7 - Samson to Delilah

Summary

Thus says my lord Samson to the bitch of Sorek:

May you be crushed beneath the wheels of retribution like the lord of Bezek and like Abimelech (Judg. 1.4–7; 9.50–57).

You cannot imagine my agony. My head aches all day long. I am kept awake every night by throbbing pain. Two aching holes are where my eyes once were. I feel so ugly. So dirty. My sockets bleed. My beard is matted with congealed blood and sweat. My world is a dark abyss.

Everyone has betrayed me to the Philistines. My wife told them the answer to my riddle. Her father gave her to another. The tribe of Judah tied me up and attempted to turn me in. The whore of Gaza told them where I was hiding. And you sold me for Philistine silver. You sold my eyes. You slag! You bitch! I have even been betrayed by Yahweh. I rot in this Gaza prison among the uncircumcised.

I spend all day on my knees. I kneel at this hand-mill like a woman. The boy throws grain on the lower stone. And I scrape the upper-stone on the grain. Backwards and forwards. I do the domestic work of a woman. Women only work at this for an hour or so. I am forced to do this task all day, every day. My knees bleed. My back aches. It's the same every day. Pain. Work. Darkness.

The boy is able to keep my words.