“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674Readers are expected to supply the appropriate distinctions: Jael violated, for reli-
gious and national purposes, the classical code of hospitality protecting a guest,
while Dalila violated the intimate claims of love and the high duty of marital fidelity
thought to be grounded in natural law.
The Dalila episode asks readers to reaffirm the principle that justified the Revo-
lution – that natural law takes precedence over civil and ecclesiastical authority.
Also, Samson’s descriptions of Dalila in terms evoking Circe or the Whore of Babylon
- “thy ginns, and toyls; / Thy fair enchanted cup, and warbling charms” (933–4) –
associate her sexual power with the sensuous attractions of Roman Catholic and
high Anglican religious practices. Samson’s adamant refusal to allow Dalila to bring
him back to her house and bed, projecting the misery of a future life “in perfet
thraldom” to her (946), asks to be read at the personal level of the marital relation-
ship and also at the political level of the defeated Puritans’ need to resist seduction,
subversion, and betrayal.
The chorus has learned something about illusion, deception, and hypocrisy from
this episode, but they remain baffled by women, and only manage to voice a mas-
culine counterpart to Dalila’s feminine stereotypes, proclaiming man’s “despotic
power / Over his female” as God’s universal law (1,053–5). The political and cul-
tural issues elude them, and they seek refuge from their confusion in a simplistic and
general misogyny.
In the agon with the Philistine strong man Harapha, Samson experiences an
inward sense of God’s pardon that enables him again to take up his vocation as
divinely appointed liberator, offering it to the trial of battle and defending it by
reasoned political argument. Harapha’s insults, pointing to Samson’s sorry state as
evidence of God’s abandonment, echo those the triumphant royalists cast at the
defeated Puritans and at blind Milton: “Thee he regards not, owns not, hath cut off
/ Quite from his people, and delivered up / Into thy Enemies hand” (1,157–9).
Despite his apparent disadvantage, Samson offers to fight Harapha in terms that
evoke David’s victory over Goliath, identified here as one of Harapha’s five sons.^136
Samson now interprets his restored hair and strength as a sign of God’s continued
favor. His heartfelt admission of guilt, affirmation that God was and is the source of
his strength, recognition of God’s hand in his deserved chastisement, and confi-
dence of God’s pardon, provide a model for the oppressed Puritans, echoing the
lessons of numerous jeremiads on the occasions of the Great Plague and the Great
Fire.^137 This scene implies that from such attitudes, leading to a renewed relation-
ship with God, might come readiness to reclaim political agency and resist oppres-
sion:
In confidence whereof I once again
Defie thee to the trial of mortal fight,
By combat to decide whose god is God,
Thine or whom I with Israel’s Sons adore. (1,174–7)