Then with more cautious and instructed skill
Again transgresses, and again submits.
When Samson has refused to make himself a spectacle at the feast of Dagon, he first justifies his behaviour to the chorus, who charge him with having served the Philistines, by a very just distinction; and then destroys the common excuse of cowardice and servility, which always confound temptation with compulsion:
Chor. Yet with thy strength thou serv'st the Philistines.
Sams. Not in their idol worship, but by labour
Honest and lawful to deserve my food
Of those, who have me in their civil power.
Chor. Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not.
Sams. Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds.
But who constrains me to the temple of Dagon,
Not dragging? The Philistine lords command.
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them,
I do it freely, vent'ring to displease
God for the fear of man, and man prefer,
Set God behind.
The complaint of blindness which Samson pours out at the beginning of the tragedy is equally addressed to the passions and the fancy. The enumeration of his miseries is succeeded by a very pleasing train of poetical images, and concluded by such expostulation and wishes, as reason too often submits to learn from despair.
O first created beam, and thou great word
Let there be light, and light was over all;
