A Last Milton Blog

In Samson Agonistes Milton has Samson explain how Dalila (Delilah) cut his hair and deprived him of his strength in these lines:

At length to lay my head and hallow'd pledge
Of all my strength in the lascivious lap
Of a deceitful Concubine who shore me
Like a tame Weather, all my precious fleece,
Then turn'd me out ridiculous, despoil'd,
Shav'n, and disarm'd among my enemies.

Samson Agonistes (535-540)

A note explained what weather meant but I didn't need it. My father and his father always had sheep and I was familiar with specific "sheep" terms including wether. It means a castrated male sheep. Do you know what a hogget is? Answer on this page.

Just finished the Yale series of lectures on John Milton by Professor John Rogers. Easy listening as Rogers spends a lot of time relating each of the great works to Milton's own biography and describing what he calls Milton's "Unparalleled self-absorption".

The picture is of an Ox Mountain sheep. Whether its a wether or a hogget I didn't ask.

Now to write a wedding speech - Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained?