No More Learning

MANOA: His ransom, if my whole inheritance
May compass it, shall willingly be paid
And numbered down. Much rather I shall choose
To live the poorest in my tribe, than richest,
And he in that calamitous prison left.
No, I am fixed not to part hence without him.
For his redemption all my patrimony,
If need be, I am ready to forego
And quit. Not wanting him, I shall want nothing.
It shall be my delight to tend his eyes,
And view him sitting in his house, ennobled
With all those high exploits by him achieved.

CHORUS: Thy hopes are not ill founded, nor seem vain,
Of his delivery.

MANOA: I know your friendly minds, and--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?
Blood, death, and deathful deeds, are in that noise,
Ruin, destruction at the utmost point.

MANOA: Of ruin indeed methought I heard the noise.
Oh! it continues; the have slain my son.
CHORUS: Thy son is rather slaying them; that outcry
From slaughter of one foe could not ascend.

MANOA: Some dismal accident it needs must be.
What shall we do--stay here, or run and see?

CHORUS: Best keep together here, lest, running thither,
We unawares run into danger's mouth.
This evil on the Philistines is fallen:
From whom could else a general cry be heard?

MANOA: A little stay will bring some notice hither.

CHORUS: I see one hither speeding--
An Hebrew, as I guess, and of our tribe.

MESSENGER: O, whither shall I run, or which way fly?
The sight of this so horrid spectacle,
Which erst my eyes beheld, and yet behold?

MANOA: The accident was loud, and here before thee
With rueful cry; yet what it was we know not.
Tell us the sum, the circumstance defer.

MESSENGER: Gaza yet stands; but all her sons are fallen,
All in a moment overwhelmed and fallen.

MANOA: Sad! but thou know'st to Israelites not saddest
The desolation of a hostile city.

MESSENGER: Feed on that first; there may in grief be surfeit.

MANOA: Relate by whom.