“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674a heroic end to a heroic life (1,709–11); and the chorus concludes, “Living or dying
thou hast fulfill’d / The work for which thou wast foretold / To Israel” (1,661–3).
Recognizing God’s hand in Samson’s deed, Manoa intuits that God was “not parted
from him, as was fear’d” (1,719), and the chorus rejoices that God at last gave
glorious witness to his “faithful Champion” (1,751).
But their responses to Samson’s mission and to the changed political situation
remain confused. Manoa still blames Samson’s blindness and captivity chiefly on
“his lot unfortunate in nuptial choice” (1,743) and is too ready to dismiss the trag-
edy occasioned by the guilt of Samson and Israel. Given Samson’s terrible suffering
and violent death it is hardly the case that “Nothing is here for tears” (1,721). Also,
as Manoa earlier thought to make Samson an icon on the family hearth, so he now
plans a glorious shrine for him, with cultic celebrations that comes perilously close
to those Dalila imagined for herself. But Manoa can also imagine a new future in
which Samson figures as exemplum and challenge: his story might inspire other
valiant youth to “matchless valour and adventures high” (1,440), and his deed has
already provided Israel with a political occasione in Machiavelli’s sense: “To Israel /
Honour hath left, and freedom, let but them / Find courage to lay hold on this
occasion” (1,714–16). The Danite chorus gives some indication of a new openness
to illumination in their final ode, with its richly evocative imagery of eagle and
phoenix representing Samson’s restored vision in blindness:
But he though blind of sight,
Despis’d and thought extinguish’t quite,
With inward eyes illuminated
His fierie vertue rouz’d
From under ashes into sudden flame. (1,687–91)But they fall back on sententious maxims again in the rhymed sonnet that ends the
work, observing that “All is best” and that “in the close” we can best know the
champions to whom God and history bear witness. Their statement ignores the
drama’s demonstration that choices must be made and actions taken in medias res, in
circumstances always characterized by imperfect knowledge and conflicting testi-
mony. They have learned something but probably not enough: at the end we are
led to contemplate the further tragedy that (like Milton’s Englishmen) Samson’s
countrymen may not grasp the new chance for liberty he has won for them. Nor
did they. The biblical record shows that Israel did not lay hold on this occasion but
continued in corruption and servitude, and that the Danites became open idolaters
and murderers.^145
As published, the poem has another coda, ten added lines designed for insertion
as lines 1,527–35 and 1,537 but appearing under a bar at the end, labeled “Omissa.”^146
We cannot know whether Milton hoped the printer could add them in their right
place or wanted this presentation, which allows a glimpse of an alternative, apoca-