SAMSON AGONISTES,

A

DRAMATIC POEM.

Aristot. Poet. Cap. 6.

Τραγωδία μίμησις πράξεως σπυδαίας, κ. τ. λ. Tragedia est imitatio actionis seriæ, &c. per miseri cordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum lustrationem.

E2

OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATIC POEM

WHICH IS CALLED TRAGEDY.

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 such like 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. 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. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragie poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 33.; and Paræus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts distinguished each by a chorus of heavenly harpings and song be tween. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious, than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Cæsar also had begun his Ajax; but, unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca the philosopher is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a father of the church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which is intitled Christ Suffering. This is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it un dergoes at this day with other common interludes; happening through the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity; or intra ducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judici ous hath been counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And though ancient tragedy use no prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self-defence, or explanation, that which Martial calls an epistle; in behalf of this tragedy coming forth after the ancient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much before-hand may be epistled; that chorus is bere introduced after the Greek manner, not ancient only but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this poem, with good reason, the ancients and Italians are rather followed, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of verse used in the chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks monostrophic, or rather apolelymenon, without regard had to strophe, antistrophe, or epode, which were a kind of stanzas framed only for the music, then used with the chorus that sung; not essential to the poem, and therefore not material; or, being divid ed into stanzas or pauses, they may be called allæos tropha. Division into act and scene referring chiefly to the stage (to which this work never was intended) is here omitted.

It suffices if the whole drama be found not produ ced beyond the fifth act. 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 versimilitude and decorum; they only will best judge who are not unacquainted with Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three tragic poets un equalled yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy. The circumscription of time, wherein the whole drama begins and ends, is, ac cording to ancient rule, and best example, within the space of twenty-four hours.

THE ARGUMENT.

Samson, made captive, blind, and now in the prison
at Gaza, there to labour as in a common work-
house, on a festival day, in the general cessation
from labour, comes forth into the open air, to a
place nigh, somewhat retired, there to sit a while
and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at
length to be visited by certain friends and equals of
his tribe, which make the Chorus, who seek to com-
fort him what they can; then by his old father
Manoah, who endeavours the like, and withal tells
him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom;
lastly, that this feast was proclaimed by the Philis-
tines as a day of thanksgiving for their deliverance
from the hands of Samson, which yet more troubles
him. Manoah then departs to prosecute his endea
vour with the Philistine lords for Samson's redemp
tion; who in the mean while is visited by other
persons; and lastly by a public officer to require his
coming to the feast before the lords and people, to
play or show his strength in their presence: he at
first refuses, dismissing the public officer with abso-
lute denial to come; at length, persuaded inward-
Jy that this was from God, he yields to go along
with him, who came now the second time with
great threatenings to fetch him: the chorus yet re-
maining on the place, Manoah returns full of joyful
hope, to procure ere long his son's deliverance: in
the midst of which discourse an Hebrew comes in
haste, confusedly at first, and afterwards more dis-
tinctly, relating the catastrophe, what Samson had
done to the Philistines, and by accident to himself;
wherewith the tragedy ends.

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