o bring "The
merry Pipe and pleasing String;" whereupon the trumpet chorus is
repeated. After the tenor aria ("Loud is the Thunder's awful Voice"), the
chorus recurs again, showing Handel's evident partiality for it. The
Philistine Woman has another solo ("Then free from Sorrow"), whereupon in
a pathetic song ("Torments, alas!") Samson bewails his piteous condition.
His friend Micah appears, and in the aria, "O Mirror of our fickle
State," condoles with him. In answer to his question, "Which shall we
first bewail, thy Bondage, or lost Sight?" Samson replies in a short, but
exquisitely tender aria, "Total Eclipse: no Sun, no Moon, all dark amidst
the Blaze of Noon,"--a song which brought tears to the eyes of the blind
Handel himself when he listened to it long afterwards. The next chorus
("O first-created Beam") is of more than ordinary interest, as it treats
the same subject which Haydn afterwards used in "The Creation." It begins
in a soft and quiet manner, in ordinary time, develops into a strong
allegro on the words, "Let there be Light," and closes with a spirited
fugue on the words, "To Thy dark Servant Life by Light afford." A
dialogue follows between Manoah and Micah, leading up to an intricate
bravura aria for bass ("Thy glorious Deeds inspired my Tongue"), closing
with an exquisite slow movement in broad contrast to its first part.
Though comforted by his friends, Samson breaks out in furious
denunciation of his enemies in the powerfully dramatic aria, "Why does
the God of Israel sleep?" It is followed up in the same spirit by the
chorus, "Then shall they know,"--a fugue on two vigorous subjects, the
first given out by the altos, and the second by the tenors. Samson's
wrath subsides in the recitative, "My genial Spirits droop," and the
first act closes with the beautifully constructed chorus, "Then round
about the starry Throne," in which his friends console him with the joys
he will find in another life.

The second act, after a brief recitative, opens with an aria by Manoah
("Just are the Ways of God to Man"), in which he conjures Samson to
repose his trust in God. It is followed by the beautiful prayer of Micah
("Return, return, O God of Hosts"), emphasized by the chorus to which it
leads ("To Dust his Glory they would tread"), with which the prayer is
interwoven in obligato form. From this point, as Delilah appears, the
music is full of bright color, and loses it sombre tone. In a short
recitative, she excu