Free in thine own arbitrement it lies. So saying, he arose, whom Adam thus So parted they: the Angel up to Heaven From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower. BOOK IX. SATAN, having compassed the earth, with meditated guile returns, as a mist, by night, into Paradise; enters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labors, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each laboring apart: Adam consents not, alleging the danger lest that enemy of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her, found alone: Eve, loth to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength; Adam at last yields; the serpent finds her alone; his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking; with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech, and such understanding, not till now the serpent answers that, by tasting of a certain tree in the garden, he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the Tree of Knowledge, forbidden the serpent, now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat; she, pleased with the taste, deliberates awhile whether to impart thereof to Adam or not; at last brings him of the fruit: relates what persuaded her to cat thereof Adam, at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves, through vehemence of love, to perish with her; and, extenuating the trespass, eats also of the fruit: the effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness: then fall to variance and accusation of one another. N° more of talk where God, or Angel guest, With Man, as with his friend, familiar used To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast; permitting him the while Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change And disobedience; on the part of Heaven, Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, Of my celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplored, And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse, Since first this subject for heroic song Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late. Not sedulous by nature to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deemed, chief mastery to dissect, That name, unless an age too late, or cold The sun was sunk, and after him the star 'Twixt day and night; and now, from end to end, Night's hemisphere had veiled the horizon round, When Satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improved In meditated fraud and malice, bent On Man's destruction, maugre what may hap Of heavier on himself, fearless returned. By night he fled, and at midnight returned His entrance, and forewarned the cherubim That kept their watch. Thence, full of anguish, driven, He circled, four times crossed the car of Night On the eighth returned, and, on the coast averse Found unsuspected way. There was a place, Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life: In with the river sunk, and with it rose, Satan, involved in rising mist, then sought Where to lie hid. Sea he had searched, and land Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob; At Darien, thence to the land where flows Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose. Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide Proceeding, which, in other beasts observed, Active within, beyond the sense of brute. O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred Is center, yet extends to all; so thou, Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man. With what delight could I have walked thee round, If I could joy in aught! Sweet interchange Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now sea, and Rocks, dens, and caves! shores with forest crowned, But I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I see Of contraries. All good to me becomes Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state. But neither here seek I, no, nor in Heaven, To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven's Supreme. Nor hope to be myself less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such As I, though thereby worse to me redound. For only in destroying I find ease |