The anonymous satirical poem “Further Advice to a Painter” (early 1671), sometimes attributed to Andrew Marvell, opens with the spectral figure of Charles I weeping as he watches his “degenerate” son, King Charles II, neglect the “work of State” to romp with “his Player,” Nell Gwyn (Marvell 1: l. 310). The ghost of the former King appeared in this manuscript poem just a few months after the publication of John Milton's closet drama Samson Agonistes (1670/1), which gives voice to another disappointed father. When Manoa, Samson's “reverend Sire” (326), reproaches his son for the “shame” that has “befall'n thee and thy Fathers house,” he articulates an accusation of dynastic failure, a charge that Samson's defeat by an idolatrous ideology and seduction by a series of treacherous women is a betrayal not only of God the Father, but also of Samson's family record and of his people (446–47).^{1 1} All line references to Samson Agonistes are from The Complete Works of John Milton, Volume 2.
A nation's hope transmuted to disappointment is a theme elaborated on by Milton's Chorus, for whom Samson is “The glory late of Israel, now the grief” (179), as they confront the downfall of a leader once heralded as a hero and wonder whether the etiolated man before them can really be “That Heroic, that Renown'd, / Irresistible Samson?” (122, 125–26). Some of the first readers of Samson Agonistes, remembering the hopes that had accompanied the King's triumphant Restoration in 1660, may have asked a similar question of Charles, as his once celebrated public image had gradually tarnished (see “The King's Vows” in Marvell 1: 173–75). Like Milton's Samson, who is “sung and proverbed for a Fool / In every street,” and whose behavior has “brought scandal / To Israel” (203–04, 453–54), the King had become the subject of much gossip, with his sexual exploits remarked upon and wondered at in private and, increasingly, in public. Unsurprisingly, few points of likeness have been assumed to exist between Milton's verse and the largely anonymous, scandal-fixated, frequently obscene political satires that circulated in manuscript in the decades after the Restoration, but I wish to suggest that Samson Agonistes can be illuminated by this highly topical material.

In this article I propose a reading of Milton's last work that tethers the text firstly to its moment of publication in late 1670 and then to the publication of a second, posthumous, edition in 1680 at the height of the Exclusion Crisis, both difficult moments in Charles's reign. I examine the repeated deployment of the Samson and Delilah story to censure the King, which coincides with the publication of the drama's first and second editions. Central to my argument is the scandalous speech given by Lord Lucas in the House of Lords (and manuscript reports of it) in early 1671, and the numerous manuscript satires composed in 1679–80 that explicitly align Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth with Delilah. I assert that the publication of Samson may have influenced perceptions of Charles's sex-life, resulting in subsequent invocations of the story by Lucas in 1671 and by later anonymous satirists; I also suggest that, in turn, subsequent readers of Samson would have been ble to map the swirling commentary around Charles's mistresses back onto Milton's drama. While critical interpretations informed by Milton's own politics often stamp Samson Agonistes with a radical, even revolutionary, purpose, this was not necessarily the framework through which many of its early readers would have experienced the drama. Like Dryden's allegorical Absalom and Achitophel (1681), which can be read as “both a defense and an indictment of Charles II” (Battigelli 263), Samson Agonistes allowed its original readers the opportunity (should they be so inclined) to understand the King as a flawed hero, even offering some possibility of an eventual recovery. I do not claim it offered any reader a comprehensive portrait of Charles II (or any other real-life figure or event); rather, I am interested in the surprising congruence between the Samson and Dalila episode of Milton's drama and wider satirical and political contemporary commentaries. These archetypal figures become charged in 1670–71, and again in 1679–80, with a range of sexual and xenophobic meanings that invite a reconsideration of early readers' encounters with Samson Agonistes. The strange topicality of Samson may have occurred to those prepared to criticize the King and, I contend, was plausibly noted (even encouraged) by Milton's own publisher, John Starkey. In a climate in which analogies between Charles and the biblical Samson were being made and circulated, Milton's tragic protagonist can be seen to offer a model through which Charles's problematic sexual behavior might be challenged, critiqued, or even vindicated. I argue that independently of its author's intentions, the closet drama—a fable of a leader's sexual weakness being taken advantage of by a foreign enemy and ultimately proving disastrous for himself and his nation—formed a timely contribution to a wider discourse about the monarch's abjuration of his responsibilities.

Little scholarly attention has been paid to Samson's relation to Charles II. Helmer J. Helmers has examined Milton's drama alongside the 1660 work Samson, or Holy Revenge by the Dutch dramatist Joost van den Vondel, who was inspired by the English Restoration to construct a royalist discourse from the biblical story (233–58). Helmers argues that Vondel's Samson can be read as an inconsistent depiction of Charles II's triumph over Puritanism, a reading that registers allusions to contemporary antitheatricality debates and to the death of Charles I. Nicholas Jose has highlighted the imagery of regality that surrounds Samson, arguing that Milton was “subverting, or at least stripping away, the contemporary Stuart connotations” of such motifs in a bid to undermine the principles of the Restoration (161–62); for Jose, such symbolism becomes attached instead to Milton's own cause, one far removed from celebrations of the monarch's return. My reading places Charles II at the center of the drama in order to draw attention to how easily attentive readers might have assimilated Milton's Samson, consoled that “wisest Men / Have err'd, and by bad Women been deceiv'd,” into a Restoration England in which “Women have grossly snar'd the wisest prince,” according to the anonymous “Fifth Advice to a Painter” (Lord l. 135). Such readers, many perhaps sympathetic to the institution of monarchy, were not necessarily the fit audience that Milton would have envisaged for his drama. An examination of the cultural and political moment at the time of publication, however, reveals how contemporary anxieties and tensions collided with Milton's final work.

Uncertainty surrounding the composition dates of Samson Agonistes and the wider mutability of the “extraordinarily supple” biblical Samson episode have also left Milton's tragedy open to appropriation for varying political purposes (Wittreich 215). Milton's Philistines have historically acted as autofit enemies, able to represent infidel adherents to the opposing religious or political doctrine of the reader. In the seventeenth century, the Samson of the Book of Judges was an equivocal figure variously interpreted by writers as hero or as an exemplum of ungodly behavior (17–23). Positive accounts of Samson are notable for their reluctance to confront his lustful nature, choosing instead to focus on his famed strength (Shawcross 51), and it has been argued that Milton himself attempted to “clean Samson up” by obscuring his morally questionable actions in order to present an unambiguously devout figure (Gregory 181). Critics have agreed upon little about Milton's Samson, who has invited a wealth of attempts to identify real figures behind the character. Some believe that the drama offers a comment on the English Revolution and a rejection of post-1660 pageantry and spectacle (Radzinowicz 113; Knoppers, Historicizing 42–66). Samson has been branded a “militant saint,” recalling contemporary political revolutionaries (Loewenstein 270; also Hill 228–48); he has been identified as a figuration of Charles I, with the drama a warning against a possible Restoration (Daniel 123-48); and his blindness and political isolation have been read as an autobiographical portrait of Milton himself (Rowse 255; Fallon 250–64; Martin 62–63). There has been a tendency to understand Samson in relation to Milton's radical politics, such as Blair Worden's exploration of the poet's status as a frustrated republican, focusing on Milton's sense of dislocation after the failure of the Commonwealth and subsequent Restoration (“Milton” 111–36; Literature 358–83). Doubtless, Samson contains echoes of its author's disillusionment, but such a reading is ultimately limiting. When read against wider contemporary discourses within the Houses of Parliament, circulated manuscript satires, and private writings, Samson Agonistes looks at home: England had found itself led by a King in thrall to a succession of mistresses (many with Catholic links), who were often figured as devious threats to the nation's stability. While Milton's closet drama is often reckoned to be backward-looking, it was, in fact, strikingly timely.

My reading is rooted not in Milton's Republican nostalgia or radical disillusionment but in the immediate political concerns of 1670–71. Laura Lunger Knoppers has done much to situate Samson in its 1670 context, emphasizing the atmosphere of political and religious unrest in England in the year of publication (“‘Englands Case’” 571–88; Milton xx–xxxii). Little scholarly attention has been paid, however, to testing Kevin Sharpe's assertion that “in some ways, all Restoration texts presented and represented the monarchy and Charles II” against Samson Agonistes (Rebranding 83). While Milton's politics preclude any intentional alliance between the biblical hero Samson and the King whose restoration he bitterly regretted, I explore the ways in which such interpretations were nonetheless available to readers looking to find a consoling vision of their King as a naïve victim of a succession of scheming, provocative, and Catholic Delilahs, rather than the irresponsible, dissolute alternative. My focus here is on Samson's sexuality: typically, when Restoration writers and politicians turned to the biblical story, it was Samson's misguided enthrallment to the foreign Delilah that interested them. In 1670, Charles's sexual profligacy was set against a backdrop of growing concern about French expansionism, the court's Francophile sympathies, and Catholic infiltration into English politics and culture, all of which were discussed and debated publicly and privately. As Milton neared the end of his life, his work, as it had not been for at least a decade, was in tune—however circumstantially—with the zeitgeist.

匿名讽刺诗“对画家的进一步建议”（1671 年初），有时归因于安德鲁·马维尔，以查理一世的幽灵形象开始哭泣，因为他看着他“堕落”的儿子查理二世国王忽视了“国家的工作” ”与“他的球员”内尔·格温（Nell Gwyn）嬉戏（Marvell 1: l. 310）。前国王的鬼魂出现在这首手稿诗中，就在约翰·弥尔顿的壁橱戏剧《参孙·阿贡尼斯特》出版几个月后（1670/1），这让另一位失望的父亲发声。当参孙的“可敬的陛下”（326）马诺阿指责他的儿子“耻辱”“降临在你和你的父家”时，他明确指责了王朝失败，指责参孙被拜偶像的意识形态打败了一系列背信弃义的女人的诱惑不仅是对父神的背叛，也是对参孙的家庭记录和他的子民的背叛（446-47）。^{1 1} 所有对参孙阿贡尼斯特的行引用均来自约翰·弥尔顿全集，第 2 卷。
一个国家的希望变成了失望，这是弥尔顿合唱团所阐述的一个主题，参孙对他来说是“以色列已故的荣耀，现在是悲痛”（179），因为他们面对一位曾经被誉为英雄的领导人的垮台，并想知道是否在他们面前白发苍苍的人真的可以是“那个英雄，那个有名望的，/不可抗拒的参孙？” (122, 125–26)。Samson Agonistes的一些第一批读者，记得伴随着国王在 1660 年的胜利复辟所带来的希望，他可能向查尔斯提出了类似的问题，因为他曾经著名的公众形象逐渐受到损害（参见 Marvell 1：173-75 中的“国王的誓言”）。就像弥尔顿的参孙一样，他“被歌颂为傻瓜/在每条街上”，他的行为“给以色列带来了丑闻”（203-04, 453-54），国王也成为了很多八卦的话题，他的性剥削在私下被评论和质疑，而且越来越多地在公共场合。不出所料，人们认为弥尔顿的诗篇与维新后几十年在手稿中流传的很大程度上匿名的、丑闻固定的、经常淫秽的政治讽刺作品之间存在一些相似之处，但我想建议萨姆森·阿贡尼斯特可以被这种高度热门的材料照亮。

在这篇文章中，我建议阅读弥尔顿的最后一部作品，该作品首先将文本与 1670 年末出版的那一刻联系起来，然后在 1680 年排华危机最严重的时候出版第二个死后版本，这两个困难时刻都在查尔斯的统治。我研究了参孙和大利拉的故事反复部署以谴责国王，这与该剧的第一版和第二版的出版相吻合。我的论点的核心是 1671 年初卢卡斯勋爵在上议院发表的可耻演讲​​（及其手稿报告），以及 1679-80 年撰写的大量手稿讽刺作品，明确将朴茨茅斯公爵夫人路易丝·德·凯鲁瓦勒与大利拉联系在一起. 我断言参孙的出版可能影响了对查尔斯性生活的看法，导致卢卡斯在 1671 年和后来的匿名讽刺作家引用了这个故事；我还建议，反过来，参孙的后续读者也能够将围绕查尔斯情妇的漩涡评论映射回弥尔顿的戏剧。虽然根据弥尔顿自己的政治观点进行的批判性解释常常给参孙阿贡尼斯特打上激进甚至革命性的目的，但这并不一定是许多早期读者体验这部戏剧的框架。就像德莱顿的寓言《押沙龙和阿奇托菲尔》（1681），可以被解读为“对查理二世的辩护和起诉”（Battigelli 263），Samson Agonistes让最初的读者有机会（如果他们愿意的话）将国王理解为一个有缺陷的英雄，甚至提供了最终恢复的一些可能性。我并不声称它为任何读者提供了查理二世（或任何其他现实生活中的人物或事件）的全面画像；相反，我感兴趣的是弥尔顿戏剧中参孙和达利拉的插曲与更广泛的讽刺和政治当代评论之间的惊人一致性。这些原型人物在 1670-71 年和 1679-80 年再次受到指控，具有一系列性和仇外意义，这些意义促使人们重新考虑早期读者与参孙阿贡尼斯特的遭遇。参孙的奇怪话题那些准备批评国王的人可能已经想到了，我认为，弥尔顿自己的出版商约翰·斯塔基似乎也注意到了（甚至鼓励了）。在查尔斯和圣经中的参孙之间的类比被制造和传播的气氛中，可以看到弥尔顿的悲剧主人公提供了一个模型，通过这个模型，查尔斯的有问题的性行为可能会受到挑战、批评甚至是平反。我认为，独立于作者的意图，秘密戏剧——一个领导人的性弱点被外国敌人利用并最终证明对他自己和他的国家造成灾难的寓言——及时地促成了关于君主的弃权的更广泛的讨论他的职责。

很少有人关注参孙与查理二世的关系。Helmer J. Helmers 研究了弥尔顿的戏剧以及 1660 年的作品《参孙》或《神圣复仇》荷兰剧作家 Joost van den Vondel 受到英国复辟时期的启发，从圣经故事 (233-58) 中构建了保皇派话语。赫尔默斯认为，冯德尔的参孙可以被解读为对查理二世战胜清教主义的不一致描述，这种解读暗示了当代反戏剧性辩论和查理一世的死亡。尼古拉斯·何塞强调了围绕参孙的王权形象，认为弥尔顿“颠覆或至少剥离了当代斯图亚特的内涵”，以破坏复兴的原则（161-62）；对于何塞来说，这种象征意义反而与弥尔顿自己的事业息息相关，与庆祝君主回归的庆祝活动相去甚远。我的阅读将查理二世置于戏剧的中心，以引起人们注意细心的读者可能很容易同化弥尔顿的参孙，安慰说“最聪明的人/犯过错，被坏女人欺骗”根据匿名的“给画家的第五条建议”（Lord l. 135），在“女性严重束缚了最聪明的王子”的复兴英格兰。这样的读者，许多人可能同情君主制，不一定是弥尔顿为他的戏剧设想的合适观众。然而，对出版时的文化和政治时刻的考察揭示了当代的焦虑和紧张是如何与弥尔顿的最终作品发生冲突的。根据匿名的“给画家的第五条建议”，安慰说“最聪明的男人/犯过错，并且被坏女人欺骗”，进入了一个“女人严重诱捕最聪明的王子”的复兴英格兰（主 l. 135）。这样的读者，许多人可能同情君主制，不一定是弥尔顿为他的戏剧设想的合适观众。然而，对出版时的文化和政治时刻的考察揭示了当代的焦虑和紧张是如何与弥尔顿的最终作品发生冲突的。根据匿名的“给画家的第五条建议”，安慰说“最聪明的男人/犯过错，并且被坏女人欺骗”，进入了一个“女人严重诱捕最聪明的王子”的复兴英格兰（主 l. 135）。这样的读者，许多人可能同情君主制，不一定是弥尔顿为他的戏剧设想的合适观众。然而，对出版时的文化和政治时刻的考察揭示了当代的焦虑和紧张是如何与弥尔顿的最终作品发生冲突的。不一定是弥尔顿为他的戏剧设想的合适观众。然而，对出版时的文化和政治时刻的考察揭示了当代的焦虑和紧张是如何与弥尔顿的最终作品发生冲突的。不一定是弥尔顿为他的戏剧设想的合适观众。然而，对出版时的文化和政治时刻的考察揭示了当代的焦虑和紧张是如何与弥尔顿的最终作品发生冲突的。

Samson Agonistes组成日期的不确定性以及“非常柔顺”的圣经参孙事件的更广泛的可变性也使得弥尔顿的悲剧可以被用于不同的政治目的（Wittreich 215）。弥尔顿笔下的非利士人在历史上一直充当着自私自利的敌人，能够代表读者反对的宗教或政治教义的异教徒信徒。在 17 世纪，士师记参孙是一个模棱两可的人物，被作家们解释为英雄或不敬虔行为的典范（17-23）。对参孙的正面描述以不愿面对他好色的本性而著称，而是选择专注于他著名的力量（Shawcross 51），有人争辩说，弥尔顿本人试图通过掩盖他在道德上可疑的行为来“清理参孙”，以呈现一个明确虔诚的人物（Gregory 181）。评论家对弥尔顿笔下的参孙几乎没有达成一致意见，他邀请了大量尝试来确定角色背后的真实人物。一些人认为这部戏剧评论了英国革命并拒绝了 1660 年后的盛大和奇观（Radzinowicz 113；Knoppers，历史化 42-66）。参孙被称为“好战的圣人”，回顾了当代政治革命者（Loewenstein 270；也是 Hill 228-48）；他已被确定为查理一世的形象，该剧警告可能发生的复辟（丹尼尔 123-48）；他的失明和政治孤立被解读为弥尔顿本人的自传肖像（Rowse 255；Fallon 250-64；Martin 62-63）。有一种趋势来理解参孙与弥尔顿的激进政治有关，例如布莱尔·沃登（Blair Worden）对诗人作为一个沮丧的共和党人的地位的探索，着重于弥尔顿在英联邦失败和随后的复辟后的错位感（“弥尔顿”111- 36；文献358-83)。毫无疑问，参孙包含其作者幻灭的回声，但这样的阅读最终是有限的。当阅读议会大厦内更广泛的当代话语、流传的讽刺手稿和私人著作时，萨姆森·阿贡尼斯特斯（Samson Agonistes ）着眼于国内：英格兰发现自己被国王领导着，受制于一系列情妇（许多与天主教有联系），这些情妇是通常被认为是对国家稳定的狡猾威胁。虽然人们常常认为弥尔顿的秘密戏剧是回顾性的，但事实上，它非常及时。

我的阅读不是植根于弥尔顿对共和党的怀旧或彻底的幻灭，而是植根于 1670-71 年的直接政治关切。Laura Lunger Knoppers 为将参孙置于其 1670 年的背景中做了很多工作，强调了出版当年英格兰的政治和宗教动荡气氛（“'Englands Case'”571-88；Milton xx-xxxii）。然而，学术界很少关注凯文·夏普的断言，即“在某些方面，所有的复辟文本都呈现并代表了君主制和查理二世”反对参孙阿贡尼斯特斯（更名83)。虽然弥尔顿的政治立场排除了圣经英雄参孙和国王之间的任何有意结盟，但他对国王的复辟感到遗憾诡计多端的、挑衅的和天主教的大利拉，而不是不负责任、放荡的选择。我在这里的重点是参孙的性欲：通常，当复兴作家和政治家转向圣经故事时，他们感兴趣的是参孙对外国大利拉的错误迷恋。1670 年，查尔斯的性放荡是在对法国扩张主义、宫廷亲法派同情以及天主教渗透到英国政治和文化的日益关注的背景下进行的，所有这些都在公开和私下进行了讨论和辩论。当弥尔顿接近生命的尽头时，他的作品，至少有十年之久，都与时代精神保持一致——无论在何种情况下。