one can scarcely miss a reference to the daughters who purloined and sold the blind father's books. When the soliloquy draws to an end the Chorus, men of his tribe, come to visit Samson. Not even Milton ever made the arrangement and sound of words do more to enforce their meaning than he does in this wonderful opening chorus-- {233} "This, this is he; softly a while; Let us not break in upon him. O change beyond report, thought, or belief!" They chant their inevitable wonder at the contrast between what Samson was and what he is. "O mirror of our fickle state, Since man on earth, unparalleled! The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, Strongest of mortal men, To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fallen." No reader of Greek can fail to be reminded of more than one chorus in the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles-- _io geneai broton_ _hos hymas isa chai to meden zosas enarithmo--_ "Alas, ye generations of men, how utterly a thing of nought I count the life ye have to live! For what man is there who wins more of happiness than just the seeming and after the semblance a falling away. With thy fate before mine eyes, unhappy Oedipus, I can call no earthly creature blest." Here and there, as in this passage, the parallel is very close. But Milton's genius is too great and self-reliant for mere imitation. He sometimes recalls the very words of Greek poets as he {234} does those of the Bible: but that is not because he is artificially imitating either, but because he has assimilated the spirit of both and made them a part of himself. The Chorus express their sympathy with Samson and he replies, bitterly reproaching his own folly and that of the rulers of Judah who gave him up to their enemies. But human blindness will not ultimately defeat the ways of God: and the Chorus sing their song of faith, in which rhyme is called in to give its touch of impatient contempt at the folly of the atheist. "Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men; Unless there be who think not God at all. If any be, they walk obscure; For of such doctrine never was there school, But the heart of the fool, And no man therein doctor but himself." So ends the first act or episode of the drama. The second is the visit of Samson's father Manoah, whose cry is-- "Who would be now a father in my stead?" He is trying to negotiate for his son's ransom: but Samson refuses, not desiring life, desiring rather to pay the full penalty of his sin. He cannot share his father's hopes that God will give him back the sight he so misused-- {235}