Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Delilah, Dec 12th, 2004; Dec 17th 2004).

As a further hint linking this female biblical figure to Kipling’s time and space, it may be remembered that the district of Sorek “was on the borderland between the possessions of the Israelites and those of their principal enemies and oppressors at this period, the Philistines?(New Advent The Catholic Encyclopedia, Delilah; Dec, 17th 2004), as Kipling’s India hosted at least the native and the Anglo-Indian community.

[Line 1] those days are dead and done.This is the first explicit chrono-topical hint intended to keep the story “at a distance? from Kipling’s contemporaneity. It will be followed by ‘Prehistoric Days’[Line 6] which further emphasizes the temporal detachment from the present Kipling is establishing (see the notes on “General Summary?for details on ‘prehistoric clay’).

[Line 6] Simla.See the notes on “Army-Headquarters?for details.

[Lines 9-10] many little secrets .../ were whispered to Delilah.These two lines echo the core of the biblical episode mentioned above. Delilah’s involvement in secret-sharing, though, has been widely amplified: in Judges she only pleads for the secret behind Samson’s strength, whereas in Kipling she is acquainted with a greater quantity of ‘little secrets’.

[Line 11] She patronized extensively a man.Again Kipling depicts a love-triangle in which the extramarital affair relies on the wife’s favours to another man, as in “Army Headquarters?.

[Line 11] Ulysses Gunne.After briefly mentioning ‘Ulysses Gunne’ in the heading lines opening the poem, Kipling properly introduces Delilah’s male counterpart now. Echoes of the famous biblical episode of Samson and Delilah are called to mind and create expectations about further enquiries on Delilah’s part to know other secrets.

[Line 13] He wrote for divers papers. An autobiographical hint at Kipling himself may be detected here. Ironically, the depreciatory judgement that is generally attributed to Delilah as a ‘loose woman’ seems here to be transposed to journalism as a shameful occupation.

[Lines 15-16] He praised her “queenly beauty? first [...] he hinted / At the “vastness of her intellect? with compliment unstinted. Again Kipling depicts the patronized lover as cunningly praising her lover’s qualities, as in “Army Headquarters?.

[Line 21] only seven people knew it. This number sounds to be deliberately recalling the biblical episode of Samson and Delilah: “And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withes that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.? (Judges 16, 7); “Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withes which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.?(Judges 16, 8); “And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.? (Judges 16,13); “And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head [...] and his strength went from him?(Judges 16, 19) ( Bartleby.com , The Holy Bible. King James Version 2000. Judges 16, Dec 17th 2004).

[Line 22] And Gunne rose up to seek the truth.This is the point in which Kipling decisively overturns the biblical episode attributing Delilah’s interest in secrets to Ulysses Gunne, the journalist pursuing the truth.

[Line 23] perhaps the wine was red. Kipling seems here to provide an excuse for the Aged Councillor’s disclosure of the Viceroy’s Secret to Delilah. Kipling builds a flashback to the following episode between Delilah and Ulysses: in this process Delilah temporarily recovers her biblical qualities and capacity in pleading for secrets (from Samson in that famous case). The reference to wine may be part of the romantic atmosphere that Kipling has established, but it also sounds as a deliberate reference to the fact that “Samson had been dedicated from the womb as a Nazarite, who was forbidden to touch wine or cut his hair. Delilah may be a "vine-woman" (compare the mythic Greek name Oenone), personifying the womanly temptations of the vine that would betray his Nazarite dedication.? (Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Delilah, Dec 12th 2004; Dec 17th 2004).

[Line 25] Perhaps Delilah’s eyes were bright – Delilah’s whispers sweet.Kipling seems to re-echo here John Milton’s description of the snake (Satan) tempting Eve in Paradise Lost (1667) with “Carbuncle his Eyes?(Book 8, line 500) where the etymology of carbuncle gives “Middle English, from Old French, from Latin carbunculus, small glowing ember, carbuncle.“(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Fourth Edition 2000, Carbuncle).

[Line 26] The Aged Member told her. This is the Aged Councillor’s final capitulation which Kipling uses to close the flashback and pave the way for the following Delilah/Ulysses ‘exchange’.

[Lines 27-30] Ulysses. The anaphora of the name of the male protagonist of the poem reinforces his centrality and creates a sort of hypnotic atmosphere, almost as if Kipling wanted to convey the trance-like spell Ulysses Gunne manages to put on Delilah to make her tell him the secret (in this respect, the structure of the first three lines of this stanza is also similar, ‘Ulysses went a- ..., and ...’). This strategy continues, although more loosely, in the following stanza, for instance, with the repetition of ‘summer’[Lines 31-33].

The repetition of ‘Ulysses’recurs four times perhaps also to recall the four different replies Samson gave Delilah, the first three being jokes, the last one the actual reason for his strength.

[Line 34] Ulysses pleaded softly – and.... that bad Delilah told.As in Line 25, the disclosure of the secret is accompanied by an aura of dense expectation and mystery, and by the depiction of a cunningly resolute tempter (now Ulysses) and an exhausted victim (now Delilah herself). This is the climax of the story; indeed hereafter lines will progress swiftly in both a rhythmic and a temporal sense.

[Lines 35-38] Next morn ... / Next week ... / Next month . The anaphora of “next? resolves the temporal progression of the poem, and is accompanied by an increasingly focused resonance of the effects originated by Delilah’s weakness. Hyperbolically the morning after this ‘all-important’piece of news reached the whole Empire, presumably by Ulysses’s report in the newspaper; a week after the guilty Aged Councillor was suffering from the effects of his partiality to Delilah; a month after Delilah herself confides the narrator that Ulysses behaved like a ‘beast’– it is noteworthy to underline that again this might resonate Milton’s Paradise Lost: ‘beast’is the depreciatory epithet Eve addresses the tempting serpent with: “Thee, Serpent, suttlest beast of all the field?(Book 8, line 560).

[Lines 39-40] We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done / Of Delilah Aberyswith and most mean Ulysses Gunne. These two final lines replicate, as if disclosing another secret, the heading of the poem; the only difference is in the adjective accompanying Ulysses Gunne, here ‘most mean’, there ‘depraved’.


[R.B.]

©Roberta Baldi 2004 All rights reserved


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the poem
"Delilah"

(notes edited by Roberta Baldi)

[January 24th 2004]

Publication

Published in the Civil and Military Gazette, October 11th, 1886. Collected in Departmental Ditties and Other Verses, 1888, E.V., 1900; I.V., 1919; D.V., 1940; Sussex Edition, Vol. 32, page 9; Burwash Edition, Vol. 25 (ORG entry: nr. 210, page 5134).
Notes on the text

The lines refer to the whole poem, heading lines included.

[Title] Delilah Standard Hebrew meaning "[One who] weakened or uprooted or impoverished" from the root dal meaning "weak or poor". Also Arabic Dalilah was the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and was his downfall, in the Hebrew Bible Book of Judges (Chapter 16).

Delilah was approached by the Philistines, the enemies of Israel, to discover the secret of Samson's strength. Three times she asked Samson for the secret of his strength and three times he gave her a false answer. On the fourth occasion he gave her the true reason (that he did not cut his hair in fulfilment of a vow to God) and Delilah betrayed him to his enemies. [...] Delilah has become the eponym of a "Delilah," a treacherous and cunning woman.? (