Me, who have touch'd and tasted; yet both live, And life more perfect have attain'd than Fate Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot. 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 denounc'd, whatever thing death be, Deterr'd 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 shunn'd? God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; Not just, not God; not fear'd then, nor obey'd: 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 worshippers? He knows that in the day Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear, Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then Open'd and clear'd, and ye shall be as gods, Knowing both good and evil, as they know. That ye shall be as gods, since I as Man, Internal man, is but proportion meet; I, of brute, human; ye, of human, gods. So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off Human, to put on gods; death to be wish'd, Though threaten'd, which no worse than this can bring And what are gods, that man may not become
As they, participating God-like 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, Warm'd by the Sun, producing every kind; Them, nothing: if they all things, who enclos d 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 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: Fix'd on the fruit she gaz'd, which to behold Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregn'd With reason, to her seeming, and with truth: Mean while the hour of noon drew on, and wak'd An eager appetite, rais'd by the smell
So savoury of that fruit, which with desire,
Inclinable now grown to touch or taste, Solicited her longing eye; yet first
Pausing a while, thus to herself she mus'd.
Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,
Though kept from man, and worthy to be admir'd; Whose taste, too long, forborn, at first assay
Gave elocution to the mute, and taught
The tongue not made for speech, to speak thy praise: 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 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 reserv'd?
For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy 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,
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