Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent.”
- Source
- Samson Agonistes
- Date
- 1671
- Local voice
- Dialogue speaker · Chorus of Danites
Meaning of “With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm…”
The final chorus imagines calm after catastrophe as something reached through consolation and the exhaustion or resolution of violent passion, not as denial that death and grief have occurred.
Where does it come from?
Samson Agonistes, closing Chorus of Danites, in The Poetical Works of John Milton, Project Gutenberg #1745. The Chorus speaks after Samson’s death; the line is dramatic collective speech and is therefore kept separate from Milton’s personal voice.
Why the local voice matters
The Chorus of Danites closes Samson Agonistes with these lines after Samson’s death and the messenger’s account of the catastrophe. The calm belongs to the drama’s collective closing voice, not to Milton as uncomplicated autobiography.
