Paradise Lost: The Arguments - WW Norton & Company

22 John Milton
Softened with pleasure and voluptuous life;
At length to lay my head and hallowed pledge 535
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful concubine, who shore me,
Like a tame wether, 3 all my precious fleece,
Then turned me out ridiculous, despoiled,
Shaven, and disarmed among my enemies. 540
chorus. Desire of wine and all delicious drinks,
Which many a famous warrior overturns,
Thou could’st repress; nor did the dancing ruby,
Sparkling out-poured, the flavor or the smell,
Or taste, that cheers the heart of gods and men, 545
Allure thee from the cool crystàlline stream.
samson. Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed
Against the eastern ray, translucent pure
With touch ethereal of Heaven’s fiery rod, 4
I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying 550
Thirst, and refreshed; nor envied them the grape
Whose heads that turbulent liquor fills with fumes.
chorus. 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 555
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook! 5
samson. But what availed this temperance, not complete
Against another object more enticing?
What boots it at one gate to make defense, 560
And at another to let in the foe,
Effeminately vanquished? by which means,
Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonored, quelled,
To what can I be useful? wherein serve
My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed? 565
But to sit idle on the household hearth,
3. A castrated sheep.
4. The rays of the sun. Samson is saying that wherever water was purest and cleanest, he drank of it—never
of wine. “Rod” intimates a parallel with Moses, who like Samson brought forth a spring in the middle of the
desert.
5. Samson’s calling as a Nazarite forbade him the use of wine.