The Nazarite has been regarded as a conqueror who subdued his temptations, and who wore his long hair as a crown, the hair being worn _rough_ as a protest against foppery. Another view, however, is that it was kept elaborately dressed, a proof of the existence of the custom being seen in the seven locks of Samson:-- "And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the _seven locks of his head_; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him" (Judg. xvi. 19). Let us listen to the story in the quaint, silvery music of Chaucer:-- "This Sampson neyther siser dronk ne wyn Ne on his heed com rasour noon ne schere By precept of the messager divyn For alle his strengthes in his heres were. . . . . . Unto his lemman Dalida he tolde That in his heres al his strengthe lay And falsly to his foomen sche him solde And slepying in hir barm upon a day Sche made to clippe or schere his heres away And made his foomen al his craft espien And whan thay fond him in this array Thay bound him fast and put out bothe his yen. "But er his heer clipped was or i-schave Ther was no bond with which men might him bynde But now is he in prisoun in a cave Ther as thay made him at the querne grynde O noble Sampson strengest of al man kynde O whilom jugge in glory and in richesse Now maystow wepe with thine eyyen blynde Sith thou fro wele art falle to wrecchednesse." _Monk's Tale._ [Illustration: ROMAN HEAD-DRESSES. _Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."_] While the hair was the pride, the glory, and the strength of Samson, it was the bane of Absalom, for by the abundance of his hair he met his death. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end that he polled it: because the hair was heavy, therefore he polled it), he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight."[24] Had he polled it at more frequent intervals he might have made good his succession to the crown, and Solomon never have been king, for Absalom had "stolen the hearts of the people of Israel."