Through all Philistian bounds; to Israel Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, 1715 1720 1725 The clotted gore. I, with what speed the while (Gaza is not in plight to say us nay), Will send for all my kindred, all my friends 1730 To fetch him hence, and solemnly attend With silent obsequy and funeral train Home to his father's house. There will I build him A monument, and plant it round with shade 1735 Of laurel ever green, and branching palm, 1740 Chorus. All is best, though we oft doubt, 1745 Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns, His uncontrollable intent; His servants he with new acquist Of true experience from this great event, 1755 NOTES. Preface. Line 3. Said by Aristotle, &c. This is an allusion to the famous passage in the Poetics, section vi, ἔστιν οὖν τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης . . . δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι' ἀπαγγελίας δι ̓ ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν· “ Tragedy then is the imitation of some action that is important, entire, and of a proper magnitude... in the way not of narration but of action effecting through pity and terror the purging of such passions.' 1. 8. For so in physic. An allusion to the doctrine of Signatures introduced by Paracelsus between 1530 and 1540, which inferred the propriety of the use of any vegetable or mineral in medicine from the similarity of colour, shape, or appearance which these remedies might bear to the part affected; thus yellow things, as saffron, turmeric, and the like, were to be prescribed in liver complaints (Dunster). 1. 15. A verse of Euripides, &c. I. e. pleípovσiv žen XpĤσ0' ¿μuxíai Kakаí, 'evil communications corrupt good manners.' This is generally supposed to be a verse in the Thais of Menander, though the historian Socrates attributes it to Euripides. (See Meineke, edit. of Menander, ad loc.) 1. 16. Paraeus. David Paraeus, an eminent Calvinist theologian (1548–1622). Cf. The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy: And the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies; and this my opinion the grave authority of Paraeus, commenting that book, is sufficient to confirm.' Milton's object in making these remarks was to propitiate the Puritans, whose prejudice against dramatic representations was notorious. 1. 20. Dionysius the elder. Tyrant of Syracuse, born в.c. 431, died 367, the most famous of those who bore the name. He repeatedly contended for the prize of tragedy at Athens, and succeeded just before his death in bearing away the first prize at the Lenaea. 1. 22. Augustus Caesar-his Ajax. See Suetonius, Vita Augusti, lxxxv. 1. 24. Seneca. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, born a few years before F Christ, died A.D. 65. It is still open to question whether the ten tragedies which go under his name were really written by him. 1. 26. Gregory Nazianzen. One of the most famous of the Greek Fathers, who played a very important part in the religious controversies of the fourth century, born at Arianzus near Nazianzus, of which place his father was bishop, died A.D. 389 or 390. The play which Milton alludes to was an attempt to Christianise the Greek drama. The work is little better than a cento of verses, principally from Euripides. 1. 31. With other common interludes, &c. This is an attack on the romantic drama, with an oblique allusion to the tragi-comedies of Dryden and Dryden's contemporaries. An allusion to a passage in 1. 37. That which Martial calls, &c. the preface to the second book of the Epigrams, 'Video quare tragoedi epistolam accipiant, quibus pro se loqui non licet.' It was usual on the Greek and Roman stage to prefix prologues or 'excusations of the author' to comedies, but not to tragedies. 1. 42. Still in use among the Italians. As in the dramas of Andreini (the poet whose Adamo may possibly have given Milton the hint for Paradise Lost), Lancetta, and other contemporaries of Milton. Italian tragedy, from its first appearance in the hands of Galeotto del Carretto in 1502, continued to cling to the Greek model. 1. 47. Apolelymenon. A Greek word, droλeλvμévov, loosed from,' i.e. from the fetters of, strophe, antistrophe, or epode; monostrophic (μоvóστpоpos) meaning literally 'single stanzaed,' i. e. a strophe without answering antistrophe. So alloeostrophic (dλotóσтpopos) signifies stanzas of irregular strophes, strophes not consisting of alternate strophe and antistrophe. 1. 55. Beyond the fifth act. Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, 299 'Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu Fabula.' Text. Agonistes. The word is purely Greek, ȧywviσrýs signifying' one who contends in public games,' in the sense of an athlete, player, or performer. Here it means one who contends as an athlete. The term is peculiarly appropriate to Samson, for he is the hero of the drama (the protagonistes, or principal performer), and the catastrophe results from the exhibition of his strength in the public games of the Philistines. 1. 2. These dark steps. These exactly equals the Greek τοῖσδε. Dark is here used in the sense of that cannot see,' the words caecus and rupλós having the same meaning in Latin and Greek. Perhaps the term was immediately suggested by Euripides, Phoenissae, 834 s τυφλῷ ποδὶ ¦ ὀφθαλμὸς εἶ σύ, |