which Dalila, joining in the dance, throws upon him. It is in vain;
his eyes follow her through all the voluptuous postures and
movements of the dance.

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

And Dalila sings "Printemps qui commence"--a song often heard in
concert-rooms, but not so often as the air with which the love-duet
in the second act reaches its culmination, which is popularly held
also to mark the climax of the opera. That song is wondrously
insinuating in its charm; it pulsates with passion, so much so,
indeed, that it is difficult to conceive that its sentiments are
feigned, but this is lovelier in its fresh, suave, graceful, and
healthy beauty:-

[figure: a musical score excerpt, sung to the words "The Spring
with her dower of bird and flower, brings hope in her train."]

As Dalila leaves the scene her voice and eyes repeat their lure,
while Samson's looks and acts betray the trouble of his soul.

It is not until we see and hear Dalila in the second act that she
is revealed to us in her true character. Not till now does she
disclose the motives of her conduct toward her lover. Night is
falling in the valley of Sorek, the vale which lies between the
hill country which the Israelites entered from the East, and the
coast land which the Philistines, supposedly an island people,
invaded from the West. Dalila, gorgeously apparelled, is sitting on
a rock near the portico of her house. The strings of the orchestra
murmur and the chromatic figure which we shall hear again in her