The anonymous text of this song tells the story of Saul immediately before the Battle of Gilboa. Saul fears he will be defeated, and he has a witch call up the spirit of Samuel to tell him his fate. Purcell wrote for this text a complete dramatic scena in an operatic style. Though only nine minutes long, a complete dramatic moment is depicted in an Italian arioso style filled with power and mystery.

The words that open the scena are "In Guilty Night", and the opening mood is dark and foreboding. The three voices, Soprano, Tenor, and Bass, enter one by one quietly in chromatic harmonies. that climb up from the netherworld. Over the words "in false disguise" are suspensions and dissonances as more and more tension is created. The main part of the opening is the setting for the words "Forsaken Saul". Saul has been forsaken by God and is, as those who are forsaken are, damned. On just those two words, Purcell creates three sections of awesome imitative material descriptive of Saul's complete forsakeness. They are set to a falling motive in imitative and chromatic harmonies that sighs downwards and then climbs up to a climax. On the final setting of the words, the soprano begins fortissimo, very high, alone crying dramatically "Forsaken Saul!", then begins the downward climb to the end of the section. All the voices join in imitatively as the theme winds its way to its close.

The central part of the piece is the dramatic dialogue, first between Saul and the witch, and then after Samuel is raised, between all three characters. Saul is a tenor, and sounds heroic in the role. Samuel is a bass, and with the heavier tessitura comes a more ominous and noble feeling. There is a great amount of word painting and expressive treatment of the text, to get out of the text all of the emotions therein. The music is made up of Italian recitative and arioso style writing. The lines are long, flexible, and eloquent.

When Saul first asks the witch to raise Samuel, she is terrified. "Call, call, call" he sings in almost a trumpet like opening. She has an extended reply in which we learn that Saul has killed all the other witches for such work; that he is cruel. "Dost thou not know what cruel Saul has done?" with an expressive chromatic ornament on cruel. By the third time she has song these words, we get the idea that she is in acute distress. But when she discovers that it is Saul to whom she is speaking, her terror is extreme. her "Alas!" is a true cry of anguish set to florid compelling lines of music. Saul tries to comfort her, but just then, the gods ascend from below on an ominous rising musical line.

It is Samuel that has risen from the dead, and he is full of anger and hate. In a descriptive solo Saul bewails his state, and Samuel responds. In a powerful last two lines of the dialogue, Samuel tells him his fate. To a rising line he repeats "Thou and thy son" again and again in crescendo. "Shall be with me beneath" winds back down on a descriptive melisma, and beneath is at the bottom of the vocal range of the bass. To Saul's Despairing "Ohs", the witch and Samuel sing "farewell", and the three syllables make up the rhythm of the triple time closing chromatic section. All is set on sighing, plangent harmonies that quietly end the scene much as it began.

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