{"id":199,"date":"2015-06-24T18:19:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T18:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/americanlit1x22x1\/?post_type=chapter&p=199"},"modified":"2015-06-24T18:24:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T18:24:05","slug":"book-ix","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/rangercollege-britlit1-curry\/chapter\/book-ix\/","title":{"raw":"Book IX","rendered":"Book IX"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_201\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"232\"]\"Watercolor<\/a> William Blake: The Temptation and Fall of Eve - illustration to Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1808, pen and watercolour on paper)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nNo more of talk where God or Angel guest\r\nWith Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,\r\nTo sit indulgent, and with him partake\r\nRural repast; permitting him the while\r\nVenial discourse unblam'd. I now must change\r\nThose notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach\r\nDisloyal on the part of Man, revolt,\r\nAnd disobedience: on the part of Heaven\r\nNow alienated, distance and distaste,\r\nAnger and just rebuke, and judgement given,\r\nThat brought into this world a world of woe,\r\nSin and her shadow Death, and Misery\r\nDeath's harbinger: Sad task! yet argument\r\nNot less but more heroick than the wrath\r\nOf stern Achilles on his foe pursued\r\nThrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage\r\nOf Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;\r\nOr Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long\r\nPerplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:\r\nIf answerable style I can obtain\r\nOf my celestial patroness, who deigns\r\nHer nightly visitation unimplor'd,\r\nAnd dictates to me slumbering; or inspires\r\nEasy my unpremeditated verse:\r\nSince first this subject for heroick song\r\nPleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;\r\nNot sedulous by nature to indite\r\nWars, hitherto the only argument\r\nHeroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect\r\nWith long and tedious havock fabled knights\r\nIn battles feign'd; the better fortitude\r\nOf patience and heroick martyrdom\r\nUnsung; or to describe races and games,\r\nOr tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,\r\nImpresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,\r\nBases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights\r\nAt joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast\r\nServ'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;\r\nThe skill of artifice or office mean,\r\nNot that which justly gives heroick name\r\nTo person, or to poem. Me, of these\r\nNor skill'd nor studious, higher argument\r\nRemains; sufficient of itself to raise\r\nThat name, unless an age too late, or cold\r\nClimate, or years, damp my intended wing\r\nDepress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,\r\nNot hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.\r\nThe sun was sunk, and after him the star\r\nOf Hesperus, whose office is to bring\r\nTwilight upon the earth, short arbiter\r\n'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end\r\nNight's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round:\r\nWhen satan, who late fled before the threats\r\nOf Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd\r\nIn meditated fraud and malice, bent\r\nOn Man's destruction, maugre what might hap\r\nOf heavier on himself, fearless returned\r\nBy night he fled, and at midnight returned\r\nFrom compassing the earth; cautious of day,\r\nSince Uriel, regent of the sun, descried\r\nHis entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim\r\nThat kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,\r\nThe space of seven continued nights he rode\r\nWith darkness; thrice the equinoctial line\r\nHe circled; four times crossed the car of night\r\nFrom pole to pole, traversing each colure;\r\nOn the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse\r\nFrom entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth\r\nFound unsuspected way. There was a place,\r\nNow not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,\r\nWhere Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,\r\nInto a gulf shot under ground, till part\r\nRose up a fountain by the tree of life:\r\nIn with the river sunk, and with it rose\r\nSatan, involved in rising mist; then sought\r\nWhere to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,\r\nFrom Eden over Pontus and the pool\r\nMaeotis, up beyond the river Ob;\r\nDownward as far antarctick; and in length,\r\nWest from Orontes to the ocean barred\r\nAt Darien; thence to the land where flows\r\nGanges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed\r\nWith narrow search; and with inspection deep\r\nConsidered every creature, which of all\r\nMost opportune might serve his wiles; and found\r\nThe Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.\r\nHim after long debate, irresolute\r\nOf thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose\r\nFit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom\r\nTo enter, and his dark suggestions hide\r\nFrom sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake\r\nWhatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,\r\nAs from his wit and native subtlety\r\nProceeding; which, in other beasts observed,\r\nDoubt might beget of diabolick power\r\nActive within, beyond the sense of brute.\r\nThus he resolved, but first from inward grief\r\nHis bursting passion into plaints thus poured.\r\nMore justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built\r\nWith second thoughts, reforming what was old!\r\nO Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred\r\nFor what God, after better, worse would build?\r\nTerrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens\r\nThat shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,\r\nLight above light, for thee alone, as seems,\r\nIn thee concentring all their precious beams\r\nOf sacred influence! As God in Heaven\r\nIs center, yet extends to all; so thou,\r\nCentring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,\r\nNot in themselves, all their known virtue appears\r\nProductive in herb, plant, and nobler birth\r\nOf creatures animate with gradual life\r\nOf growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.\r\nWith what delight could I have walked thee round,\r\nIf I could joy in aught, sweet interchange\r\nOf hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,\r\nNow land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,\r\nRocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these\r\nFind place or refuge; and the more I see\r\nPleasures about me, so much more I feel\r\nTorment within me, as from the hateful siege\r\nOf contraries: all good to me becomes\r\nBane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.\r\nBut neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven\r\nTo dwell, unless by mastering Heaven's Supreme;\r\nNor hope to be myself less miserable\r\nBy what I seek, but others to make such\r\nAs I, though thereby worse to me redound:\r\nFor only in destroying I find ease\r\nTo my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,\r\nOr won to what may work his utter loss,\r\nFor whom all this was made, all this will soon\r\nFollow, as to him linked in weal or woe;\r\nIn woe then; that destruction wide may range:\r\nTo me shall be the glory sole among\r\nThe infernal Powers, in one day to have marred\r\nWhat he, Almighty styled, six nights and days\r\nContinued making; and who knows how long\r\nBefore had been contriving? though perhaps\r\nNot longer than since I, in one night, freed\r\nFrom servitude inglorious well nigh half\r\nThe angelick name, and thinner left the throng\r\nOf his adorers: He, to be avenged,\r\nAnd to repair his numbers thus impaired,\r\nWhether such virtue spent of old now failed\r\nMore Angels to create, if they at least\r\nAre his created, or, to spite us more,\r\nDetermined to advance into our room\r\nA creature formed of earth, and him endow,\r\nExalted from so base original,\r\nWith heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,\r\nHe effected; Man he made, and for him built\r\nMagnificent this world, and earth his seat,\r\nHim lord pronounced; and, O indignity!\r\nSubjected to his service angel-wings,\r\nAnd flaming ministers to watch and tend\r\nTheir earthly charge: Of these the vigilance\r\nI dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist\r\nOf midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry\r\nIn every bush and brake, where hap may find\r\nThe serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds\r\nTo hide me, and the dark intent I bring.\r\nO foul descent! that I, who erst contended\r\nWith Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained\r\nInto a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime,\r\nThis essence to incarnate and imbrute,\r\nThat to the highth of Deity aspired!\r\nBut what will not ambition and revenge\r\nDescend to? Who aspires, must down as low\r\nAs high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,\r\nTo basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,\r\nBitter ere long, back on itself recoils:\r\nLet it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,\r\nSince higher I fall short, on him who next\r\nProvokes my envy, this new favourite\r\nOf Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,\r\nWhom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised\r\nFrom dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.\r\nSo saying, through each thicket dank or dry,\r\nLike a black mist low-creeping, he held on\r\nHis midnight-search, where soonest he might find\r\nThe serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found\r\nIn labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,\r\nHis head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:\r\nNot yet in horrid shade or dismal den,\r\nNor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,\r\nFearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth\r\nThe Devil entered; and his brutal sense,\r\nIn heart or head, possessing, soon inspired\r\nWith act intelligential; but his sleep\r\nDisturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.\r\nNow, when as sacred light began to dawn\r\nIn Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed\r\nTheir morning incense, when all things, that breathe,\r\nFrom the Earth's great altar send up silent praise\r\nTo the Creator, and his nostrils fill\r\nWith grateful smell, forth came the human pair,\r\nAnd joined their vocal worship to the quire\r\nOf creatures wanting voice; that done, partake\r\nThe season prime for sweetest scents and airs:\r\nThen commune, how that day they best may ply\r\nTheir growing work: for much their work out-grew\r\nThe hands' dispatch of two gardening so wide,\r\nAnd Eve first to her husband thus began.\r\nAdam, well may we labour still to dress\r\nThis garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,\r\nOur pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands\r\nAid us, the work under our labour grows,\r\nLuxurious by restraint; what we by day\r\nLop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,\r\nOne night or two with wanton growth derides\r\nTending to wild. Thou therefore now advise,\r\nOr bear what to my mind first thoughts present:\r\nLet us divide our labours; thou, where choice\r\nLeads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind\r\nThe woodbine round this arbour, or direct\r\nThe clasping ivy where to climb; while I,\r\nIn yonder spring of roses intermixed\r\nWith myrtle, find what to redress till noon:\r\nFor, while so near each other thus all day\r\nOur task we choose, what wonder if so near\r\nLooks intervene and smiles, or object new\r\nCasual discourse draw on; which intermits\r\nOur day's work, brought to little, though begun\r\nEarly, and the hour of supper comes unearned?\r\nTo whom mild answer Adam thus returned.\r\nSole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond\r\nCompare above all living creatures dear!\r\nWell hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,\r\nHow we might best fulfil the work which here\r\nGod hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass\r\nUnpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found\r\nIn woman, than to study houshold good,\r\nAnd good works in her husband to promote.\r\nYet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed\r\nLabour, as to debar us when we need\r\nRefreshment, whether food, or talk between,\r\nFood of the mind, or this sweet intercourse\r\nOf looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,\r\nTo brute denied, and are of love the food;\r\nLove, not the lowest end of human life.\r\nFor not to irksome toil, but to delight,\r\nHe made us, and delight to reason joined.\r\nThese paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands\r\nWill keep from wilderness with ease, as wide\r\nAs we need walk, till younger hands ere long\r\nAssist us; But, if much converse perhaps\r\nThee satiate, to short absence I could yield:\r\nFor solitude sometimes is best society,\r\nAnd short retirement urges sweet return.\r\nBut other doubt possesses me, lest harm\r\nBefall thee severed from me; for thou knowest\r\nWhat hath been warned us, what malicious foe\r\nEnvying our happiness, and of his own\r\nDespairing, seeks to work us woe and shame\r\nBy sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand\r\nWatches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find\r\nHis wish and best advantage, us asunder;\r\nHopeless to circumvent us joined, where each\r\nTo other speedy aid might lend at need:\r\nWhether his first design be to withdraw\r\nOur fealty from God, or to disturb\r\nConjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss\r\nEnjoyed by us excites his envy more;\r\nOr this, or worse, leave not the faithful side\r\nThat gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.\r\nThe wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,\r\nSafest and seemliest by her husband stays,\r\nWho guards her, or with her the worst endures.\r\nTo whom the virgin majesty of Eve,\r\nAs one who loves, and some unkindness meets,\r\nWith sweet austere composure thus replied.\r\nOffspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth's Lord!\r\nThat such an enemy we have, who seeks\r\nOur ruin, both by thee informed I learn,\r\nAnd from the parting Angel over-heard,\r\nAs in a shady nook I stood behind,\r\nJust then returned at shut of evening flowers.\r\nBut, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt\r\nTo God or thee, because we have a foe\r\nMay tempt it, I expected not to hear.\r\nHis violence thou fearest not, being such\r\nAs we, not capable of death or pain,\r\nCan either not receive, or can repel.\r\nHis fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers\r\nThy equal fear, that my firm faith and love\r\nCan by his fraud be shaken or seduced;\r\nThoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,\r\nAdam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?\r\nTo whom with healing words Adam replied.\r\nDaughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!\r\nFor such thou art; from sin and blame entire:\r\nNot diffident of thee do I dissuade\r\nThy absence from my sight, but to avoid\r\nThe attempt itself, intended by our foe.\r\nFor he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses\r\nThe tempted with dishonour foul; supposed\r\nNot incorruptible of faith, not proof\r\nAgainst temptation: Thou thyself with scorn\r\nAnd anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,\r\nThough ineffectual found: misdeem not then,\r\nIf such affront I labour to avert\r\nFrom thee alone, which on us both at once\r\nThe enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;\r\nOr daring, first on me the assault shall light.\r\nNor thou his malice and false guile contemn;\r\nSubtle he needs must be, who could seduce\r\nAngels; nor think superfluous other's aid.\r\nI, from the influence of thy looks, receive\r\nAccess in every virtue; in thy sight\r\nMore wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were\r\nOf outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,\r\nShame to be overcome or over-reached,\r\nWould utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.\r\nWhy shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel\r\nWhen I am present, and thy trial choose\r\nWith me, best witness of thy virtue tried?\r\nSo spake domestick Adam in his care\r\nAnd matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought\r\nLess attributed to her faith sincere,\r\nThus her reply with accent sweet renewed.\r\nIf this be our condition, thus to dwell\r\nIn narrow circuit straitened by a foe,\r\nSubtle or violent, we not endued\r\nSingle with like defence, wherever met;\r\nHow are we happy, still in fear of harm?\r\nBut harm precedes not sin: only our foe,\r\nTempting, affronts us with his foul esteem\r\nOf our integrity: his foul esteem\r\nSticks no dishonour on our front, but turns\r\nFoul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared\r\nBy us? who rather double honour gain\r\nFrom his surmise proved false; find peace within,\r\nFavour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.\r\nAnd what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed\r\nAlone, without exteriour help sustained?\r\nLet us not then suspect our happy state\r\nLeft so imperfect by the Maker wise,\r\nAs not secure to single or combined.\r\nFrail is our happiness, if this be so,\r\nAnd Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.\r\nTo whom thus Adam fervently replied.\r\nO Woman, best are all things as the will\r\nOf God ordained them: His creating hand\r\nNothing imperfect or deficient left\r\nOf all that he created, much less Man,\r\nOr aught that might his happy state secure,\r\nSecure from outward force; within himself\r\nThe danger lies, yet lies within his power:\r\nAgainst his will he can receive no harm.\r\nBut God left free the will; for what obeys\r\nReason, is free; and Reason he made right,\r\nBut bid her well be ware, and still erect;\r\nLest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,\r\nShe dictate false; and mis-inform the will\r\nTo do what God expressly hath forbid.\r\nNot then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,\r\nThat I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.\r\nFirm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;\r\nSince Reason not impossibly may meet\r\nSome specious object by the foe suborned,\r\nAnd fall into deception unaware,\r\nNot keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.\r\nSeek not temptation then, which to avoid\r\nWere better, and most likely if from me\r\nThou sever not: Trial will come unsought.\r\nWouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve\r\nFirst thy obedience; the other who can know,\r\nNot seeing thee attempted, who attest?\r\nBut, if thou think, trial unsought may find\r\nUs both securer than thus warned thou seemest,\r\nGo; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;\r\nGo in thy native innocence, rely\r\nOn what thou hast of virtue; summon all!\r\nFor God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.\r\nSo spake the patriarch of mankind; but Eve\r\nPersisted; yet submiss, though last, replied.\r\nWith thy permission then, and thus forewarned\r\nChiefly by what thy own last reasoning words\r\nTouched only; that our trial, when least sought,\r\nMay find us both perhaps far less prepared,\r\nThe willinger I go, nor much expect\r\nA foe so proud will first the weaker seek;\r\nSo bent, the more shall shame him his repulse.\r\nThus saying, from her husband's hand her hand\r\nSoft she withdrew; and, like a Wood-Nymph light,\r\nOread or Dryad, or of Delia's train,\r\nBetook her to the groves; but Delia's self\r\nIn gait surpassed, and Goddess-like deport,\r\nThough not as she with bow and quiver armed,\r\nBut with such gardening tools as Art yet rude,\r\nGuiltless of fire, had formed, or Angels brought.\r\nTo Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned,\r\nLikest she seemed, Pomona when she fled\r\nVertumnus, or to Ceres in her prime,\r\nYet virgin of Proserpina from Jove.\r\nHer long with ardent look his eye pursued\r\nDelighted, but desiring more her stay.\r\nOft he to her his charge of quick return\r\nRepeated; she to him as oft engaged\r\nTo be returned by noon amid the bower,\r\nAnd all things in best order to invite\r\nNoontide repast, or afternoon's repose.\r\nO much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve,\r\nOf thy presumed return! event perverse!\r\nThou never from that hour in Paradise\r\nFoundst either sweet repast, or sound repose;\r\nSuch ambush, hid among sweet flowers and shades,\r\nWaited with hellish rancour imminent\r\nTo intercept thy way, or send thee back\r\nDespoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss!\r\nFor now, and since first break of dawn, the Fiend,\r\nMere serpent in appearance, forth was come;\r\nAnd on his quest, where likeliest he might find\r\nThe only two of mankind, but in them\r\nThe whole included race, his purposed prey.\r\nIn bower and field he sought, where any tuft\r\nOf grove or garden-plot more pleasant lay,\r\nTheir tendance, or plantation for delight;\r\nBy fountain or by shady rivulet\r\nHe sought them both, but wished his hap might find\r\nEve separate; he wished, but not with hope\r\nOf what so seldom chanced; when to his wish,\r\nBeyond his hope, Eve separate he spies,\r\nVeiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,\r\nHalf spied, so thick the roses blushing round\r\nAbout her glowed, oft stooping to support\r\nEach flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay\r\nCarnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,\r\nHung drooping unsustained; them she upstays\r\nGently with myrtle band, mindless the while\r\nHerself, though fairest unsupported flower,\r\nFrom her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.\r\nNearer he drew, and many a walk traversed\r\nOf stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;\r\nThen voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,\r\nAmong thick-woven arborets, and flowers\r\nImbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve:\r\nSpot more delicious than those gardens feigned\r\nOr of revived Adonis, or renowned\r\nAlcinous, host of old Laertes' son;\r\nOr that, not mystick, where the sapient king\r\nHeld dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.\r\nMuch he the place admired, the person more.\r\nAs one who long in populous city pent,\r\nWhere houses thick and sewers annoy the air,\r\nForth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe\r\nAmong the pleasant villages and farms\r\nAdjoined, from each thing met conceives delight;\r\nThe smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,\r\nOr dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;\r\nIf chance, with nymph-like step, fair virgin pass,\r\nWhat pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more;\r\nShe most, and in her look sums all delight:\r\nSuch pleasure took the Serpent to behold\r\nThis flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve\r\nThus early, thus alone: Her heavenly form\r\nAngelick, but more soft, and feminine,\r\nHer graceful innocence, her every air\r\nOf gesture, or least action, overawed\r\nHis malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved\r\nHis fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:\r\nThat space the Evil-one abstracted stood\r\nFrom his own evil, and for the time remained\r\nStupidly good; of enmity disarmed,\r\nOf guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge:\r\nBut the hot Hell that always in him burns,\r\nThough in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight,\r\nAnd tortures him now more, the more he sees\r\nOf pleasure, not for him ordained: then soon\r\nFierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts\r\nOf mischief, gratulating, thus excites.\r\nThoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet\r\nCompulsion thus transported, to forget\r\nWhat hither brought us! hate, not love; nor hope\r\nOf Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste\r\nOf pleasure; but all pleasure to destroy,\r\nSave what is in destroying; other joy\r\nTo me is lost. Then, let me not let pass\r\nOccasion which now smiles; behold alone\r\nThe woman, opportune to all attempts,\r\nHer husband, for I view far round, not nigh,\r\nWhose higher intellectual more I shun,\r\nAnd strength, of courage haughty, and of limb\r\nHeroick built, though of terrestrial mould;\r\nFoe not informidable! exempt from wound,\r\nI not; so much hath Hell debased, and pain\r\nEnfeebled me, to what I was in Heaven.\r\nShe fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods!\r\nNot terrible, though terrour be in love\r\nAnd beauty, not approached by stronger hate,\r\nHate stronger, under show of love well feigned;\r\nThe way which to her ruin now I tend.\r\nSo spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed\r\nIn serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve\r\nAddressed his way: not with indented wave,\r\nProne on the ground, as since; but on his rear,\r\nCircular base of rising folds, that towered\r\nFold above fold, a surging maze! his head\r\nCrested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;\r\nWith burnished neck of verdant gold, erect\r\nAmidst his circling spires, that on the grass\r\nFloated redundant: pleasing was his shape\r\nAnd lovely; never since of serpent-kind\r\nLovelier, not those that in Illyria changed,\r\nHermione and Cadmus, or the god\r\nIn Epidaurus; nor to which transformed\r\nAmmonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen;\r\nHe with Olympias; this with her who bore\r\nScipio, the highth of Rome. With tract oblique\r\nAt first, as one who sought access, but feared\r\nTo interrupt, side-long he works his way.\r\nAs when a ship, by skilful steersmen wrought\r\nNigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind\r\nVeers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail:\r\nSo varied he, and of his tortuous train\r\nCurled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,\r\nTo lure her eye; she, busied, heard the sound\r\nOf rusling leaves, but minded not, as used\r\nTo such disport before her through the field,\r\nFrom every beast; more duteous at her call,\r\nThan at Circean call the herd disguised.\r\nHe, bolder now, uncalled before her stood,\r\nBut as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed\r\nHis turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck,\r\nFawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod.\r\nHis gentle dumb expression turned at length\r\nThe eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad\r\nOf her attention gained, with serpent-tongue\r\nOrganick, or impulse of vocal air,\r\nHis fraudulent temptation thus began.\r\nWonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhaps\r\nThou canst, who art sole wonder! much less arm\r\nThy looks, the Heaven of mildness, with disdain,\r\nDispleased that I approach thee thus, and gaze\r\nInsatiate; I thus single; nor have feared\r\nThy awful brow, more awful thus retired.\r\nFairest resemblance of thy Maker fair,\r\nThee all things living gaze on, all things thine\r\nBy gift, and thy celestial beauty adore\r\nWith ravishment beheld! there best beheld,\r\nWhere universally admired; but here\r\nIn this enclosure wild, these beasts among,\r\nBeholders rude, and shallow to discern\r\nHalf what in thee is fair, one man except,\r\nWho sees thee? and what is one? who should be seen\r\nA Goddess among Gods, adored and served\r\nBy Angels numberless, thy daily train.\r\nSo glozed the Tempter, and his proem tuned:\r\nInto the heart of Eve his words made way,\r\nThough at the voice much marvelling; at length,\r\nNot unamazed, she thus in answer spake.\r\nWhat may this mean? language of man pronounced\r\nBy tongue of brute, and human sense expressed?\r\nThe first, at least, of these I thought denied\r\nTo beasts; whom God, on their creation-day,\r\nCreated mute to all articulate sound:\r\nThe latter I demur; for in their looks\r\nMuch reason, and in their actions, oft appears.\r\nThee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field\r\nI knew, but not with human voice endued;\r\nRedouble then this miracle, and say,\r\nHow camest thou speakable of mute, and how\r\nTo me so friendly grown above the rest\r\nOf brutal kind, that daily are in sight?\r\nSay, for such wonder claims attention due.\r\nTo whom the guileful Tempter thus replied.\r\nEmpress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!\r\nEasy to me it is to tell thee all\r\nWhat thou commandest; and right thou shouldst be obeyed:\r\nI was at first as other beasts that graze\r\nThe trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low,\r\nAs was my food; nor aught but food discerned\r\nOr sex, and apprehended nothing high:\r\nTill, on a day roving the field, I chanced\r\nA goodly tree far distant to behold\r\nLoaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed,\r\nRuddy and gold: I nearer drew to gaze;\r\nWhen from the boughs a savoury odour blown,\r\nGrateful to appetite, more pleased my sense\r\nThan smell of sweetest fennel, or the teats\r\nOf ewe or goat dropping with milk at even,\r\nUnsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their play.\r\nTo satisfy the sharp desire I had\r\nOf tasting those fair apples, I resolved\r\nNot to defer; hunger and thirst at once,\r\nPowerful persuaders, quickened at the scent\r\nOf that alluring fruit, urged me so keen.\r\nAbout the mossy trunk I wound me soon;\r\nFor, high from ground, the branches would require\r\nThy utmost reach or Adam's: Round the tree\r\nAll other beasts that saw, with like desire\r\nLonging and envying stood, but could not reach.\r\nAmid the tree now got, where plenty hung\r\nTempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill\r\nI spared not; for, such pleasure till that hour,\r\nAt feed or fountain, never had I found.\r\nSated at length, ere long I might perceive\r\nStrange alteration in me, to degree\r\nOf reason in my inward powers; and speech\r\nWanted not long; though to this shape retained.\r\nThenceforth to speculations high or deep\r\nI turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind\r\nConsidered all things visible in Heaven,\r\nOr Earth, or Middle; all things fair and good:\r\nBut all that fair and good in thy divine\r\nSemblance, and in thy beauty's heavenly ray,\r\nUnited I beheld; no fair to thine\r\nEquivalent or second! which compelled\r\nMe thus, though importune perhaps, to come\r\nAnd gaze, and worship thee of right declared\r\nSovran of creatures, universal Dame!\r\nSo talked the spirited sly Snake; and Eve,\r\nYet more amazed, unwary thus replied.\r\nSerpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt\r\nThe virtue of that fruit, in thee first proved:\r\nBut say, where grows the tree? from hence how far?\r\nFor many are the trees of God that grow\r\nIn Paradise, and various, yet unknown\r\nTo us; in such abundance lies our choice,\r\nAs leaves a greater store of fruit untouched,\r\nStill hanging incorruptible, till men\r\nGrow up to their provision, and more hands\r\nHelp to disburden Nature of her birth.\r\nTo whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad.\r\nEmpress, the way is ready, and not long;\r\nBeyond a row of myrtles, on a flat,\r\nFast by a fountain, one small thicket past\r\nOf blowing myrrh and balm: if thou accept\r\nMy conduct, I can bring thee thither soon\r\nLead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled\r\nIn tangles, and made intricate seem straight,\r\nTo mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy\r\nBrightens his crest; as when a wandering fire,\r\nCompact of unctuous vapour, which the night\r\nCondenses, and the cold environs round,\r\nKindled through agitation to a flame,\r\nWhich oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,\r\nHovering and blazing with delusive light,\r\nMisleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way\r\nTo bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;\r\nThere swallowed up and lost, from succour far.\r\nSo glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud\r\nLed Eve, our credulous mother, to the tree\r\nOf prohibition, root of all our woe;\r\nWhich when she saw, thus to her guide she spake.\r\nSerpent, we might have spared our coming hither,\r\nFruitless to me, though fruit be here to excess,\r\nThe credit of whose virtue rest with thee;\r\nWonderous indeed, if cause of such effects.\r\nBut of this tree we may not taste nor touch;\r\nGod so commanded, and left that command\r\nSole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live\r\nLaw to ourselves; our reason is our law.\r\nTo whom the Tempter guilefully replied.\r\nIndeed! hath God then said that of the fruit\r\nOf all these garden-trees ye shall not eat,\r\nYet Lords declared of all in earth or air?\r\nTo whom thus Eve, yet sinless. Of the fruit\r\nOf each tree in the garden we may eat;\r\nBut of the fruit of this fair tree amidst\r\nThe garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat\r\nThereof, nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die.\r\nShe scarce had said, though brief, when now more bold\r\nThe Tempter, but with show of zeal and love\r\nTo Man, and indignation at his wrong,\r\nNew part puts on; and, as to passion moved,\r\nFluctuates disturbed, yet comely and in act\r\nRaised, as of some great matter to begin.\r\nAs when of old some orator renowned,\r\nIn Athens or free Rome, where eloquence\r\nFlourished, since mute! to some great cause addressed,\r\nStood in himself collected; while each part,\r\nMotion, each act, won audience ere the tongue;\r\nSometimes in highth began, as no delay\r\nOf preface brooking, through his zeal of right:\r\nSo standing, moving, or to highth up grown,\r\nThe Tempter, all impassioned, thus began.\r\nO sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant,\r\nMother of science! now I feel thy power\r\nWithin me clear; not only to discern\r\nThings in their causes, but to trace the ways\r\nOf highest agents, deemed however wise.\r\nQueen of this universe! do not believe\r\nThose rigid threats of death: ye shall not die:\r\nHow should you? by the fruit? it gives you life\r\nTo knowledge; by the threatener? look on me,\r\nMe, who have touched and tasted; yet both live,\r\nAnd life more perfect have attained than Fate\r\nMeant me, by venturing higher than my lot.\r\nShall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast\r\nIs open? or will God incense his ire\r\nFor such a petty trespass? and not praise\r\nRather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain\r\nOf death denounced, whatever thing death be,\r\nDeterred not from achieving what might lead\r\nTo happier life, knowledge of good and evil;\r\nOf good, how just? of evil, if what is evil\r\nBe real, why not known, since easier shunned?\r\nGod therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;\r\nNot just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed:\r\nYour fear itself of death removes the fear.\r\nWhy then was this forbid? Why, but to awe;\r\nWhy, but to keep ye low and ignorant,\r\nHis worshippers? He knows that in the day\r\nYe eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,\r\nYet are but dim, shall perfectly be then\r\nOpened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods,\r\nKnowing both good and evil, as they know.\r\nThat ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man,\r\nInternal Man, is but proportion meet;\r\nI, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.\r\nSo ye shall die perhaps, by putting off\r\nHuman, to put on Gods; death to be wished,\r\nThough threatened, which no worse than this can bring.\r\nAnd what are Gods, that Man may not become\r\nAs they, participating God-like food?\r\nThe Gods are first, and that advantage use\r\nOn our belief, that all from them proceeds:\r\nI question it; for this fair earth I see,\r\nWarmed by the sun, producing every kind;\r\nThem, nothing: if they all things, who enclosed\r\nKnowledge of good and evil in this tree,\r\nThat whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains\r\nWisdom without their leave? and wherein lies\r\nThe offence, that Man should thus attain to know?\r\nWhat can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree\r\nImpart against his will, if all be his?\r\nOr is it envy? and can envy dwell\r\nIn heavenly breasts? These, these, and many more\r\nCauses import your need of this fair fruit.\r\nGoddess humane, reach then, and freely taste!\r\nHe ended; and his words, replete with guile,\r\nInto her heart too easy entrance won:\r\nFixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold\r\nMight tempt alone; and in her ears the sound\r\nYet rung of his persuasive words, impregned\r\nWith reason, to her seeming, and with truth:\r\nMean while the hour of noon drew on, and waked\r\nAn eager appetite, raised by the smell\r\nSo savoury of that fruit, which with desire,\r\nInclinable now grown to touch or taste,\r\nSolicited her longing eye; yet first\r\nPausing a while, thus to herself she mused.\r\nGreat are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,\r\nThough kept from man, and worthy to be admired;\r\nWhose taste, too long forborn, at first assay\r\nGave elocution to the mute, and taught\r\nThe tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise:\r\nThy praise he also, who forbids thy use,\r\nConceals not from us, naming thee the tree\r\nOf knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;\r\nForbids us then to taste! but his forbidding\r\nCommends thee more, while it infers the good\r\nBy thee communicated, and our want:\r\nFor good unknown sure is not had; or, had\r\nAnd yet unknown, is as not had at all.\r\nIn plain then, what forbids he but to know,\r\nForbids us good, forbids us to be wise?\r\nSuch prohibitions bind not. But, if death\r\nBind us with after-bands, what profits then\r\nOur inward freedom? In the day we eat\r\nOf this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die!\r\nHow dies the Serpent? he hath eaten and lives,\r\nAnd knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,\r\nIrrational till then. For us alone\r\nWas death invented? or to us denied\r\nThis intellectual food, for beasts reserved?\r\nFor beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first\r\nHath tasted envies not, but brings with joy\r\nThe good befallen him, author unsuspect,\r\nFriendly to man, far from deceit or guile.\r\nWhat fear I then? rather, what know to fear\r\nUnder this ignorance of good and evil,\r\nOf God or death, of law or penalty?\r\nHere grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,\r\nFair to the eye, inviting to the taste,\r\nOf virtue to make wise: What hinders then\r\nTo reach, and feed at once both body and mind?\r\nSo saying, her rash hand in evil hour\r\nForth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat!\r\nEarth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,\r\nSighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,\r\nThat all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk\r\nThe guilty Serpent; and well might; for Eve,\r\nIntent now wholly on her taste, nought else\r\nRegarded; such delight till then, as seemed,\r\nIn fruit she never tasted, whether true\r\nOr fancied so, through expectation high\r\nOf knowledge; not was Godhead from her thought.\r\nGreedily she ingorged without restraint,\r\nAnd knew not eating death: Satiate at length,\r\nAnd hightened as with wine, jocund and boon,\r\nThus to herself she pleasingly began.\r\nO sovran, virtuous, precious of all trees\r\nIn Paradise! of operation blest\r\nTo sapience, hitherto obscured, infamed.\r\nAnd thy fair fruit let hang, as to no end\r\nCreated; but henceforth my early care,\r\nNot without song, each morning, and due praise,\r\nShall tend thee, and the fertile burden ease\r\nOf thy full branches offered free to all;\r\nTill, dieted by thee, I grow mature\r\nIn knowledge, as the Gods, who all things know;\r\nThough others envy what they cannot give:\r\nFor, had the gift been theirs, it had not here\r\nThus grown. Experience, next, to thee I owe,\r\nBest guide; not following thee, I had remained\r\nIn ignorance; thou openest wisdom's way,\r\nAnd givest access, though secret she retire.\r\nAnd I perhaps am secret: Heaven is high,\r\nHigh, and remote to see from thence distinct\r\nEach thing on Earth; and other care perhaps\r\nMay have diverted from continual watch\r\nOur great Forbidder, safe with all his spies\r\nAbout him. But to Adam in what sort\r\nShall I appear? shall I to him make known\r\nAs yet my change, and give him to partake\r\nFull happiness with me, or rather not,\r\nBut keeps the odds of knowledge in my power\r\nWithout copartner? so to add what wants\r\nIn female sex, the more to draw his love,\r\nAnd render me more equal; and perhaps,\r\nA thing not undesirable, sometime\r\nSuperiour; for, inferiour, who is free\r\nThis may be well: But what if God have seen,\r\nAnd death ensue? then I shall be no more!\r\nAnd Adam, wedded to another Eve,\r\nShall live with her enjoying, I extinct;\r\nA death to think! Confirmed then I resolve,\r\nAdam shall share with me in bliss or woe:\r\nSo dear I love him, that with him all deaths\r\nI could endure, without him live no life.\r\nSo saying, from the tree her step she turned;\r\nBut first low reverence done, as to the Power\r\nThat dwelt within, whose presence had infused\r\nInto the plant sciential sap, derived\r\nFrom nectar, drink of Gods. Adam the while,\r\nWaiting desirous her return, had wove\r\nOf choicest flowers a garland, to adorn\r\nHer tresses, and her rural labours crown;\r\nAs reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.\r\nGreat joy he promised to his thoughts, and new\r\nSolace in her return, so long delayed:\r\nYet oft his heart, divine of something ill,\r\nMisgave him; he the faltering measure felt;\r\nAnd forth to meet her went, the way she took\r\nThat morn when first they parted: by the tree\r\nOf knowledge he must pass; there he her met,\r\nScarce from the tree returning; in her hand\r\nA bough of fairest fruit, that downy smiled,\r\nNew gathered, and ambrosial smell diffused.\r\nTo him she hasted; in her face excuse\r\nCame prologue, and apology too prompt;\r\nWhich, with bland words at will, she thus addressed.\r\nHast thou not wondered, Adam, at my stay?\r\nThee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived\r\nThy presence; agony of love till now\r\nNot felt, nor shall be twice; for never more\r\nMean I to try, what rash untried I sought,\r\nThe pain of absence from thy sight. But strange\r\nHath been the cause, and wonderful to hear:\r\nThis tree is not, as we are told, a tree\r\nOf danger tasted, nor to evil unknown\r\nOpening the way, but of divine effect\r\nTo open eyes, and make them Gods who taste;\r\nAnd hath been tasted such: The serpent wise,\r\nOr not restrained as we, or not obeying,\r\nHath eaten of the fruit; and is become,\r\nNot dead, as we are threatened, but thenceforth\r\nEndued with human voice and human sense,\r\nReasoning to admiration; and with me\r\nPersuasively hath so prevailed, that I\r\nHave also tasted, and have also found\r\nThe effects to correspond; opener mine eyes,\r\nDim erst, dilated spirits, ampler heart,\r\nAnd growing up to Godhead; which for thee\r\nChiefly I sought, without thee can despise.\r\nFor bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss;\r\nTedious, unshared with thee, and odious soon.\r\nThou therefore also taste, that equal lot\r\nMay join us, equal joy, as equal love;\r\nLest, thou not tasting, different degree\r\nDisjoin us, and I then too late renounce\r\nDeity for thee, when Fate will not permit.\r\nThus Eve with countenance blithe her story told;\r\nBut in her cheek distemper flushing glowed.\r\nOn the other side Adam, soon as he heard\r\nThe fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,\r\nAstonied stood and blank, while horrour chill\r\nRan through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;\r\nFrom his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve\r\nDown dropt, and all the faded roses shed:\r\nSpeechless he stood and pale, till thus at length\r\nFirst to himself he inward silence broke.\r\nO fairest of Creation, last and best\r\nOf all God's works, Creature in whom excelled\r\nWhatever can to sight or thought be formed,\r\nHoly, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!\r\nHow art thou lost! how on a sudden lost,\r\nDefaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!\r\nRather, how hast thou yielded to transgress\r\nThe strict forbiddance, how to violate\r\nThe sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud\r\nOf enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,\r\nAnd me with thee hath ruined; for with thee\r\nCertain my resolution is to die:\r\nHow can I live without thee! how forego\r\nThy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,\r\nTo live again in these wild woods forlorn!\r\nShould God create another Eve, and I\r\nAnother rib afford, yet loss of thee\r\nWould never from my heart: no, no! I feel\r\nThe link of Nature draw me: flesh of flesh,\r\nBone of my bone thou art, and from thy state\r\nMine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.\r\nSo having said, as one from sad dismay\r\nRecomforted, and after thoughts disturbed\r\nSubmitting to what seemed remediless,\r\nThus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned.\r\nBold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve,\r\nAnd peril great provoked, who thus hast dared,\r\nHad it been only coveting to eye\r\nThat sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,\r\nMuch more to taste it under ban to touch.\r\nBut past who can recall, or done undo?\r\nNot God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so\r\nPerhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact\r\nIs not so heinous now, foretasted fruit,\r\nProfaned first by the serpent, by him first\r\nMade common, and unhallowed, ere our taste;\r\nNor yet on him found deadly; yet he lives;\r\nLives, as thou saidst, and gains to live, as Man,\r\nHigher degree of life; inducement strong\r\nTo us, as likely tasting to attain\r\nProportional ascent; which cannot be\r\nBut to be Gods, or Angels, demi-Gods.\r\nNor can I think that God, Creator wise,\r\nThough threatening, will in earnest so destroy\r\nUs his prime creatures, dignified so high,\r\nSet over all his works; which in our fall,\r\nFor us created, needs with us must fail,\r\nDependant made; so God shall uncreate,\r\nBe frustrate, do, undo, and labour lose;\r\nNot well conceived of God, who, though his power\r\nCreation could repeat, yet would be loth\r\nUs to abolish, lest the Adversary\r\nTriumph, and say; \"Fickle their state whom God\r\nMost favours; who can please him long? Me first\r\nHe ruined, now Mankind; whom will he next?\"\r\nMatter of scorn, not to be given the Foe.\r\nHowever I with thee have fixed my lot,\r\nCertain to undergo like doom: If death\r\nConsort with thee, death is to me as life;\r\nSo forcible within my heart I feel\r\nThe bond of Nature draw me to my own;\r\nMy own in thee, for what thou art is mine;\r\nOur state cannot be severed; we are one,\r\nOne flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.\r\nSo Adam; and thus Eve to him replied.\r\nO glorious trial of exceeding love,\r\nIllustrious evidence, example high!\r\nEngaging me to emulate; but, short\r\nOf thy perfection, how shall I attain,\r\nAdam, from whose dear side I boast me sprung,\r\nAnd gladly of our union hear thee speak,\r\nOne heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof\r\nThis day affords, declaring thee resolved,\r\nRather than death, or aught than death more dread,\r\nShall separate us, linked in love so dear,\r\nTo undergo with me one guilt, one crime,\r\nIf any be, of tasting this fair fruit;\r\nWhose virtue for of good still good proceeds,\r\nDirect, or by occasion, hath presented\r\nThis happy trial of thy love, which else\r\nSo eminently never had been known?\r\nWere it I thought death menaced would ensue\r\nThis my attempt, I would sustain alone\r\nThe worst, and not persuade thee, rather die\r\nDeserted, than oblige thee with a fact\r\nPernicious to thy peace; chiefly assured\r\nRemarkably so late of thy so true,\r\nSo faithful, love unequalled: but I feel\r\nFar otherwise the event; not death, but life\r\nAugmented, opened eyes, new hopes, new joys,\r\nTaste so divine, that what of sweet before\r\nHath touched my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh.\r\nOn my experience, Adam, freely taste,\r\nAnd fear of death deliver to the winds.\r\nSo saying, she embraced him, and for joy\r\nTenderly wept; much won, that he his love\r\nHad so ennobled, as of choice to incur\r\nDivine displeasure for her sake, or death.\r\nIn recompence (for such compliance bad\r\nSuch recompence best merits) from the bough\r\nShe gave him of that fair enticing fruit\r\nWith liberal hand: he scrupled not to eat,\r\nAgainst his better knowledge; not deceived,\r\nBut fondly overcome with female charm.\r\nEarth trembled from her entrails, as again\r\nIn pangs; and Nature gave a second groan;\r\nSky loured; and, muttering thunder, some sad drops\r\nWept at completing of the mortal sin\r\nOriginal: while Adam took no thought,\r\nEating his fill; nor Eve to iterate\r\nHer former trespass feared, the more to sooth\r\nHim with her loved society; that now,\r\nAs with new wine intoxicated both,\r\nThey swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel\r\nDivinity within them breeding wings,\r\nWherewith to scorn the earth: But that false fruit\r\nFar other operation first displayed,\r\nCarnal desire inflaming; he on Eve\r\nBegan to cast lascivious eyes; she him\r\nAs wantonly repaid; in lust they burn:\r\nTill Adam thus 'gan Eve to dalliance move.\r\nEve, now I see thou art exact of taste,\r\nAnd elegant, of sapience no small part;\r\nSince to each meaning savour we apply,\r\nAnd palate call judicious; I the praise\r\nYield thee, so well this day thou hast purveyed.\r\nMuch pleasure we have lost, while we abstained\r\nFrom this delightful fruit, nor known till now\r\nTrue relish, tasting; if such pleasure be\r\nIn things to us forbidden, it might be wished,\r\nFor this one tree had been forbidden ten.\r\nBut come, so well refreshed, now let us play,\r\nAs meet is, after such delicious fare;\r\nFor never did thy beauty, since the day\r\nI saw thee first and wedded thee, adorned\r\nWith all perfections, so inflame my sense\r\nWith ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now\r\nThan ever; bounty of this virtuous tree!\r\nSo said he, and forbore not glance or toy\r\nOf amorous intent; well understood\r\nOf Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire.\r\nHer hand he seised; and to a shady bank,\r\nThick over-head with verdant roof imbowered,\r\nHe led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch,\r\nPansies, and violets, and asphodel,\r\nAnd hyacinth; Earth's freshest softest lap.\r\nThere they their fill of love and love's disport\r\nTook largely, of their mutual guilt the seal,\r\nThe solace of their sin; till dewy sleep\r\nOppressed them, wearied with their amorous play,\r\nSoon as the force of that fallacious fruit,\r\nThat with exhilarating vapour bland\r\nAbout their spirits had played, and inmost powers\r\nMade err, was now exhaled; and grosser sleep,\r\nBred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams\r\nIncumbered, now had left them; up they rose\r\nAs from unrest; and, each the other viewing,\r\nSoon found their eyes how opened, and their minds\r\nHow darkened; innocence, that as a veil\r\nHad shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone;\r\nJust confidence, and native righteousness,\r\nAnd honour, from about them, naked left\r\nTo guilty Shame; he covered, but his robe\r\nUncovered more. So rose the Danite strong,\r\nHerculean Samson, from the harlot-lap\r\nOf Philistean Dalilah, and waked\r\nShorn of his strength. They destitute and bare\r\nOf all their virtue: Silent, and in face\r\nConfounded, long they sat, as strucken mute:\r\nTill Adam, though not less than Eve abashed,\r\nAt length gave utterance to these words constrained.\r\nO Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear\r\nTo that false worm, of whomsoever taught\r\nTo counterfeit Man's voice; true in our fall,\r\nFalse in our promised rising; since our eyes\r\nOpened we find indeed, and find we know\r\nBoth good and evil; good lost, and evil got;\r\nBad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know;\r\nWhich leaves us naked thus, of honour void,\r\nOf innocence, of faith, of purity,\r\nOur wonted ornaments now soiled and stained,\r\nAnd in our faces evident the signs\r\nOf foul concupiscence; whence evil store;\r\nEven shame, the last of evils; of the first\r\nBe sure then.--How shall I behold the face\r\nHenceforth of God or Angel, erst with joy\r\nAnd rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shapes\r\nWill dazzle now this earthly with their blaze\r\nInsufferably bright. O! might I here\r\nIn solitude live savage; in some glade\r\nObscured, where highest woods, impenetrable\r\nTo star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad\r\nAnd brown as evening: Cover me, ye Pines!\r\nYe Cedars, with innumerable boughs\r\nHide me, where I may never see them more!--\r\nBut let us now, as in bad plight, devise\r\nWhat best may for the present serve to hide\r\nThe parts of each from other, that seem most\r\nTo shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen;\r\nSome tree, whose broad smooth leaves together sewed,\r\nAnd girded on our loins, may cover round\r\nThose middle parts; that this new comer, Shame,\r\nThere sit not, and reproach us as unclean.\r\nSo counselled he, and both together went\r\nInto the thickest wood; there soon they chose\r\nThe fig-tree; not that kind for fruit renowned,\r\nBut such as at this day, to Indians known,\r\nIn Malabar or Decan spreads her arms\r\nBranching so broad and long, that in the ground\r\nThe bended twigs take root, and daughters grow\r\nAbout the mother tree, a pillared shade\r\nHigh over-arched, and echoing walks between:\r\nThere oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,\r\nShelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds\r\nAt loop-holes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves\r\nThey gathered, broad as Amazonian targe;\r\nAnd, with what skill they had, together sewed,\r\nTo gird their waist; vain covering, if to hide\r\nTheir guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike\r\nTo that first naked glory! Such of late\r\nColumbus found the American, so girt\r\nWith feathered cincture; naked else, and wild\r\nAmong the trees on isles and woody shores.\r\nThus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part\r\nCovered, but not at rest or ease of mind,\r\nThey sat them down to weep; nor only tears\r\nRained at their eyes, but high winds worse within\r\nBegan to rise, high passions, anger, hate,\r\nMistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore\r\nTheir inward state of mind, calm region once\r\nAnd full of peace, now tost and turbulent:\r\nFor Understanding ruled not, and the Will\r\nHeard not her lore; both in subjection now\r\nTo sensual Appetite, who from beneath\r\nUsurping over sovran Reason claimed\r\nSuperiour sway: From thus distempered breast,\r\nAdam, estranged in look and altered style,\r\nSpeech intermitted thus to Eve renewed.\r\nWould thou hadst hearkened to my words, and staid\r\nWith me, as I besought thee, when that strange\r\nDesire of wandering, this unhappy morn,\r\nI know not whence possessed thee; we had then\r\nRemained still happy; not, as now, despoiled\r\nOf all our good; shamed, naked, miserable!\r\nLet none henceforth seek needless cause to approve\r\nThe faith they owe; when earnestly they seek\r\nSuch proof, conclude, they then begin to fail.\r\nTo whom, soon moved with touch of blame, thus Eve.\r\nWhat words have passed thy lips, Adam severe!\r\nImputest thou that to my default, or will\r\nOf wandering, as thou callest it, which who knows\r\nBut might as ill have happened thou being by,\r\nOr to thyself perhaps? Hadst thou been there,\r\nOr here the attempt, thou couldst not have discerned\r\nFraud in the Serpent, speaking as he spake;\r\nNo ground of enmity between us known,\r\nWhy he should mean me ill, or seek to harm.\r\nWas I to have never parted from thy side?\r\nAs good have grown there still a lifeless rib.\r\nBeing as I am, why didst not thou, the head,\r\nCommand me absolutely not to go,\r\nGoing into such danger, as thou saidst?\r\nToo facile then, thou didst not much gainsay;\r\nNay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss.\r\nHadst thou been firm and fixed in thy dissent,\r\nNeither had I transgressed, nor thou with me.\r\nTo whom, then first incensed, Adam replied.\r\nIs this the love, is this the recompence\r\nOf mine to thee, ingrateful Eve! expressed\r\nImmutable, when thou wert lost, not I;\r\nWho might have lived, and joyed immortal bliss,\r\nYet willingly chose rather death with thee?\r\nAnd am I now upbraided as the cause\r\nOf thy transgressing? Not enough severe,\r\nIt seems, in thy restraint: What could I more\r\nI warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold\r\nThe danger, and the lurking enemy\r\nThat lay in wait; beyond this, had been force;\r\nAnd force upon free will hath here no place.\r\nBut confidence then bore thee on; secure\r\nEither to meet no danger, or to find\r\nMatter of glorious trial; and perhaps\r\nI also erred, in overmuch admiring\r\nWhat seemed in thee so perfect, that I thought\r\nNo evil durst attempt thee; but I rue\r\nThe errour now, which is become my crime,\r\nAnd thou the accuser. Thus it shall befall\r\nHim, who, to worth in women overtrusting,\r\nLets her will rule: restraint she will not brook;\r\nAnd, left to herself, if evil thence ensue,\r\nShe first his weak indulgence will accuse.\r\nThus they in mutual accusation spent\r\nThe fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning;\r\nAnd of their vain contest appeared no end.","rendered":"
\"Watercolor<\/a><\/p>\n

William Blake: The Temptation and Fall of Eve – illustration to Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ (1808, pen and watercolour on paper)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
\nWith Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d,
\nTo sit indulgent, and with him partake
\nRural repast; permitting him the while
\nVenial discourse unblam’d. I now must change
\nThose notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
\nDisloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
\nAnd disobedience: on the part of Heaven
\nNow alienated, distance and distaste,
\nAnger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
\nThat brought into this world a world of woe,
\nSin and her shadow Death, and Misery
\nDeath’s harbinger: Sad task! yet argument
\nNot less but more heroick than the wrath
\nOf stern Achilles on his foe pursued
\nThrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
\nOf Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;
\nOr Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long
\nPerplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son:
\nIf answerable style I can obtain
\nOf my celestial patroness, who deigns
\nHer nightly visitation unimplor’d,
\nAnd dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
\nEasy my unpremeditated verse:
\nSince first this subject for heroick song
\nPleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late;
\nNot sedulous by nature to indite
\nWars, hitherto the only argument
\nHeroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect
\nWith long and tedious havock fabled knights
\nIn battles feign’d; the better fortitude
\nOf patience and heroick martyrdom
\nUnsung; or to describe races and games,
\nOr tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields,
\nImpresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
\nBases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
\nAt joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast
\nServ’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
\nThe skill of artifice or office mean,
\nNot that which justly gives heroick name
\nTo person, or to poem. Me, of these
\nNor skill’d nor studious, higher argument
\nRemains; sufficient of itself to raise
\nThat name, unless an age too late, or cold
\nClimate, or years, damp my intended wing
\nDepress’d; and much they may, if all be mine,
\nNot hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
\nThe sun was sunk, and after him the star
\nOf Hesperus, whose office is to bring
\nTwilight upon the earth, short arbiter
\n‘Twixt day and night, and now from end to end
\nNight’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round:
\nWhen satan, who late fled before the threats
\nOf Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d
\nIn meditated fraud and malice, bent
\nOn Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap
\nOf heavier on himself, fearless returned
\nBy night he fled, and at midnight returned
\nFrom compassing the earth; cautious of day,
\nSince Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
\nHis entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
\nThat kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
\nThe space of seven continued nights he rode
\nWith darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
\nHe circled; four times crossed the car of night
\nFrom pole to pole, traversing each colure;
\nOn the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
\nFrom entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
\nFound unsuspected way. There was a place,
\nNow not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
\nWhere Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,
\nInto a gulf shot under ground, till part
\nRose up a fountain by the tree of life:
\nIn with the river sunk, and with it rose
\nSatan, involved in rising mist; then sought
\nWhere to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,
\nFrom Eden over Pontus and the pool
\nMaeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
\nDownward as far antarctick; and in length,
\nWest from Orontes to the ocean barred
\nAt Darien; thence to the land where flows
\nGanges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
\nWith narrow search; and with inspection deep
\nConsidered every creature, which of all
\nMost opportune might serve his wiles; and found
\nThe Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
\nHim after long debate, irresolute
\nOf thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
\nFit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
\nTo enter, and his dark suggestions hide
\nFrom sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
\nWhatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
\nAs from his wit and native subtlety
\nProceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
\nDoubt might beget of diabolick power
\nActive within, beyond the sense of brute.
\nThus he resolved, but first from inward grief
\nHis bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
\nMore justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
\nWith second thoughts, reforming what was old!
\nO Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
\nFor what God, after better, worse would build?
\nTerrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
\nThat shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
\nLight above light, for thee alone, as seems,
\nIn thee concentring all their precious beams
\nOf sacred influence! As God in Heaven
\nIs center, yet extends to all; so thou,
\nCentring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
\nNot in themselves, all their known virtue appears
\nProductive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
\nOf creatures animate with gradual life
\nOf growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.
\nWith what delight could I have walked thee round,
\nIf I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
\nOf hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
\nNow land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,
\nRocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these
\nFind place or refuge; and the more I see
\nPleasures about me, so much more I feel
\nTorment within me, as from the hateful siege
\nOf contraries: all good to me becomes
\nBane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
\nBut neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
\nTo dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme;
\nNor hope to be myself less miserable
\nBy what I seek, but others to make such
\nAs I, though thereby worse to me redound:
\nFor only in destroying I find ease
\nTo my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
\nOr won to what may work his utter loss,
\nFor whom all this was made, all this will soon
\nFollow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
\nIn woe then; that destruction wide may range:
\nTo me shall be the glory sole among
\nThe infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
\nWhat he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
\nContinued making; and who knows how long
\nBefore had been contriving? though perhaps
\nNot longer than since I, in one night, freed
\nFrom servitude inglorious well nigh half
\nThe angelick name, and thinner left the throng
\nOf his adorers: He, to be avenged,
\nAnd to repair his numbers thus impaired,
\nWhether such virtue spent of old now failed
\nMore Angels to create, if they at least
\nAre his created, or, to spite us more,
\nDetermined to advance into our room
\nA creature formed of earth, and him endow,
\nExalted from so base original,
\nWith heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
\nHe effected; Man he made, and for him built
\nMagnificent this world, and earth his seat,
\nHim lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
\nSubjected to his service angel-wings,
\nAnd flaming ministers to watch and tend
\nTheir earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
\nI dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
\nOf midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
\nIn every bush and brake, where hap may find
\nThe serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
\nTo hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
\nO foul descent! that I, who erst contended
\nWith Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
\nInto a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime,
\nThis essence to incarnate and imbrute,
\nThat to the highth of Deity aspired!
\nBut what will not ambition and revenge
\nDescend to? Who aspires, must down as low
\nAs high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
\nTo basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
\nBitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
\nLet it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
\nSince higher I fall short, on him who next
\nProvokes my envy, this new favourite
\nOf Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
\nWhom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
\nFrom dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
\nSo saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
\nLike a black mist low-creeping, he held on
\nHis midnight-search, where soonest he might find
\nThe serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
\nIn labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
\nHis head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
\nNot yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
\nNor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
\nFearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
\nThe Devil entered; and his brutal sense,
\nIn heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
\nWith act intelligential; but his sleep
\nDisturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
\nNow, when as sacred light began to dawn
\nIn Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
\nTheir morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
\nFrom the Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
\nTo the Creator, and his nostrils fill
\nWith grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
\nAnd joined their vocal worship to the quire
\nOf creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
\nThe season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
\nThen commune, how that day they best may ply
\nTheir growing work: for much their work out-grew
\nThe hands’ dispatch of two gardening so wide,
\nAnd Eve first to her husband thus began.
\nAdam, well may we labour still to dress
\nThis garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
\nOur pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
\nAid us, the work under our labour grows,
\nLuxurious by restraint; what we by day
\nLop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
\nOne night or two with wanton growth derides
\nTending to wild. Thou therefore now advise,
\nOr bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
\nLet us divide our labours; thou, where choice
\nLeads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
\nThe woodbine round this arbour, or direct
\nThe clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
\nIn yonder spring of roses intermixed
\nWith myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
\nFor, while so near each other thus all day
\nOur task we choose, what wonder if so near
\nLooks intervene and smiles, or object new
\nCasual discourse draw on; which intermits
\nOur day’s work, brought to little, though begun
\nEarly, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
\nTo whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
\nSole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
\nCompare above all living creatures dear!
\nWell hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
\nHow we might best fulfil the work which here
\nGod hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
\nUnpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
\nIn woman, than to study houshold good,
\nAnd good works in her husband to promote.
\nYet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
\nLabour, as to debar us when we need
\nRefreshment, whether food, or talk between,
\nFood of the mind, or this sweet intercourse
\nOf looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
\nTo brute denied, and are of love the food;
\nLove, not the lowest end of human life.
\nFor not to irksome toil, but to delight,
\nHe made us, and delight to reason joined.
\nThese paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
\nWill keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
\nAs we need walk, till younger hands ere long
\nAssist us; But, if much converse perhaps
\nThee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
\nFor solitude sometimes is best society,
\nAnd short retirement urges sweet return.
\nBut other doubt possesses me, lest harm
\nBefall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
\nWhat hath been warned us, what malicious foe
\nEnvying our happiness, and of his own
\nDespairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
\nBy sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
\nWatches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
\nHis wish and best advantage, us asunder;
\nHopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
\nTo other speedy aid might lend at need:
\nWhether his first design be to withdraw
\nOur fealty from God, or to disturb
\nConjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
\nEnjoyed by us excites his envy more;
\nOr this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
\nThat gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
\nThe wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
\nSafest and seemliest by her husband stays,
\nWho guards her, or with her the worst endures.
\nTo whom the virgin majesty of Eve,
\nAs one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
\nWith sweet austere composure thus replied.
\nOffspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s Lord!
\nThat such an enemy we have, who seeks
\nOur ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
\nAnd from the parting Angel over-heard,
\nAs in a shady nook I stood behind,
\nJust then returned at shut of evening flowers.
\nBut, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
\nTo God or thee, because we have a foe
\nMay tempt it, I expected not to hear.
\nHis violence thou fearest not, being such
\nAs we, not capable of death or pain,
\nCan either not receive, or can repel.
\nHis fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
\nThy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
\nCan by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
\nThoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,
\nAdam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
\nTo whom with healing words Adam replied.
\nDaughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
\nFor such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
\nNot diffident of thee do I dissuade
\nThy absence from my sight, but to avoid
\nThe attempt itself, intended by our foe.
\nFor he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
\nThe tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
\nNot incorruptible of faith, not proof
\nAgainst temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
\nAnd anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
\nThough ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
\nIf such affront I labour to avert
\nFrom thee alone, which on us both at once
\nThe enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
\nOr daring, first on me the assault shall light.
\nNor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
\nSubtle he needs must be, who could seduce
\nAngels; nor think superfluous other’s aid.
\nI, from the influence of thy looks, receive
\nAccess in every virtue; in thy sight
\nMore wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
\nOf outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
\nShame to be overcome or over-reached,
\nWould utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.
\nWhy shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
\nWhen I am present, and thy trial choose
\nWith me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
\nSo spake domestick Adam in his care
\nAnd matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
\nLess attributed to her faith sincere,
\nThus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
\nIf this be our condition, thus to dwell
\nIn narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
\nSubtle or violent, we not endued
\nSingle with like defence, wherever met;
\nHow are we happy, still in fear of harm?
\nBut harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
\nTempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
\nOf our integrity: his foul esteem
\nSticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
\nFoul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
\nBy us? who rather double honour gain
\nFrom his surmise proved false; find peace within,
\nFavour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
\nAnd what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
\nAlone, without exteriour help sustained?
\nLet us not then suspect our happy state
\nLeft so imperfect by the Maker wise,
\nAs not secure to single or combined.
\nFrail is our happiness, if this be so,
\nAnd Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
\nTo whom thus Adam fervently replied.
\nO Woman, best are all things as the will
\nOf God ordained them: His creating hand
\nNothing imperfect or deficient left
\nOf all that he created, much less Man,
\nOr aught that might his happy state secure,
\nSecure from outward force; within himself
\nThe danger lies, yet lies within his power:
\nAgainst his will he can receive no harm.
\nBut God left free the will; for what obeys
\nReason, is free; and Reason he made right,
\nBut bid her well be ware, and still erect;
\nLest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
\nShe dictate false; and mis-inform the will
\nTo do what God expressly hath forbid.
\nNot then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
\nThat I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
\nFirm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
\nSince Reason not impossibly may meet
\nSome specious object by the foe suborned,
\nAnd fall into deception unaware,
\nNot keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
\nSeek not temptation then, which to avoid
\nWere better, and most likely if from me
\nThou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
\nWouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
\nFirst thy obedience; the other who can know,
\nNot seeing thee attempted, who attest?
\nBut, if thou think, trial unsought may find
\nUs both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
\nGo; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;
\nGo in thy native innocence, rely
\nOn what thou hast of virtue; summon all!
\nFor God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.
\nSo spake the patriarch of mankind; but Eve
\nPersisted; yet submiss, though last, replied.
\nWith thy permission then, and thus forewarned
\nChiefly by what thy own last reasoning words
\nTouched only; that our trial, when least sought,
\nMay find us both perhaps far less prepared,
\nThe willinger I go, nor much expect
\nA foe so proud will first the weaker seek;
\nSo bent, the more shall shame him his repulse.
\nThus saying, from her husband’s hand her hand
\nSoft she withdrew; and, like a Wood-Nymph light,
\nOread or Dryad, or of Delia’s train,
\nBetook her to the groves; but Delia’s self
\nIn gait surpassed, and Goddess-like deport,
\nThough not as she with bow and quiver armed,
\nBut with such gardening tools as Art yet rude,
\nGuiltless of fire, had formed, or Angels brought.
\nTo Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned,
\nLikest she seemed, Pomona when she fled
\nVertumnus, or to Ceres in her prime,
\nYet virgin of Proserpina from Jove.
\nHer long with ardent look his eye pursued
\nDelighted, but desiring more her stay.
\nOft he to her his charge of quick return
\nRepeated; she to him as oft engaged
\nTo be returned by noon amid the bower,
\nAnd all things in best order to invite
\nNoontide repast, or afternoon’s repose.
\nO much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve,
\nOf thy presumed return! event perverse!
\nThou never from that hour in Paradise
\nFoundst either sweet repast, or sound repose;
\nSuch ambush, hid among sweet flowers and shades,
\nWaited with hellish rancour imminent
\nTo intercept thy way, or send thee back
\nDespoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss!
\nFor now, and since first break of dawn, the Fiend,
\nMere serpent in appearance, forth was come;
\nAnd on his quest, where likeliest he might find
\nThe only two of mankind, but in them
\nThe whole included race, his purposed prey.
\nIn bower and field he sought, where any tuft
\nOf grove or garden-plot more pleasant lay,
\nTheir tendance, or plantation for delight;
\nBy fountain or by shady rivulet
\nHe sought them both, but wished his hap might find
\nEve separate; he wished, but not with hope
\nOf what so seldom chanced; when to his wish,
\nBeyond his hope, Eve separate he spies,
\nVeiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,
\nHalf spied, so thick the roses blushing round
\nAbout her glowed, oft stooping to support
\nEach flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay
\nCarnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,
\nHung drooping unsustained; them she upstays
\nGently with myrtle band, mindless the while
\nHerself, though fairest unsupported flower,
\nFrom her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.
\nNearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
\nOf stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;
\nThen voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,
\nAmong thick-woven arborets, and flowers
\nImbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve:
\nSpot more delicious than those gardens feigned
\nOr of revived Adonis, or renowned
\nAlcinous, host of old Laertes’ son;
\nOr that, not mystick, where the sapient king
\nHeld dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.
\nMuch he the place admired, the person more.
\nAs one who long in populous city pent,
\nWhere houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
\nForth issuing on a summer’s morn, to breathe
\nAmong the pleasant villages and farms
\nAdjoined, from each thing met conceives delight;
\nThe smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
\nOr dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;
\nIf chance, with nymph-like step, fair virgin pass,
\nWhat pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more;
\nShe most, and in her look sums all delight:
\nSuch pleasure took the Serpent to behold
\nThis flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve
\nThus early, thus alone: Her heavenly form
\nAngelick, but more soft, and feminine,
\nHer graceful innocence, her every air
\nOf gesture, or least action, overawed
\nHis malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
\nHis fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:
\nThat space the Evil-one abstracted stood
\nFrom his own evil, and for the time remained
\nStupidly good; of enmity disarmed,
\nOf guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge:
\nBut the hot Hell that always in him burns,
\nThough in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight,
\nAnd tortures him now more, the more he sees
\nOf pleasure, not for him ordained: then soon
\nFierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
\nOf mischief, gratulating, thus excites.
\nThoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet
\nCompulsion thus transported, to forget
\nWhat hither brought us! hate, not love; nor hope
\nOf Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste
\nOf pleasure; but all pleasure to destroy,
\nSave what is in destroying; other joy
\nTo me is lost. Then, let me not let pass
\nOccasion which now smiles; behold alone
\nThe woman, opportune to all attempts,
\nHer husband, for I view far round, not nigh,
\nWhose higher intellectual more I shun,
\nAnd strength, of courage haughty, and of limb
\nHeroick built, though of terrestrial mould;
\nFoe not informidable! exempt from wound,
\nI not; so much hath Hell debased, and pain
\nEnfeebled me, to what I was in Heaven.
\nShe fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods!
\nNot terrible, though terrour be in love
\nAnd beauty, not approached by stronger hate,
\nHate stronger, under show of love well feigned;
\nThe way which to her ruin now I tend.
\nSo spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed
\nIn serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve
\nAddressed his way: not with indented wave,
\nProne on the ground, as since; but on his rear,
\nCircular base of rising folds, that towered
\nFold above fold, a surging maze! his head
\nCrested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
\nWith burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
\nAmidst his circling spires, that on the grass
\nFloated redundant: pleasing was his shape
\nAnd lovely; never since of serpent-kind
\nLovelier, not those that in Illyria changed,
\nHermione and Cadmus, or the god
\nIn Epidaurus; nor to which transformed
\nAmmonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen;
\nHe with Olympias; this with her who bore
\nScipio, the highth of Rome. With tract oblique
\nAt first, as one who sought access, but feared
\nTo interrupt, side-long he works his way.
\nAs when a ship, by skilful steersmen wrought
\nNigh river’s mouth or foreland, where the wind
\nVeers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail:
\nSo varied he, and of his tortuous train
\nCurled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,
\nTo lure her eye; she, busied, heard the sound
\nOf rusling leaves, but minded not, as used
\nTo such disport before her through the field,
\nFrom every beast; more duteous at her call,
\nThan at Circean call the herd disguised.
\nHe, bolder now, uncalled before her stood,
\nBut as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed
\nHis turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck,
\nFawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod.
\nHis gentle dumb expression turned at length
\nThe eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad
\nOf her attention gained, with serpent-tongue
\nOrganick, or impulse of vocal air,
\nHis fraudulent temptation thus began.
\nWonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhaps
\nThou canst, who art sole wonder! much less arm
\nThy looks, the Heaven of mildness, with disdain,
\nDispleased that I approach thee thus, and gaze
\nInsatiate; I thus single; nor have feared
\nThy awful brow, more awful thus retired.
\nFairest resemblance of thy Maker fair,
\nThee all things living gaze on, all things thine
\nBy gift, and thy celestial beauty adore
\nWith ravishment beheld! there best beheld,
\nWhere universally admired; but here
\nIn this enclosure wild, these beasts among,
\nBeholders rude, and shallow to discern
\nHalf what in thee is fair, one man except,
\nWho sees thee? and what is one? who should be seen
\nA Goddess among Gods, adored and served
\nBy Angels numberless, thy daily train.
\nSo glozed the Tempter, and his proem tuned:
\nInto the heart of Eve his words made way,
\nThough at the voice much marvelling; at length,
\nNot unamazed, she thus in answer spake.
\nWhat may this mean? language of man pronounced
\nBy tongue of brute, and human sense expressed?
\nThe first, at least, of these I thought denied
\nTo beasts; whom God, on their creation-day,
\nCreated mute to all articulate sound:
\nThe latter I demur; for in their looks
\nMuch reason, and in their actions, oft appears.
\nThee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field
\nI knew, but not with human voice endued;
\nRedouble then this miracle, and say,
\nHow camest thou speakable of mute, and how
\nTo me so friendly grown above the rest
\nOf brutal kind, that daily are in sight?
\nSay, for such wonder claims attention due.
\nTo whom the guileful Tempter thus replied.
\nEmpress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!
\nEasy to me it is to tell thee all
\nWhat thou commandest; and right thou shouldst be obeyed:
\nI was at first as other beasts that graze
\nThe trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low,
\nAs was my food; nor aught but food discerned
\nOr sex, and apprehended nothing high:
\nTill, on a day roving the field, I chanced
\nA goodly tree far distant to behold
\nLoaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed,
\nRuddy and gold: I nearer drew to gaze;
\nWhen from the boughs a savoury odour blown,
\nGrateful to appetite, more pleased my sense
\nThan smell of sweetest fennel, or the teats
\nOf ewe or goat dropping with milk at even,
\nUnsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their play.
\nTo satisfy the sharp desire I had
\nOf tasting those fair apples, I resolved
\nNot to defer; hunger and thirst at once,
\nPowerful persuaders, quickened at the scent
\nOf that alluring fruit, urged me so keen.
\nAbout the mossy trunk I wound me soon;
\nFor, high from ground, the branches would require
\nThy utmost reach or Adam’s: Round the tree
\nAll other beasts that saw, with like desire
\nLonging and envying stood, but could not reach.
\nAmid the tree now got, where plenty hung
\nTempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill
\nI spared not; for, such pleasure till that hour,
\nAt feed or fountain, never had I found.
\nSated at length, ere long I might perceive
\nStrange alteration in me, to degree
\nOf reason in my inward powers; and speech
\nWanted not long; though to this shape retained.
\nThenceforth to speculations high or deep
\nI turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind
\nConsidered all things visible in Heaven,
\nOr Earth, or Middle; all things fair and good:
\nBut all that fair and good in thy divine
\nSemblance, and in thy beauty’s heavenly ray,
\nUnited I beheld; no fair to thine
\nEquivalent or second! which compelled
\nMe thus, though importune perhaps, to come
\nAnd gaze, and worship thee of right declared
\nSovran of creatures, universal Dame!
\nSo talked the spirited sly Snake; and Eve,
\nYet more amazed, unwary thus replied.
\nSerpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt
\nThe virtue of that fruit, in thee first proved:
\nBut say, where grows the tree? from hence how far?
\nFor many are the trees of God that grow
\nIn Paradise, and various, yet unknown
\nTo us; in such abundance lies our choice,
\nAs leaves a greater store of fruit untouched,
\nStill hanging incorruptible, till men
\nGrow up to their provision, and more hands
\nHelp to disburden Nature of her birth.
\nTo whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad.
\nEmpress, the way is ready, and not long;
\nBeyond a row of myrtles, on a flat,
\nFast by a fountain, one small thicket past
\nOf blowing myrrh and balm: if thou accept
\nMy conduct, I can bring thee thither soon
\nLead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled
\nIn tangles, and made intricate seem straight,
\nTo mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy
\nBrightens his crest; as when a wandering fire,
\nCompact of unctuous vapour, which the night
\nCondenses, and the cold environs round,
\nKindled through agitation to a flame,
\nWhich oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,
\nHovering and blazing with delusive light,
\nMisleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way
\nTo bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;
\nThere swallowed up and lost, from succour far.
\nSo glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud
\nLed Eve, our credulous mother, to the tree
\nOf prohibition, root of all our woe;
\nWhich when she saw, thus to her guide she spake.
\nSerpent, we might have spared our coming hither,
\nFruitless to me, though fruit be here to excess,
\nThe credit of whose virtue rest with thee;
\nWonderous indeed, if cause of such effects.
\nBut of this tree we may not taste nor touch;
\nGod so commanded, and left that command
\nSole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live
\nLaw to ourselves; our reason is our law.
\nTo whom the Tempter guilefully replied.
\nIndeed! hath God then said that of the fruit
\nOf all these garden-trees ye shall not eat,
\nYet Lords declared of all in earth or air?
\nTo whom thus Eve, yet sinless. Of the fruit
\nOf each tree in the garden we may eat;
\nBut of the fruit of this fair tree amidst
\nThe garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat
\nThereof, nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
\nShe scarce had said, though brief, when now more bold
\nThe Tempter, but with show of zeal and love
\nTo Man, and indignation at his wrong,
\nNew part puts on; and, as to passion moved,
\nFluctuates disturbed, yet comely and in act
\nRaised, as of some great matter to begin.
\nAs when of old some orator renowned,
\nIn Athens or free Rome, where eloquence
\nFlourished, since mute! to some great cause addressed,
\nStood in himself collected; while each part,
\nMotion, each act, won audience ere the tongue;
\nSometimes in highth began, as no delay
\nOf preface brooking, through his zeal of right:
\nSo standing, moving, or to highth up grown,
\nThe Tempter, all impassioned, thus began.
\nO sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant,
\nMother of science! now I feel thy power
\nWithin me clear; not only to discern
\nThings in their causes, but to trace the ways
\nOf highest agents, deemed however wise.
\nQueen of this universe! do not believe
\nThose rigid threats of death: ye shall not die:
\nHow should you? by the fruit? it gives you life
\nTo knowledge; by the threatener? look on me,
\nMe, who have touched and tasted; yet both live,
\nAnd life more perfect have attained than Fate
\nMeant me, by venturing higher than my lot.
\nShall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast
\nIs open? or will God incense his ire
\nFor such a petty trespass? and not praise
\nRather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain
\nOf death denounced, whatever thing death be,
\nDeterred not from achieving what might lead
\nTo happier life, knowledge of good and evil;
\nOf good, how just? of evil, if what is evil
\nBe real, why not known, since easier shunned?
\nGod therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;
\nNot just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed:
\nYour fear itself of death removes the fear.
\nWhy then was this forbid? Why, but to awe;
\nWhy, but to keep ye low and ignorant,
\nHis worshippers? He knows that in the day
\nYe eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,
\nYet are but dim, shall perfectly be then
\nOpened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods,
\nKnowing both good and evil, as they know.
\nThat ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man,
\nInternal Man, is but proportion meet;
\nI, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.
\nSo ye shall die perhaps, by putting off
\nHuman, to put on Gods; death to be wished,
\nThough threatened, which no worse than this can bring.
\nAnd what are Gods, that Man may not become
\nAs they, participating God-like food?
\nThe Gods are first, and that advantage use
\nOn our belief, that all from them proceeds:
\nI question it; for this fair earth I see,
\nWarmed by the sun, producing every kind;
\nThem, nothing: if they all things, who enclosed
\nKnowledge of good and evil in this tree,
\nThat whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains
\nWisdom without their leave? and wherein lies
\nThe offence, that Man should thus attain to know?
\nWhat can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree
\nImpart against his will, if all be his?
\nOr is it envy? and can envy dwell
\nIn heavenly breasts? These, these, and many more
\nCauses import your need of this fair fruit.
\nGoddess humane, reach then, and freely taste!
\nHe ended; and his words, replete with guile,
\nInto her heart too easy entrance won:
\nFixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold
\nMight tempt alone; and in her ears the sound
\nYet rung of his persuasive words, impregned
\nWith reason, to her seeming, and with truth:
\nMean while the hour of noon drew on, and waked
\nAn eager appetite, raised by the smell
\nSo savoury of that fruit, which with desire,
\nInclinable now grown to touch or taste,
\nSolicited her longing eye; yet first
\nPausing a while, thus to herself she mused.
\nGreat are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,
\nThough kept from man, and worthy to be admired;
\nWhose taste, too long forborn, at first assay
\nGave elocution to the mute, and taught
\nThe tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise:
\nThy praise he also, who forbids thy use,
\nConceals not from us, naming thee the tree
\nOf knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
\nForbids us then to taste! but his forbidding
\nCommends thee more, while it infers the good
\nBy thee communicated, and our want:
\nFor good unknown sure is not had; or, had
\nAnd yet unknown, is as not had at all.
\nIn plain then, what forbids he but to know,
\nForbids us good, forbids us to be wise?
\nSuch prohibitions bind not. But, if death
\nBind us with after-bands, what profits then
\nOur inward freedom? In the day we eat
\nOf this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die!
\nHow dies the Serpent? he hath eaten and lives,
\nAnd knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,
\nIrrational till then. For us alone
\nWas death invented? or to us denied
\nThis intellectual food, for beasts reserved?
\nFor beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first
\nHath tasted envies not, but brings with joy
\nThe good befallen him, author unsuspect,
\nFriendly to man, far from deceit or guile.
\nWhat fear I then? rather, what know to fear
\nUnder this ignorance of good and evil,
\nOf God or death, of law or penalty?
\nHere grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,
\nFair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
\nOf virtue to make wise: What hinders then
\nTo reach, and feed at once both body and mind?
\nSo saying, her rash hand in evil hour
\nForth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat!
\nEarth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
\nSighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
\nThat all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk
\nThe guilty Serpent; and well might; for Eve,
\nIntent now wholly on her taste, nought else
\nRegarded; such delight till then, as seemed,
\nIn fruit she never tasted, whether true
\nOr fancied so, through expectation high
\nOf knowledge; not was Godhead from her thought.
\nGreedily she ingorged without restraint,
\nAnd knew not eating death: Satiate at length,
\nAnd hightened as with wine, jocund and boon,
\nThus to herself she pleasingly began.
\nO sovran, virtuous, precious of all trees
\nIn Paradise! of operation blest
\nTo sapience, hitherto obscured, infamed.
\nAnd thy fair fruit let hang, as to no end
\nCreated; but henceforth my early care,
\nNot without song, each morning, and due praise,
\nShall tend thee, and the fertile burden ease
\nOf thy full branches offered free to all;
\nTill, dieted by thee, I grow mature
\nIn knowledge, as the Gods, who all things know;
\nThough others envy what they cannot give:
\nFor, had the gift been theirs, it had not here
\nThus grown. Experience, next, to thee I owe,
\nBest guide; not following thee, I had remained
\nIn ignorance; thou openest wisdom’s way,
\nAnd givest access, though secret she retire.
\nAnd I perhaps am secret: Heaven is high,
\nHigh, and remote to see from thence distinct
\nEach thing on Earth; and other care perhaps
\nMay have diverted from continual watch
\nOur great Forbidder, safe with all his spies
\nAbout him. But to Adam in what sort
\nShall I appear? shall I to him make known
\nAs yet my change, and give him to partake
\nFull happiness with me, or rather not,
\nBut keeps the odds of knowledge in my power
\nWithout copartner? so to add what wants
\nIn female sex, the more to draw his love,
\nAnd render me more equal; and perhaps,
\nA thing not undesirable, sometime
\nSuperiour; for, inferiour, who is free
\nThis may be well: But what if God have seen,
\nAnd death ensue? then I shall be no more!
\nAnd Adam, wedded to another Eve,
\nShall live with her enjoying, I extinct;
\nA death to think! Confirmed then I resolve,
\nAdam shall share with me in bliss or woe:
\nSo dear I love him, that with him all deaths
\nI could endure, without him live no life.
\nSo saying, from the tree her step she turned;
\nBut first low reverence done, as to the Power
\nThat dwelt within, whose presence had infused
\nInto the plant sciential sap, derived
\nFrom nectar, drink of Gods. Adam the while,
\nWaiting desirous her return, had wove
\nOf choicest flowers a garland, to adorn
\nHer tresses, and her rural labours crown;
\nAs reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen.
\nGreat joy he promised to his thoughts, and new
\nSolace in her return, so long delayed:
\nYet oft his heart, divine of something ill,
\nMisgave him; he the faltering measure felt;
\nAnd forth to meet her went, the way she took
\nThat morn when first they parted: by the tree
\nOf knowledge he must pass; there he her met,
\nScarce from the tree returning; in her hand
\nA bough of fairest fruit, that downy smiled,
\nNew gathered, and ambrosial smell diffused.
\nTo him she hasted; in her face excuse
\nCame prologue, and apology too prompt;
\nWhich, with bland words at will, she thus addressed.
\nHast thou not wondered, Adam, at my stay?
\nThee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived
\nThy presence; agony of love till now
\nNot felt, nor shall be twice; for never more
\nMean I to try, what rash untried I sought,
\nThe pain of absence from thy sight. But strange
\nHath been the cause, and wonderful to hear:
\nThis tree is not, as we are told, a tree
\nOf danger tasted, nor to evil unknown
\nOpening the way, but of divine effect
\nTo open eyes, and make them Gods who taste;
\nAnd hath been tasted such: The serpent wise,
\nOr not restrained as we, or not obeying,
\nHath eaten of the fruit; and is become,
\nNot dead, as we are threatened, but thenceforth
\nEndued with human voice and human sense,
\nReasoning to admiration; and with me
\nPersuasively hath so prevailed, that I
\nHave also tasted, and have also found
\nThe effects to correspond; opener mine eyes,
\nDim erst, dilated spirits, ampler heart,
\nAnd growing up to Godhead; which for thee
\nChiefly I sought, without thee can despise.
\nFor bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss;
\nTedious, unshared with thee, and odious soon.
\nThou therefore also taste, that equal lot
\nMay join us, equal joy, as equal love;
\nLest, thou not tasting, different degree
\nDisjoin us, and I then too late renounce
\nDeity for thee, when Fate will not permit.
\nThus Eve with countenance blithe her story told;
\nBut in her cheek distemper flushing glowed.
\nOn the other side Adam, soon as he heard
\nThe fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,
\nAstonied stood and blank, while horrour chill
\nRan through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;
\nFrom his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve
\nDown dropt, and all the faded roses shed:
\nSpeechless he stood and pale, till thus at length
\nFirst to himself he inward silence broke.
\nO fairest of Creation, last and best
\nOf all God’s works, Creature in whom excelled
\nWhatever can to sight or thought be formed,
\nHoly, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
\nHow art thou lost! how on a sudden lost,
\nDefaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!
\nRather, how hast thou yielded to transgress
\nThe strict forbiddance, how to violate
\nThe sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud
\nOf enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
\nAnd me with thee hath ruined; for with thee
\nCertain my resolution is to die:
\nHow can I live without thee! how forego
\nThy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
\nTo live again in these wild woods forlorn!
\nShould God create another Eve, and I
\nAnother rib afford, yet loss of thee
\nWould never from my heart: no, no! I feel
\nThe link of Nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
\nBone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
\nMine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
\nSo having said, as one from sad dismay
\nRecomforted, and after thoughts disturbed
\nSubmitting to what seemed remediless,
\nThus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned.
\nBold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve,
\nAnd peril great provoked, who thus hast dared,
\nHad it been only coveting to eye
\nThat sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,
\nMuch more to taste it under ban to touch.
\nBut past who can recall, or done undo?
\nNot God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so
\nPerhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact
\nIs not so heinous now, foretasted fruit,
\nProfaned first by the serpent, by him first
\nMade common, and unhallowed, ere our taste;
\nNor yet on him found deadly; yet he lives;
\nLives, as thou saidst, and gains to live, as Man,
\nHigher degree of life; inducement strong
\nTo us, as likely tasting to attain
\nProportional ascent; which cannot be
\nBut to be Gods, or Angels, demi-Gods.
\nNor can I think that God, Creator wise,
\nThough threatening, will in earnest so destroy
\nUs his prime creatures, dignified so high,
\nSet over all his works; which in our fall,
\nFor us created, needs with us must fail,
\nDependant made; so God shall uncreate,
\nBe frustrate, do, undo, and labour lose;
\nNot well conceived of God, who, though his power
\nCreation could repeat, yet would be loth
\nUs to abolish, lest the Adversary
\nTriumph, and say; “Fickle their state whom God
\nMost favours; who can please him long? Me first
\nHe ruined, now Mankind; whom will he next?”
\nMatter of scorn, not to be given the Foe.
\nHowever I with thee have fixed my lot,
\nCertain to undergo like doom: If death
\nConsort with thee, death is to me as life;
\nSo forcible within my heart I feel
\nThe bond of Nature draw me to my own;
\nMy own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
\nOur state cannot be severed; we are one,
\nOne flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
\nSo Adam; and thus Eve to him replied.
\nO glorious trial of exceeding love,
\nIllustrious evidence, example high!
\nEngaging me to emulate; but, short
\nOf thy perfection, how shall I attain,
\nAdam, from whose dear side I boast me sprung,
\nAnd gladly of our union hear thee speak,
\nOne heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof
\nThis day affords, declaring thee resolved,
\nRather than death, or aught than death more dread,
\nShall separate us, linked in love so dear,
\nTo undergo with me one guilt, one crime,
\nIf any be, of tasting this fair fruit;
\nWhose virtue for of good still good proceeds,
\nDirect, or by occasion, hath presented
\nThis happy trial of thy love, which else
\nSo eminently never had been known?
\nWere it I thought death menaced would ensue
\nThis my attempt, I would sustain alone
\nThe worst, and not persuade thee, rather die
\nDeserted, than oblige thee with a fact
\nPernicious to thy peace; chiefly assured
\nRemarkably so late of thy so true,
\nSo faithful, love unequalled: but I feel
\nFar otherwise the event; not death, but life
\nAugmented, opened eyes, new hopes, new joys,
\nTaste so divine, that what of sweet before
\nHath touched my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh.
\nOn my experience, Adam, freely taste,
\nAnd fear of death deliver to the winds.
\nSo saying, she embraced him, and for joy
\nTenderly wept; much won, that he his love
\nHad so ennobled, as of choice to incur
\nDivine displeasure for her sake, or death.
\nIn recompence (for such compliance bad
\nSuch recompence best merits) from the bough
\nShe gave him of that fair enticing fruit
\nWith liberal hand: he scrupled not to eat,
\nAgainst his better knowledge; not deceived,
\nBut fondly overcome with female charm.
\nEarth trembled from her entrails, as again
\nIn pangs; and Nature gave a second groan;
\nSky loured; and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
\nWept at completing of the mortal sin
\nOriginal: while Adam took no thought,
\nEating his fill; nor Eve to iterate
\nHer former trespass feared, the more to sooth
\nHim with her loved society; that now,
\nAs with new wine intoxicated both,
\nThey swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel
\nDivinity within them breeding wings,
\nWherewith to scorn the earth: But that false fruit
\nFar other operation first displayed,
\nCarnal desire inflaming; he on Eve
\nBegan to cast lascivious eyes; she him
\nAs wantonly repaid; in lust they burn:
\nTill Adam thus ‘gan Eve to dalliance move.
\nEve, now I see thou art exact of taste,
\nAnd elegant, of sapience no small part;
\nSince to each meaning savour we apply,
\nAnd palate call judicious; I the praise
\nYield thee, so well this day thou hast purveyed.
\nMuch pleasure we have lost, while we abstained
\nFrom this delightful fruit, nor known till now
\nTrue relish, tasting; if such pleasure be
\nIn things to us forbidden, it might be wished,
\nFor this one tree had been forbidden ten.
\nBut come, so well refreshed, now let us play,
\nAs meet is, after such delicious fare;
\nFor never did thy beauty, since the day
\nI saw thee first and wedded thee, adorned
\nWith all perfections, so inflame my sense
\nWith ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now
\nThan ever; bounty of this virtuous tree!
\nSo said he, and forbore not glance or toy
\nOf amorous intent; well understood
\nOf Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire.
\nHer hand he seised; and to a shady bank,
\nThick over-head with verdant roof imbowered,
\nHe led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch,
\nPansies, and violets, and asphodel,
\nAnd hyacinth; Earth’s freshest softest lap.
\nThere they their fill of love and love’s disport
\nTook largely, of their mutual guilt the seal,
\nThe solace of their sin; till dewy sleep
\nOppressed them, wearied with their amorous play,
\nSoon as the force of that fallacious fruit,
\nThat with exhilarating vapour bland
\nAbout their spirits had played, and inmost powers
\nMade err, was now exhaled; and grosser sleep,
\nBred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams
\nIncumbered, now had left them; up they rose
\nAs from unrest; and, each the other viewing,
\nSoon found their eyes how opened, and their minds
\nHow darkened; innocence, that as a veil
\nHad shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone;
\nJust confidence, and native righteousness,
\nAnd honour, from about them, naked left
\nTo guilty Shame; he covered, but his robe
\nUncovered more. So rose the Danite strong,
\nHerculean Samson, from the harlot-lap
\nOf Philistean Dalilah, and waked
\nShorn of his strength. They destitute and bare
\nOf all their virtue: Silent, and in face
\nConfounded, long they sat, as strucken mute:
\nTill Adam, though not less than Eve abashed,
\nAt length gave utterance to these words constrained.
\nO Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear
\nTo that false worm, of whomsoever taught
\nTo counterfeit Man’s voice; true in our fall,
\nFalse in our promised rising; since our eyes
\nOpened we find indeed, and find we know
\nBoth good and evil; good lost, and evil got;
\nBad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know;
\nWhich leaves us naked thus, of honour void,
\nOf innocence, of faith, of purity,
\nOur wonted ornaments now soiled and stained,
\nAnd in our faces evident the signs
\nOf foul concupiscence; whence evil store;
\nEven shame, the last of evils; of the first
\nBe sure then.–How shall I behold the face
\nHenceforth of God or Angel, erst with joy
\nAnd rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shapes
\nWill dazzle now this earthly with their blaze
\nInsufferably bright. O! might I here
\nIn solitude live savage; in some glade
\nObscured, where highest woods, impenetrable
\nTo star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad
\nAnd brown as evening: Cover me, ye Pines!
\nYe Cedars, with innumerable boughs
\nHide me, where I may never see them more!–
\nBut let us now, as in bad plight, devise
\nWhat best may for the present serve to hide
\nThe parts of each from other, that seem most
\nTo shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen;
\nSome tree, whose broad smooth leaves together sewed,
\nAnd girded on our loins, may cover round
\nThose middle parts; that this new comer, Shame,
\nThere sit not, and reproach us as unclean.
\nSo counselled he, and both together went
\nInto the thickest wood; there soon they chose
\nThe fig-tree; not that kind for fruit renowned,
\nBut such as at this day, to Indians known,
\nIn Malabar or Decan spreads her arms
\nBranching so broad and long, that in the ground
\nThe bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
\nAbout the mother tree, a pillared shade
\nHigh over-arched, and echoing walks between:
\nThere oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
\nShelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
\nAt loop-holes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves
\nThey gathered, broad as Amazonian targe;
\nAnd, with what skill they had, together sewed,
\nTo gird their waist; vain covering, if to hide
\nTheir guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike
\nTo that first naked glory! Such of late
\nColumbus found the American, so girt
\nWith feathered cincture; naked else, and wild
\nAmong the trees on isles and woody shores.
\nThus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part
\nCovered, but not at rest or ease of mind,
\nThey sat them down to weep; nor only tears
\nRained at their eyes, but high winds worse within
\nBegan to rise, high passions, anger, hate,
\nMistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore
\nTheir inward state of mind, calm region once
\nAnd full of peace, now tost and turbulent:
\nFor Understanding ruled not, and the Will
\nHeard not her lore; both in subjection now
\nTo sensual Appetite, who from beneath
\nUsurping over sovran Reason claimed
\nSuperiour sway: From thus distempered breast,
\nAdam, estranged in look and altered style,
\nSpeech intermitted thus to Eve renewed.
\nWould thou hadst hearkened to my words, and staid
\nWith me, as I besought thee, when that strange
\nDesire of wandering, this unhappy morn,
\nI know not whence possessed thee; we had then
\nRemained still happy; not, as now, despoiled
\nOf all our good; shamed, naked, miserable!
\nLet none henceforth seek needless cause to approve
\nThe faith they owe; when earnestly they seek
\nSuch proof, conclude, they then begin to fail.
\nTo whom, soon moved with touch of blame, thus Eve.
\nWhat words have passed thy lips, Adam severe!
\nImputest thou that to my default, or will
\nOf wandering, as thou callest it, which who knows
\nBut might as ill have happened thou being by,
\nOr to thyself perhaps? Hadst thou been there,
\nOr here the attempt, thou couldst not have discerned
\nFraud in the Serpent, speaking as he spake;
\nNo ground of enmity between us known,
\nWhy he should mean me ill, or seek to harm.
\nWas I to have never parted from thy side?
\nAs good have grown there still a lifeless rib.
\nBeing as I am, why didst not thou, the head,
\nCommand me absolutely not to go,
\nGoing into such danger, as thou saidst?
\nToo facile then, thou didst not much gainsay;
\nNay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss.
\nHadst thou been firm and fixed in thy dissent,
\nNeither had I transgressed, nor thou with me.
\nTo whom, then first incensed, Adam replied.
\nIs this the love, is this the recompence
\nOf mine to thee, ingrateful Eve! expressed
\nImmutable, when thou wert lost, not I;
\nWho might have lived, and joyed immortal bliss,
\nYet willingly chose rather death with thee?
\nAnd am I now upbraided as the cause
\nOf thy transgressing? Not enough severe,
\nIt seems, in thy restraint: What could I more
\nI warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold
\nThe danger, and the lurking enemy
\nThat lay in wait; beyond this, had been force;
\nAnd force upon free will hath here no place.
\nBut confidence then bore thee on; secure
\nEither to meet no danger, or to find
\nMatter of glorious trial; and perhaps
\nI also erred, in overmuch admiring
\nWhat seemed in thee so perfect, that I thought
\nNo evil durst attempt thee; but I rue
\nThe errour now, which is become my crime,
\nAnd thou the accuser. Thus it shall befall
\nHim, who, to worth in women overtrusting,
\nLets her will rule: restraint she will not brook;
\nAnd, left to herself, if evil thence ensue,
\nShe first his weak indulgence will accuse.
\nThus they in mutual accusation spent
\nThe fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning;
\nAnd of their vain contest appeared no end.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Public domain content<\/div>