Literature abounds with kings, knights, heroes, and their their ethical code that includes loyalty to a wise ruler a Saxony king with his retinue, loyal thanes of brave soldiers and the assembly of wise elders who advised their king, the counsel or witan which advised their lord/king, and their kin or clan, and country. Each soldier, serf, cleric, or artisan occupied a place or rank, which compelled allegiance to its hierarchal superior on "The Great Chain of Being," or the divine order. According to Roman law the Emperor was the commander-in-chief, the supreme ruler, with his retinue or his cohort, a band of loyal soldiers. When these warriors aged, they advised their king and formed the "Commitia," (an assembly that enacted laws and was the legislature). After Christ's birth, Christian soldiers were exemplified Christ-like behavior.
In contrast to these Christian Knights that represented heavenly, harmonious and orderly universe, were the chaotic forces that acted as the barbaric, brutal, and beast-like hellish world, deception, and moral exemplars in opposition to Medieval values. Biblical allusions portray Deliah as a grifter, a "vashti" or a wench. Samson is the brute who commits murder, adultery, and losses his locks .The two are flat characters who do not change, ---They are not dynamic figures. In Pope's "Rape of the Lock" the author resorts to satire, replacing the grand epic with a mock epic, and the rape is the loss of a curl. The scenes are reduced to the theft of a lock, and the grandeur of the classic trifle---a brave war is pathetic.
