ABSTRACT
As suggested in An Apology and Paradise Lost, the conception of a "virtuous wisdom" uniting word with "event" provides the model for a Miltonic action that rejoins the two plots of Samson Agonistes. Milton's protagonist gains his identity during the work, through careful listening, dramatic imitation, and finally in the scrupulous substitution of a proper for an improper choral position on his assisting the Dagonalia. Where his countrymen refuse to articulate what the logic of this situation requires, Samson discovers the ability to complete the system of scruple binding them, and thence to frame, and act upon, the theory of a "dispensing" agency in death itself. He thus frees himself from the Chorus' "thoughts" and "vain reasonings," and so reverses a process that began when he "thought it lawful" to marry Dalila. The Messenger's confused report is faithful to his experience, and points squarely at the way providence works in the pre-Christian era. The work refuses to distinguish among the separate terms for divine guidance in lines 1545–48. Milton gives virtually the same name ("motions") to what turned Samson toward the woman at Timna, to what gets Samson offstage, and to what brings the Messenger on.
