In the next scene an officer comes to demand Samson's presence at the feast of Dagon that he may entertain the Philistine lords with feats of strength. He at first dismisses the messenger with a contemptuous refusal: but, with a premonition of the end which recalls Oedipus at Colonus, he suddenly changes his mind-- "I begin to feel Some rousing motions in me, which dispose To something extraordinary my thoughts. If there be aught of presage in the mind, This day will be remarkable in my life By some great act, or of my days the last." {238} "Go, and the Holy One Of Israel be thy guide," sing the Chorus: and he leaves the scene, like Oedipus, to return no more, but to be more felt in his absence than in his presence. Manoah re-enters to utter his further hopes of ransom, in which there is a note of Sophoclean irony recalling the ignorant optimism of Oedipus in the _Tyrannus_; and as he and the Chorus talk they hear at first a loud shouting, apparently of triumph, and then another louder and more terrible-- _Manoah._ "O what noise! Mercy of Heaven! what hideous noise was that? Horribly loud, unlike the former shout." _Chorus._ "Noise call you it, or universal groan, As if the whole inhabitation perished?" They dare not enter the city: and, as they speculate on what this great event can be, a Hebrew spectator of the catastrophe comes up and, after some brief exchange of question and answer exactly in the manner of the Greek tragedians, tells the whole story at length. The end has come. Samson is dead, but death is swallowed up in victory: what has happened is the last and most tremendous {239} triumph of the divinely chosen hero whose death is more fatal to his country's enemies than even his life had been. There is nothing left to do but to close the drama, as most Greek tragedies close, with a brief choral song of submission to the divine governance of the world: "All is best, though we oft doubt What the unsearchable dispose Of Highest Wisdom brings about, And ever best found in the close. Oft He seems to hide his face, But unexpectedly returns, And to his faithful champion hath in place Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns, And all that band them to resist His uncontrollable intent. His servants He, with new acquist Of true experience from this great event, With peace and consolation hath dismissed, And calm of mind, all passion spent."