第 25 页

Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed

Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;

Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,

Among thick-woven arborets, and flowers

Imbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve:

Spot more delicious than those gardens feigned

Or of revived Adonis, or renowned

Alcinous, host of old Laertes’ son;

Or that, not mystick, where the sapient king

Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.

Much he the place admired, the person more.

As one who long in populous city pent,

Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,

Forth issuing on a summer’s morn, to breathe

Among the pleasant villages and farms

Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight;

The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,

Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;

If chance, with nymph-like step, fair virgin pass,

What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more;

She most, and in her look sums all delight:

Such pleasure took the Serpent to behold

This flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve

Thus early, thus alone: Her heavenly form

Angelick, but more soft, and feminine,

Her graceful innocence, her every air

Of gesture, or least action, overawed

His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved

His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:

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That space the Evil-one abstracted stood

From his own evil, and for the time remained

Stupidly good; of enmity disarmed,

Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge:

But the hot Hell that always in him burns,

Though in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight,

And tortures him now more, the more he sees

Of pleasure, not for him ordained: then soon

Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts

Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites.

Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet

Compulsion thus transported, to forget

What hither brought us! hate, not love;nor hope

Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste

Of pleasure; but all pleasure to destroy,

Save what is in destroying; other joy

To me is lost. Then, let me not let pass

Occasion which now smiles; behold alone

The woman, opportune to all attempts,

Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh,

Whose higher intellectual more I shun,

And strength, of courage haughty, and of limb

Heroick built, though of terrestrial mould;

Foe not informidable! exempt from wound,

I not; so much hath Hell debased, and pain

Enfeebled me, to what I was in Heaven.

She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods!

Not terrible, though terrour be in love

And beauty, not approached by stronger hate,

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Hate stronger, under show of love well feigned;

The way which to her ruin now I tend.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed

In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve

Addressed his way: not with indented wave,

Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear,

Circular base of rising folds, that towered

Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head

Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;

With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect

Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass

Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape

And lovely; never since of serpent-kind

Lovelier, not those that in Illyria changed,

Hermione and Cadmus, or the god

In Epidaurus; nor to which transformed

Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen;

He with Olympias; this with her who bore

Scipio, the highth of Rome. With tract oblique

At first, as one who sought access, but feared

To interrupt, side-long he works his way.

As when a ship, by skilful steersmen wrought

Nigh river’s mouth or foreland, where the wind

Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail:

So varied he, and of his tortuous train

Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,

To lure her eye; she, busied, heard the sound

Of rusling leaves, but minded not, as used

To such disport before her through the field,

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From every beast; more duteous at her call,

Than at Circean call the herd disguised.

He, bolder now, uncalled before her stood,

But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed

His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck,

Fawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod.

His gentle dumb expression turned at length

The eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad

Of her attention gained, with serpent-tongue

Organick, or impulse of vocal air,

His fraudulent temptation thus began.

Wonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhaps

Thou canst, who art sole wonder! much less arm

Thy looks, the Heaven of mildness, with disdain,

Displeased that I approach thee thus, and gaze

Insatiate; I thus single;nor have feared

Thy awful brow, more awful thus retired.

Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair,

Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine

By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore

With ravishment beheld! there best beheld,

Where universally admired; but here

In this enclosure wild, these beasts among,

Beholders rude, and shallow to discern

Half what in thee is fair, one man except,

Who sees thee? and what is one? who should be seen

A Goddess among Gods, adored and served

By Angels numberless, thy daily train.

So glozed the Tempter, and his proem tuned:

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Into the heart of Eve his words made way,

Though at the voice much marvelling; at length,

Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake.

What may this mean? language of man pronounced

By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed?

The first, at least, of these I thought denied

To beasts; whom God, on their creation-day,

Created mute to all articulate sound:

The latter I demur; for in their looks

Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears.

Thee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field

I knew, but not with human voice endued;

Redouble then this miracle, and say,

How camest thou speakable of mute, and how

To me so friendly grown above the rest

Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight?

Say, for such wonder claims attention due.

To whom the guileful Tempter thus replied.

Empress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!

Easy to me it is to tell thee all

What thou commandest; and right thou shouldst be

obeyed:

I was at first as other beasts that graze

The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low,

As was my food; nor aught but food discerned

Or sex, and apprehended nothing high:

Till, on a day roving the field, I chanced

A goodly tree far distant to behold

Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed,

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Ruddy and gold: I nearer drew to gaze;

When from the boughs a savoury odour blown,

Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense

Than smell of sweetest fennel, or the teats

Of ewe or goat dropping with milk at even,

Unsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their play.

To satisfy the sharp desire I had

Of tasting those fair apples, I resolved

Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once,

Powerful persuaders, quickened at the scent

Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen.

About the mossy trunk I wound me soon;

For, high from ground, the branches would require

Thy utmost reach or Adam’s: Round the tree

All other beasts that saw, with like desire

Longing and envying stood, but could not reach.

Amid the tree now got, where plenty hung

Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill

I spared not; for, such pleasure till that hour,

At feed or fountain, never had I found.

Sated at length, ere long I might perceive

Strange alteration in me, to degree

Of reason in my inward powers; and speech

Wanted not long; though to this shape retained.

Thenceforth to speculations high or deep

I turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind

Considered all things visible in Heaven,

Or Earth, or Middle; all things fair and good:

But all that fair and good in thy divine

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Semblance, and in thy beauty’s heavenly ray,

United I beheld; no fair to thine

Equivalent or second! which compelled

Me thus, though importune perhaps, to come

And gaze, and worship thee of right declared

Sovran of creatures, universal Dame!

So talked the spirited sly Snake; and Eve,

Yet more amazed, unwary thus replied.

Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt

The virtue of that fruit, in thee first proved:

But say, where grows the tree? from hence how far?

For many are the trees of God that grow

In Paradise, and various, yet unknown

To us; in such abundance lies our choice,

As leaves a greater store of fruit untouched,

Still hanging incorruptible, till men

Grow up to their provision, and more hands

Help to disburden Nature of her birth.

To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad.

Empress, the way is ready, and not long;

Beyond a row of myrtles, on a flat,

Fast by a fountain, one small thicket past

Of blowing myrrh and balm: if thou accept

My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon

Lead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled

In tangles, and made intricate seem straight,

To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy

Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire,

Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night

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Condenses, and the cold environs round,

Kindled through agitation to a flame,

Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,

Hovering and blazing with delusive light,

Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way

To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;

There swallowed up and lost, from succour far.

So glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud

Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the tree

Of prohibition, root of all our woe;

Which when she saw, thus to her guide she spake.

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;

Wonderous indeed, if cause of such effects.

But of this tree we may not taste nor 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$?

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 part puts 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 addressed,

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 up grown,

The Tempter, all impassioned, thus began.

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 you? 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.

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

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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 worshippers? 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,

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 wished,

Though threatened, 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,

Warmed by the sun, producing every kind;

Them, nothing: if they all things, who enclosed

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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,