Simplicity and spotless innocence !

So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight
Of God or angel, for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met;
Adam the goodliest man of men since born 1
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
Under a tuft of shade, that on a green
Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain-side
They sat them down; and, after no more toil
Of their sweet gardening labour then sufficed
To recommend cool zephyr, and made ease
More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite
More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell-
Nectarine fruits,2 which the compliant boughs
Yielded them, sidelong as they sat recline

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125

330

On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers.
The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,

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Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream:

Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles

Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems

Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,

Alone as they. About them frisking played

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All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
In wood or wilderness, forest or den:

Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw

Dandled the kid: bears, tigers, ounces, pards,

Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,

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To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed His lithe proboscis :3 close the serpent sly,

1 Adam the goodliest man of men since born, &c.--Strictly speaking, this would imply that Adam was one of the men born, and that Eve was one of her own daughters. This mode of expressing transcendent preeminence, though not strictly grammatical, is sanctioned by classical usage. The meaning is clear, that Adam was, beyond comparison, goodlier than any of his sons, &c.

2 Nectarine,-delicious as nectar, the fabled drink of the gods: compliant, yielding: recline, in a leaning posture: damasked, adorned with variegated flowers, like the raised patterns on silk, first wrought at Damascus. 3 Wreathed his lithe proboscis :-twisted about his limber trunk.

Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine1

His braided train, and of his fatal guile

Gave proof unheeded: others on the grass

Couched,2 and, now filled with pasture, gazing sat,
Or bedward ruminating;3 for the Sun,
Declined, was hasting now with prone career

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To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale

355

Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:
When Satan, still in gaze, as first he stood,
Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad :
"O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold?
"Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
"Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,
"Not spirits; yet to heavenly spirits bright
"Little inferior;4 whom my thoughts pursue
"With wonder, and could love; so lively shines
"In them divine resemblance, and such grace
"The hand that formed them on their shape hath
poured!

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365

"Ah, gentle pair! ye little think how nigh

"Your change approaches, when all these delights "Will vanish, and deliver ye to woe ;

"More woe, the more your taste is now of joy!

66 Happy, but for so happy ill secured

Long to continue; and this high seat, your Heaven, "Ill fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe

"As now is entered! yet no purposed foe

"To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,

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1 Gordian twine,- or twist, alluding to the famous Gordian knot, by which Gordius, a king of Phrygia, is said to have tied the yoke of his chariot to the draught tree, in so artful a manner that the ends of the cord could not be perceived. An oracle had declared that whoever should untie the Gordian knot should rule over all Asia. Alexander the Great, on his arrival at Gordium, cut the knot with his sword, and applied the oracle to himself: braided train, twisted, and plaited tail.

2 Couched, This word is artfully placed so as to require the voice to rest on it in reading. It is the more expressive as it is not usual to make a pause on the first syllable of a line.

3 Bedward ruminating;-chewing the cnd preparatory to going to rest. To heavenly spirits bright little inferior;-See Ps. viii. 5; Heb. ii. 7.

66 Though I unpitied. League with you I seek,
"And mutual amity, so strait, so close,
"That I with you must dwell, or you with me,
"Henceforth: my dwelling haply may not please,
"Like this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such
"Accept, your Maker's work; he gave it me,
"Which I as freely give: Hell shall unfold,1
"To entertain you two, her widest gates,

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"And send forth all her kings: there will be room,

"Not like these narrow limits, to receive

"Your numerous offspring; if no better place,

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"Thank him who puts me loth to this revenge

"On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged. "And should I at your harmless innocence

"Honour and empire, with revenge, enlarged,"

66 Melt, as I do, yet public reason just,

66

By conquering this new world, compels me now "To do what else, though damned, I should abhor."

So spake the fiend, and with necessity,

390

The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.

Then, from his lofty stand on that high tree,
Down he alights among the sportful herd
Of those four-footed kinds-himself now one,
Now other, as their shape served best his end-
Nearer to view his prey, and, unespied,

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To mark what of their state he more might learn,

400

By word or action marked: about them round,

A lion now, he stalks with fiery glare;
Then, as a tiger, who by chance hath spied
In some purlieu3 two gentle fawns at play,

1 Hell shall unfold,-Comp. Isa. xiv. 9.

2 Honour and empire with revenge enlarged,―This line expresses the "public reason just," mentioned in the last.

3 In some purlieu,-a term denoting a portion of land that had once been royal forest, but now exempt from the strictness of the forest laws, so that deer coming out of the forest into the purlieus, might be lawfully killed. By using this term, in accordance with the rest of the figure, Milton paints in few touches the defenceless condition of Adam and Eve, as now discovered by the tempter.

405

Straight couches close; then, rising, changes oft
His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground,
Whence rushing he might surest seize them both,
Griped in each paw: when Adam, first of men,
To first of women, Eve, thus moving speech,
Turned him, all ear,1 to hear new utterance flow:
"Sole partner, and sole part, of all these joys,
"Dearer thyself than all! needs must the Power
"That made us, and for us this ample world,
"Be infinitely good, and of his good

"As liberal and free as infinite;

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415

"That raised us from the dust, and placed us here "In all this happiness, who at his hand

"Have nothing merited, nor can perform

66 Aught whereof he hath need ;3 he who requires "From us no other service than to keep

420

"This one-this easy charge: of all the trees "In Paradise that bear delicious fruit

"So various, not to taste that only Tree

"Of Knowledge, planted by the Tree of Life:

"So near grows death to life! whate'er death is;

425

"Some dreadful thing no doubt: for well thou know'st

"God hath pronounced it death to taste that tree;

"The only sign of our obedience left

"Among so many signs of power and rule

"Conferred upon us, and dominion given "Over all other creatures that possess

430

"Earth, air, and sea. Then, let us not think hard "One easy prohibition, who enjoy

"Free leave so large to all things else, and choice

1 Turned him all ear,-i. e. Adam, moving speech-the first sound of Adam's voice-turned Satan, all ear,—an orientalism for "listening with eager and silent attention."

2 Sole partner, and sole part, of all these joys,—The sense is, "among all these joys, thou alone art my partner; thou alone art part of me.' ." See also

1. 487.

3 Nor can perform aught whereof he hath need;-See Acts xvii. 25.

4 This one, this easy charge:-Adam is very naturally represented as speaking of this matter: and there was nothing that Satan would have been more glad to hear from him. See Gen. i. 29; ii. 16. 17.

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"Unlimited of manifold delights:

"But let us ever praise him, and extol

"His bounty, following our delightful task

"To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers; "Which, were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet."

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450

To whom thus Eve replied: "O thou, for whom, 440 “And from whom I was formed, flesh of thy flesh; "And without whom am to no end; my guide "And head! what thou hast said is just and right. "For we to him indeed all praises owe, "And daily thanks: I chiefly, who enjoy "So far the happier lot, enjoying thee, "Pre-eminent by so much odds, while thou "Like consort to thyself canst no where find. "That day I oft remember, when from sleep "I first awaked,1 and found myself reposed, "Under a shade, on flowers; much wondering where "And what I was, whence thither brought, and how. "Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound "Of waters issued from a cave, and spread "Into a liquid plain; then stood unmoved, "Pure as the expanse of Heaven: I thither went "With unexperienced thought, and laid me down "On the green bank, to look into the clear "Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky. "As I bent down to look, just opposite

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"A shape within the watery gleam appeared,

"Bending to look on me: I started back:

"It started back: but pleased I soon returned:

"Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks

"Of sympathy and love: there I had fixed

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"Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,

"Had not a voice thus warned me: What thou seest, "What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;

"With thee it came and goes: but follow me,

1 I first awaked,-as death is compared to "sleep," so Eve's being first roused to conscious individual life, is beautifully expressed by "awakening." Adam uses the same figurative language, viii. 253.