Sweetest Downfall

If you haven't heard Regina Spektor's "Samson," now would be a good time to change that. It's one of my favorite songs of all time.

Now that you're in the right mood, one of the things that I am most infatuated with in pretty much any piece of literature is trying to understand why people do the things that they do. I'm realizing little by little that that his own problems (say, for example, in trying to justify Milton's Satan figure, not that anyone would do that...), but it's something that's helped me to empathize with a variety of people in all sorts of different circumstances. Anyway, as I read Samson Agonistes, I thought a lot about Samson as a tragic figure, and that got me thinking about his fatal flaw--why, in the end, he did what did.

Eve and Delilah

          What is with these ladies?
          Really though...shall we take a look at Delilah's twisted logic?        
          We shall:

The "Look, it was my fault for being weak..."

"It was a weakness in me, but incident to all our sex, curiosity, inquisitive, importune of secrets, then with like infirmity to publish them, both common female faults:" (777)

"But you probably should have expected that in the first place..."

"Nor shoulds't thou have trusted that to woman's frailty:" (783)

"I was just scared you would leave..."

"I saw thee mutable of fancy, feared lest one day thou wouldst leave me." (794)

"So your imprisonment is obviously ideal..."

"Here I should still enjoy thee day and night mine and love's prisoner," (807)

"Besides, I'm a hero! How cool is that?"

"How honorable, how glorious to entrap a common enemy, who had destroyed such numbers of our nation." (857)

"I mean, how could I say no?"

"What had I to oppose against such powerful arguments?" (862)

          Delilah has--ONE--the gall to visit Samson while he's a prisoner--TWO--claim that it was her inherent weakness and ladyness that couldn't help but hurt him, and--THREE--take it all back once she realizes Samson is still doesn't want to be with her. Who can really blame him? Wasn't this at least offense number three or four against him?