Chapter Characters of Samson Agonistes - Study Guide by John Milton

Milton is stressing here the intimacy of marriage. As in Paradise Lost, marriage is for Milton a shared spiritual journey, in which the partners are expected to work in harmony - 'What pilot so expert but needs must wreck | Embarked with such a steers-mate at the helm?' (ll.1044-5). During the seventeenth century marriage was gradually becoming recognised as more than a means of preserving or advancing a dynasty, or legitimising lustful encounter. The value of love in marriage was increasingly becoming recognised and appreciated during Milton's lifetime. It is one of the principal themes of the poet's divorce tracts of the 1640s. Marriage is seen here as a spiritual union; procreation is secondary, something that develops out of love itself. Hence Milton's justification for divorce - once the harmony between the two souls is lost the union is no longer divinely sanctioned, and thus no earthly pronouncement can preserve it. Dalila has broken the basis of marriage, trust between partners, and her betrayal of Samson's secret contravened the foremost duty and first loyalty of the wife. Milton's divorce tracts, composed 1643-45, offered a profound challenge to religious, legal, and cultural principles governing marriage. The Church of England proclaimed that valid marriages are indissoluble, save for the spiritually authorized ground of adultery (rooted in Matthew 19:3-11) and sometimes impotence. English law did not permit remarriage after such divorce, though some Continental Protestant nations did and many reformed theologians approved it for the innocent party. Both ecclesiastical law and English law recognized that some conditions - including impotence as a condition preceding the marriage, lack of free consent on either side, close kinship - violated the very nature of marriage; any seeming marriage contracted in such circumstances was no marriage and the parties could remarry. Milton urged Parliament to enact a reform virtually unheard of in his day: divorce for incompatibility, with right of remarriage for both parties. He argues his case by re-ordering the usual ends of marriage to place companionship above procreation or relief of lust (which is based on Genesis 2:18-24); other arguments are that Moses allowed divorce and remarriage to the Jews on such grounds (Deuteronomy 24:1-2) and that the overarching principle of Charity in the New Testament demands a nonliteralistic interpretation of the apparent revocation of that permission by Jesus in Matthew 19. Most remarkable are the eloquent passages describing the human misery caused by the present divorce laws - an appeal to human experience as a guide to the interpretation of scripture.

Dalila threatens the natural order and established structure of power. Like Milton's own world, the world we are thrown into in Samson Agonistes, power is dominated by men. Dalila, with her captivation over Samson had overturned this established power structure, posing a threat to order. She had managed to lure Samson into pleasure by 'venereal trains'. Her temptation attempts to play on Samson's vulnerability to her sexuality. Throughout Samson laments the mental weakness, or 'impotence of mind', that allowed Dalila to deceive him, his own inability to prevent his surrender to her sexuality. He could not prevent himself from becoming 'O'vercome with importunity and tears' (l.51). Initially Samson begins to question God for allowing him to have such a 'servile mind' (l.412) while he is 'in body strong' (l.52). However he comes to realise that it is his own 'weakness' (ll. 50, 235, 834) that allowed him to become 'yoked' and enslaved by Dalila. We meet him at Gaza imprisoned and enslaved by the Philistines, fitting punishment for his fall from God.

So what of Milton the misogynist? Samson is responsible for his own sin - Milton's belief in the Arminian doctrine of Free Will is operative, meaning that Samson himself, not God or Dalila, determined his fate. Undeniably Milton presents Dalila as dangerous and treacherous, but it is Samson's inability to resist that caused his fall. This is expected since he is the central figure of the tragedy. Dalila is, in her own right, a complex figure. Though in the plot of the tragedy her role is to serve as temptation to test Samson's faith, her object in visiting him in the prison is difficult to determine. Feminist critics have been quick to draw attention to the discussion between Samson and the Chorus after Dalila's temptation; and there is an account of marriage as a power struggle, in which men uphold vigilant policing to maintain their position. Dalila's last speech (ll.980-84) is one of Milton's greatest. It is imbued with tragic irony, as in a matter of hours there none of the countrymen she betrayed Samson for will remain. Milton allocated Dalila less than 300 lines; this compression makes for one of Milton's most complex and powerful characters.