[Milton-L] RE: [Milton List] Samson as Suicide Bomber

[Derek Wood]

Dear Joe,
My apologies for this long delay. I've had a bad month. Now I've almost caught up with my commitments, picked up or despatched guests etc. I hope to be able to reply soon.
Best wishes, Derek.
 
Derek N. C. Wood,
Senior Research Professor and Shastri Fellow,,
St. Francis Xavier University,
ANTIGONISH,    NS,
Canada,    B2G 2W5
 
e-mail: dwood at stfx.ca
phone: 902-867-2328 (w)
           902-863-5433 (h)
fax:      902-867-5400
web:     http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood <http://www.stfx.ca/people/dwood/Welcome.html> /Welcome.html 

________________________________

From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu on behalf of jenniferjoe
Sent: Tue 26-May-09 4:16 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: [Milton-L] RE: [Milton List] Samson as Suicide Bomber



Dear Derek,

Please excuse my delay in answering.  We had guests over Memorial Day; also I had to rewrite a part of this post, which somehow disappeared on me.

You write, "Milton emphasizes his conviction that God is 'inscrutable,' which is why I believe is what SA is written to communicate: the mystery of  God, how He is so distant and silent."

His ways are certainly inscrutable, in the sense of unpredictable. But I think you have in mind something different--an absence more than an unpredictable presence.  I infer this both from your short statement, and my recollection that you regard the catastrophe as a spectacle of senseless slaughter, repugnant to any reverent conception of God.

As my understanding of the catastrophe differs from yours, I don't share what I take to be your sense of God's absence.  I think of Milton as adopting for purposes of the tragedy an OT 'world-view', according to which God, through Samson, vindicates his name,  against the pretensions of a rival, false god.  "But he will arise and his great name assert: / Dagon must stoop . . .  / . . . / And with confusion blank his Worshippers." (467-71).

But this doesn't mean that I can agree with Manoa's and the Chorus's comforting conclusions, any more than you can:  "all this / With God not parted from him, as was fear'd, / But favoring and assisting to the end"; and "Oft he seems to hide his face, / But unexpectedly returns / And to his Champion hath in place / Bore Witness gloriously . . ."  These statements are only partly true   God has assisted Samson to the extent of providing him an unexpected opportunity  to strike at the Philistines.  But this act requires first his  participation in idolatrous rites.   God's assistance paradoxically alienates Samson from Him.  An idolator, he can't invoke God's name in his final words; he dies immixt with his enemies, soaked in their clotted gore.   His death is not wholly glorious; God's favoring and assisting to the end is dubious.   Samson at the end seems as cursed as favored.

Having taken part  in games to honor Dagon, he could hardly invoke God's name in his words to the spectators.  He is unfit to serve as God's instrument.  But how else was he close with the Philistines, than to show off his strength to them, as commanded? 

This is the pattern of Samson's career: failings converted into advantages over his enemies.  His signal  weakness is his inability to resist a wife's importunities (which the chorus regards as a weakness of men in general.)  First he told his Timnian wife the answer to the riddle he posed to the groomsmen. When thy came up with the answer, he knew that they had tampered with her:  that gave him occasion to first attack the Philistines.  He made use of his fault.  Ramathlehi taught the Philistines  to keep clear of him; he walked about on hostile ground, "none daring his my afront"  (531). He became unemployed ; his career stagnated.  Until he told Dalila the secret of is strength, caving in again to a woman's importunities.  His subsequent blinding, which appeared to end his  career,  made the Philistines  careless of his strength.  They allowed him again to come in their midst, as at Ramathlehi.   But only as a participant in their idolatry.   The faults exploited this tim!

 e were the violation of a vow and  idolatry.  More serious than the earlier ones, and the advantage gained more costly to Samson.

 In this review of his career and God's management of it, God might  might  seem no less perverse than inscrutable.   He chooses  a man to be the image of his might and mighty minister.  He gives this human the strength of angels, which is conditional upon perfect obedience.  But Samson is only a man; he is bound to fail the conditions.  God is not deterred, however; He carries out his plan by exploiting Samson's failures (while punishing them too.) It seems perverse of God to assign someone a role that he can't sustain. It would be much more reasonable to appoint His son, the perfect man, or redeem humanity.

As for the last paragraph of my previous posting, in which I conjecture at the thoughts that Samson revolves while standing between the pillars, I have to agree with your skepticism;
"We do not know."   The alternative thoughts that you come up with are just as plausible as my suppositions.  I'll be more careful.

Joe Mayer


Joe Mayer

_______________________________________________
Milton-L mailing list
Milton-L at lists.richmond.edu
Manage your list membership and access list archives at http://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/listinfo/milton-l

Milton-L web site: http://johnmilton.org/


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 8178 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.richmond.edu/pipermail/milton-l/attachments/20090609/d89634ad/attachment.bin