Samson figures in the "Monk's Tale" in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, lines 2015-2094. Here is an excerpt from those lines:
2066: And slepynge in hir barm, upon a day,
2067: She made to clippe or shere his heres away,
2068: And made his foomen al his craft espyen;
2069: And whan that they hym foond in this array,
2070: They bounde hym faste and putten out his yen.
2071: But er his heere were clipped or yshave,
2072: Ther was no boond with which men myghte him bynde;
2073: But now is he in prison in a cave,
2074: Were-as they made hym at the queerne grynde.
2075: O noble sampsoun, strongest of mankynde,
2076: O whilom juge, in glorie and in richesse!
2077: Now maystow wepen with thyne eyen blynde,
2078: Sith thou fro wele art falle in wrecchednesse.
Excerpts from John
Lydgate, The Fall of Princes (1431), Book I, "Of mighty Sampson,
which told his counsel to Dalida
whereby he was deceived." Here is Lydgate's description of Delilah:
"She like a serpent lurking under flowers,
Or like a worm that wrotith on a tree,
Or like an adder of manifold colors,
Right fresh appearing and fair upon to see:
For shrouded was her mutability
With lowliness and a fair pretense
Of true meaning under false appearance."
John Milton's Samson Agonistes is availabled online thanks to Renascence Editions (web version by Judy Boss and Richard Bear). Here is Milton's summary of the plot of his verse tragedy:
"Samson made Captive, Blind, and now in the Prison at Gaza, there to labour as in a common work-house, on a Festival day, in the general cessation from labour, comes forth into the open Air, to a place nigh, somewhat retir'd there to sit a while and bemoan his condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain friends and equals of his tribe, which make the Chorus, who seek to comfort him what they can; then by his old Father Manoa, who endeavours the like, and withal tells him his purpose to procure his liberty by ransom; lastly, that this Feast was proclaim'd by the Philistins as a day of Thanksgiving for thir deliverance from the hands of Samson, which yet more troubles him. Manoa then departs to prosecute his endeavour with the Philistian Lords for Samson's redemption; who in the mean while is visited by other persons; and lastly by a publick Officer to require his coming to the Feast before the Lords and People, to play or shew his strength in thir presence; he at first refuses, dismissing the publick Officer with absolute denyal to come; at length perswaded inwardly that this was from God, he yields to go along with him, who came now the second time great threatnings to fetch him; the Chorus yet remaining on the place, Manoa returns full of joyful hope, to procure e're long his Sons deliverance: in the midst of which discourse an Ebrew comes in haste confusedly at first; and afterward more distinctly relating the Catastrophe, what Samson had done to the Philistins, and by accident to himself; wherewith the Tragedy ends."
