Metaphor in Samson Agonistes

METAPHOR IN SAMSON AGONISTES DUNCAN ROBERTSON This essay attempts to show that metaphor, in a broad sense of the term, plays a more basic role in Samson Agonistes than critics have allowed. The broad sense includes both "imagery," which is the usual sense, and "symbolism." Both of these involve a comparison of A to B that defines a quality of A (and sometimes B as well); but in imagery the relation is explicit; in symbolism, impliCit. Imagery says, "My love's like a red red rose" or "My love is a red red rose" or "How's my little red red rose this morning?" Symbolism describes a man in a garden trying to pluck a rosebud. Thus while B, the "vehicle," in imagery is relatively fugitive and ornamental, a symbolic B is substantial and integral. It exists in the poem apart from any comparisons it may be involved in: it may be a large and continuous element such as a setting or a character or a plot. Studies of the symbolism of Samson Agonistes have so far been confined chiefly to those that treat the poem typologically or as an allegory of Milton's life and times.' As two forms of metaphor, imagery and symbolism are easy to relate to each other, and indeed hard to keep separate. And since metaphor implies a level of meaning beyond the literal, the metaphorical approach to a poem, as such, will always be consistent with more literal approaches, for example, in terms of character or the structure of tragedy. We may agree with Don Cameron Allen that in Samson Agonistes Milton contrives. to raise the character of that primitive ruffian of a half-savage legend to nobler heights than the compilers of the Book of Judges could possibly imagine. The hairy sun symbol of the oldest of Jewish myths ... becomes in the great tragic poem a mighty Christian hero, worthy of all those prophetic embellishments with which a thousand years of Christian exegesis had adorned him? But there is no reason why in becoming a mighty Christian hero Samson cannot remain a hairy sun symbol as well. In fact precisely some of the poetic and moral refinements that raise the legend to nobler heights also reveal in it more primitive depths than the compilers of Judges could imagine. In Judges the primitive symbolism is more or less fossilized, but Vol"m. xxxvm, Number 4, July 1969 320 DUNCAN ROBERTSON Milton, by elaborating an imagery of light and fire and sun and by introducing the theme of sexual guilt, brings it to life again. Of the four sections that follow, Section I treats Samson's physical strength as a symbol of virtue; his physical degradation (his loss of strength and his blindness and enslavement) as a symbol both of his own moral degradation and of the political degradation of Israel; and these states of moral and political degradation as symbols of each other. Section II deals with other symbols of virtue: the life-giving powers of sun and water, for example, and Samson's virility, which is itself symbolized by his magic hair. Since virility is also the literal occasion for his fall, it exemplifies the paradox of weakness in strength. Section III deals with the converse paradox: in his traditional role of saint, Samson shows the strength in weakness. He earns his triumph through suffering and patience; and his death is a precise symbol of the mystery of martyrdom, a passion that is most truly action. Typologically, he goes from an Adam who has fallen to a Christ whose death is the death of evil. Section IV examines the view that Samson's fall, not only his death, is fortunate, and attempts thereby to make some sort of abstract sense of the paradox of strength in weakness. I STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS, FREEDOM AND SLAVERY Samson Agonistes deals with virtue, first lost, then regained. The basic meaning of the term "virtue" is power or strength; the peculiar and obvious virtue of Samson is his physical strength. This physical virtue, however, is of interest in the poem chiefly as a symbol of virtue in its usual restricted modem sense of moral virtue. Samson's strength...