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Eve Which when she saw, thus to her guide she declares spake :

it forbidden

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'Serpent, we might have spared our coming
hither,

Fruitless to me, though fruit be here to excess,
The credit of whose virtue rest with thee-
Wondrous indeed, if cause of such effects! 650
But of this tree we may not taste or touch;
God so commanded, and left that command
Sole daughter of his voice: the rest, we live
Law to ourselves; our Reason is our Law.'

To whom the Tempter guilefully replied:-
'Indeed! Hath God then said that of the fruit
Of all these garden-trees ye shall not eat,
Yet lords declared of all in Earth or Air?'

660

To whom thus Eve, yet sinless :-' Of the fruit
Of each tree in the garden we may eat;
But of the fruit of this fair tree, amidst
The Garden, God hath said, "Ye shall not eat
Thereof, nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die.'
She scarce had said, though brief, when now
more bold

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The Tempter, but with show of zeal and love
To Man, and indignation at his wrong,
New parts put on, and, as to passion moved,
Fluctuates disturbed, yet comely, and in act
Raised, as of some great matter to begin.
As when of old some orator renowned
In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence
Flourished, since mute, to some great cause ad-
dressed,

670

Stood in himself collected, while each part,
Motion, each act, won audience ere the tongue
Sometimes in highth began, as no delay

Of preface brooking through his zeal of right:
So standing, moving, or to highth upgrown,
The Tempter, all impassioned, thus began

680

'O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant,
Mother of science! now I feel thy power
Within me clear, not only to discern
Things in their causes, but to trace the ways
Of highest agents, deemed however wise.
Queen of this Universe! do not believe
Those rigid threats of death. Ye shall not die.
How should ye? By the fruit? it gives you life
To knowledge. By the Threatener? look on

me,

Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live,
And life more perfect have attained than Fate
Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot. 690
Shall that be shut to Man which to the Beast
Is open? or will God incense his ire
For such a petty trespass, and not praise
Rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain
Of death denounced, whatever thing Death be,
Deterred not from achieving what might lead
To happier life, knowledge of Good and Evil?
Of good, how just! of evil-if what is evil
Be real, why not known, since easier shunned?
God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;
Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed;
Your fear itself of death removes the fear.
Why, then, was this forbid? Why but to awe,
Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,
His worshipers? He knows that in the day
Ye eat thereof your eyes, that seem so clear,
Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then
Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods,

700

Satan praises the virtue of the fruit

'Ye will Knowing both good and evil, as they know. be as That ye should be as Gods, since I as Man, 710 Internal Man, is but proportion meet

Gods'

I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.

So ye

shall die perhaps, by putting off Human, to put on Gods death to be wished, Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring!

720

And what are Gods, that Man may not become
As they, participating godlike food?
The Gods are first, and that advantage use
On our belief, that all from them proceeds.
I question it; for this fair Earth I see,
Warmed by the Sun, producing every kind;
Them nothing. If they all things, who enclosed
Knowledge of good and evil in this tree,
That whoso eats thereof forthwith attains
Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies
The offence, that Man should thus attain to
know?

What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree
Impart against his will, if all be his?
Or is it envy? and can envy dwell

In heavenly breasts? These, these and many

more

730

Causes import your need of this fair fruit.
Goddess humane, reach, then, and freely taste!'
He ended; and his words, replete with guile,
Into her heart too easy entrance won.

Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold
Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound
Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned
With reason, to her seeming, and with truth.
Meanwhile the hour of noon drew on, and waked

740 Eve dallie

An eager appetite, raised by the smell
So
of that fruit, which with desire,
savoury
Inclinable now grown to touch or taste,
Solicited her longing eye; yet first,
Pausing a while, thus to herself she mused :—
'Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,
Though kept from Man, and worthy to be ad-
mired,

Whose taste, too long forborne, at first assay
Gave elocution to the mute, and taught
The tongue not made for speech to speak thy
praise.

750

Thy praise he also who forbids thy use
Conceals not from us, naming thee the Tree
Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
Forbids us then to taste. But his forbidding
Commends thee more, while it infers the good
By thee communicated, and our want;
For good unknown sure is not had, or, had
And yet unknown, is as not had at all.
In plain, then, what forbids he but to know?
Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise!
Such prohibitions bind not. But, if Death 760
Bind us with after-bands, what profits then
Our inward freedom? In the day we eat
Of this fair fruit, our doom is we shall die'
How dies the Serpent? He hath eaten, and
lives,

And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,
Irrational till then. For us alone

Was death invented? or to us denied

This intellectual food, for beasts reserved ?
For beasts it seems; yet that one beast which
first

with

temptation

She eats Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy 770
The good befallen him, author unsuspect,
Friendly to Man, far from deceit or guile.
What fear I, then rather, what know to fear
Under this ignorance of good and evil,
Of God or Death, of law or penalty?
Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wise.

What hinders, then,

To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?'
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour 780
Forth-reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk
The guilty Serpent, and well might, for Eve,
Intent now only on her taste, naught else
Regarded; such delight till then, as seemed,
In fruit she never tasted, whether true,
Or fancied so through expectation high
Of knowledge; nor was Godhead from her
thought.

790

Greedily she ingorged without restraint,
And knew not eating death. Satiate at length,
And hightened as with wine, jocund and boon,
Thus to herself she pleasingly began

:

'O sovran, virtuous, precious of all trees

In Paradise! of operation blest
To sapience, hitherto obscured, infamed,
And thy fair fruit let hang, as to no end
Created! but henceforth my early care,
Not without song, each morning, and due praise,
Shall tend thee, and the fertile burden ease
Of thy full branches, offered free to all;

801

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