is led forth by a boy to bask in the sun and to rest. Sitting there in the open air, a helpless trunk in spite of his enormous strength, he soliloquises on his deep fall, and bitter remorse assails him. Who is to blame but himself who in his folly betrayed the secret of his strength to false Dalila. His greatest misery is

the loss of sight, and here the despair of the poet at his own wretched condition bursts forth pathetically:

,,O dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon,

Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse

Without all hope of day!"

Whilst Samson is thus absorbed in the contemplation of his misery, the Chorus approaches and contrasts the broken-down old man with the irresistible hero who accomplished the wonderful feats of daring prowess which they exult in reciting. They see in him an example of human weakness,

,,0 mirror of our fickle state,

Since man on earth unparallel'd!“

Thereupon they engage in conversation with Samson trying to console him; but he bitterly complains of the cowardice and ingratitude of his people who will not exert themselves to win their freedom, nay heap insult on those who once delivered them from foreign bondage. Here again the condition of England after the Restoration is clearly referred to:

,,But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,

And by their vices brought to servitude,
Than to love bondage more than liberty,
Bondage with ease, than strenuous liberty;
And to despise, or envy, or suspect,
Whom God hath of his special favour raised
As their deliverer? if he aught begin,

How frequent to desert him, and at last,
To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds!"

Then Manoah, Samsons old father, comes to visit his son and laments at the sad spectacle. ,,Select and sacred, glorious for a while,

The miracle of men; then in an hour
Ensnared, assaulted, overcome, led bound,
Thy foes' derision, captive, poor, and blind."

He is come to offer a ransom to the Philistines to set his son free, but Samson refuses to accept freedom on such terms; nay he declares that he deserves his lot; why was he so weak as to be ensnared by a woman? He wishes to pay for his folly with his life; and why should he continue to live having tasted first of so much glory and then of so much shame? Why did he abstain from wine alone? why not from love as well, the more dangerous potion? In vain Manoah urges that God must have some secret purpose in restoring to him his wonderful strength. Samson answers that he is past hope and cure, that he suffers from a malady

,,which no cooling herb

Or medicinal liquor can assuage,

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp."

The Chorus wonders at the strange and mysterious ways of Providence, asking why it is that the best and greatest suffer most; and here again the Poet speaks from the depth of his own experience and gives expression to the dark questionings of his own soul at the time of the triumph of iniquity. He thus upbraids the Lord with the sad fate of the righteous:

Luisenschule 1886.

,,Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword

Of heathen and profane, their carcasses

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captiv'd;

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude.

5

Just then Dalila eyes on Samson

If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty,

With sickness and disease thou bow'st them down."

approaches in gay attire accompanied by a train of women and fixing her

,,Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps,

And words address'd seem into tears dissolv'd."

She has come to declare her repentance and to alleviate her husband's sorrow; she pleads in her excuse that it was jealous love that prompted her to betray him as she had hoped that the loss of his strength would secure her sway over him for ever; moreover her friends had promised her not to do him any harm, but only to keep him in custody; and they were her countrymen, they were the priests of her God who urged her to betray him. But now she will atone for her fault, will take him back to her house, and love and nurse him in his blindness. Samson however declares that her husband should have been her country and her priest and refuses to be again ensnared by her charms railing at her in bitter mockery. At last Dalila desists from her attempt at reconciliation. Let Israel curse her, the Philistines will bless her memory in all future ages. When she has left the stage, the Chorus expatiates on women in general, on their charms and inferiority, and on the misery of wedded life.

But now another visitor is announced by the Chorus, Harapha, the dreaded giant of Gath, who comes to boast of his strength before his rival in chains. What would he not have done, if he had met Samson in battle! Samson is roused from his torpor and dares him to close combat, himself unarmed; but Harapha's courage fails and he retires amidst the jeers of the Chorus in order to contrive in another manner the humiliation of his rival.

Whilst the Chorus debate among themselves whether Samson will win the crown of valour or of patience, a Philistine officer appears to summon Samson in the name of the Lords of the Philistines to grace the feast of Dagon with his presence. At first Samson's wrath is kindled at this new indignity, but at last he sees in the insult the hand of God who shows him a sure way to revenge, and he resolves to obey the summons. And so he says farewell to the Chorus of the Hebrews and leaves the stage followed by the fervent prayers of his friends.

а

When he is gone, his father Manoah arrives and announces to the Chorus his hopes to be able to ransom his son; all the while shouts and the surging noise of a great multitude are heard from without, and just at the moment when Manoah gives vent to his hope that the Lord in restoring the wonderful strength of Samson has some great piece of work in store for him, tremendous crash is heard as of some falling edifice followed by wild shrieks of pain and despair; and directly after a Hebrew messenger rushes in to announce to the Chorus what has befallen. A rapid dialogue follows between Manoah and the Messenger; the impatient questions of the former elicit, stroke upon stroke, the terrible truth; and then the Messenger gives in a splendid speech the full narration of the disaster, describing how Samson having amused his tyrants by wonderful feats of strength, placed himself to rest between two pillars, these he seized with all his might, prayed fervently, bent forward, and brought down the whole palace in fearful ruin both on himself and upon his enemies.

At these great tidings the Chorus exults; God does not forsake his people; he has maddened the wicked in order to destroy them. In accomplishing so glorious a revenge Samson has risen, a phoenix out of the ashes.

Nor does Manoah sorrow over his son who died as he lived. He proposes to rescue the body and to give it a glorious funeral, and raise to it a memorial which shall be honoured in ages to come by the youth of Israel. The Chorus ends the play by praising the justice and wisdom of God, Yes the English Samson, the Puritan Cause, now in sorrow and tribulation, will revive one day, then woe to thee Charles!

perhaps with a view to the England of Milton.

And the English giant did rise and overthrew the fatal house of Stuart and freed himself, from French and Jesuit bondage in the glorious revolution of 1689, and the very arguments used in the Bill of Rights to justify the expulsion of James and the election of William of Orange as king of England were taken from Milton's Defence of the English People. From that time forward the great principles of political and religious liberty for which the poet struggled and suffered, have never again been questioned in his country. But he did not live to see the triumph of his cause. After the appearance of Samson Agonistes he lived on for three years longer

,,Unchang'd

Though fallen on evil days,

On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues."

He died in London on Nov. 8, 1674.

His Paradise Lost was a noble anachronism. How could the generation of Charles II understand its purity and grandeur! Dryden, it is true, was too great a poet himself not to see its surpassing excellence. ,,This man cuts us all out and the ancients too"; these words quoted as those of Dryden, may not be authentic, but they express his sentiments. The Age of Queen Anne with its artificial standard of literary composition, was likewise unfavourable to a just appreciation of Milton. But his time came. With the religious revival and with the return to nature which mark, in England, the middle of last century, that work in which the grandeur of the Creator and the beauty of his Creation find their sublime expression, gradually and irresistibly gained ground in public estimation and finally obtained its due position as the noblest epic poem of the AngloSaxon race. And wherever that race has spread, on the other side of the Atlantic as well as in distant Australia, it has found its place by the side of Shakspeare and the Bible. And in kindred and protestant Germany the revival of the national poetry in the 18th century began with Bodmer's translation of Paradise Lost and with that great poem which was directly inspired by it: Klopstock's Messias. In his ode ,,Die beiden Musen" the German poet paid the meed of gratitude and admiration to the genius of his great British model John Milton.