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; 700
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 should be as Gods, since I as man, 710
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, deaths to be wished,
Though threatened, which no worse than this
can bring!
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
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
An eager appetite, raised 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 awhile, thus to herself she mused:
Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,
Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired,
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.
Thy praise he also who forbids thy use
Conceals not from us, naming thee the Tree
Of Knowledge-knowledge both of good and
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
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 or 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, Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat; Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her
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 wholly on her taste, nought 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.
Greedily she engorged 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 801
Of thy full branches offered free to all;
Till, dieted by thee, I grow mature
In knowledge, as the Gods who all things know;
Though others envy what they cannot give,
For, had the gift been theirs, it had not here
Thus grown. Experience, next, to thee I owe,
Best guide; not following thee, I had remained
In ignorance; thou open'st Wisdom's way
And givest access, though secret she retire. 810
And I perhaps am secret; Heaven is high,
High, and remote to see from thence distinct
Each thing on earth; and other care, perhaps,
May have diverted from continual watch
Our great Forbidder, safe with all his spies
About him. But to Adam in what sort
Shall I appear? Shall I to him make known
As yet my change, and give him to partake
Full happiness with me, or rather not,
But keep the odds of knowledge in my power
Without copartner? so to add what wants 821
In female sex, the more to draw his love,
And render me more equal, and perhaps,
A thing not undesirable, sometime
Superior; for, inferior, who is free?
This may be well. But what if God have seen,
And death ensue? then I shall be no more,
And Adam, wedded to another Eve,
Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct;
A death to think! Confirmed then I resolve,
Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe; 831
So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life.”
So saying, from the tree her step she turned; But first low reverence done, as to the Power That dwelt within, whose presence had infused Into the plant sciential sap, derived From nectar, drink of Gods. Adam the while, Waiting desirous her return, had wove Of choicest flowers a garland to adorn Her tresses, and her rural labours crown, As reapers oft are wont their harvest queen. Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new Solace in her return, so long delayed. Yet oft his heart, divine of something ill, Misgave him; he the faltering measure felt; And forth to meet her went, the way she took That morn when first they parted; by the Tree Of Knowledge he must pass; there he her met, Scarce from the tree returning; in her hand 850 A bough of fairest fruit that downy smiled New gathered, and ambrosial smell diffused. To him she hasted; in her face excuse Came prologue, and apology to prompt, Which, with bland words at will, she thus addressed:
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