Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (59 page)

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 rustling leaves, but minded not, as used

To such disport before her through the field,

From every beast, more duteous at her call,

Than at
⁵²²
Circean call the herd disguised.

He bolder now, uncalled before her stood;

But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed

His turret
⁵²⁵
crest, and sleek enamelled neck,

Fawning, and
⁵²⁶
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
⁵²⁹
serpent tongue

Organic, or impulse of vocal air,

His fraudulent temptation thus began.

“He bolder now, uncalled before her stood” (9.523).
(illustration credit 9.1)

   “Wonder not
⁵³²
, sovereign mistress, if perhaps

Thou canst, who art sole wonder, much less arm

Thy looks, the heav’n 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
⁵⁴⁴

Half what in thee is fair, one man except,

Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who shouldst be seen

A goddess among gods, adored and served

By angels numberless, thy daily train.”

   So glozed
⁵⁴⁹
the Tempter, and his proem tuned;

Into the heart of Eve his words made way,

Though at the voice much marveling; 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
⁵⁵⁸
, 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 cam’st thou speakable
⁵⁶³
of mute, and how

To me so friendly grown above the rest

565
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 command’st, and right thou shouldst be obeyed:

I was at
⁵⁷¹
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 colors mixed,

Ruddy and gold: I nearer drew to gaze;

When from the boughs a savory odor blown,

Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense

Than smell of sweetest fennel
⁵⁸¹
or the teats

Of ewe or goat dropping with milk at ev’n,

Unsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their play.

To satisfy the sharp desire I had

Of tasting those fair apples
⁵⁸⁵
, I resolved

Not to defer
⁵⁸⁶
; 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

595
Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill

I spared not,
⁵⁹⁶
for such pleasure till that hour

At feed or fountain never had I found.

Sated at length,
⁵⁹⁸
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 heav’n,

Or Earth, or middle
⁶⁰⁵
, all things fair and good;

But
⁶⁰⁶
all that fair and good in thy divine

Semblance, and in thy beauty’s heav’nly 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

Sov’reign of creatures, universal dame.”

   So talked the spirited sly snake
⁶¹³
; and Eve

Yet more amazed unwary thus replied.

   “Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt

The virtue
⁶¹⁶
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
⁶²³
, 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
⁶²⁹
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 wand’ring fire
⁶³⁴
,

Compact of
⁶³⁵
unctuous vapor, which the night

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 th’ amazed
⁶⁴⁰
night-wanderer from his way

To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool
⁶⁴¹
,

There swallowed up and lost, from succor far.

So glistered the dire snake, and into fraud

Led Eve
⁶⁴⁴
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
⁶⁴⁸
to me, though fruit be here to excess,

The credit of whose virtue rest with thee,

Wondrous 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

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
⁶⁶⁸
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
⁶⁷²
, to some great cause addressed,

Stood in himself collected, while each part,

Motion
⁶⁷⁴
, 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 upgrown

The Tempter all impassioned thus began.

   “O sacred, wise,
⁶⁷⁹
and wisdom-giving plant,

Mother of science
⁶⁸⁰
, 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 ye? By the fruit? It gives you life

To knowledge. By the threat’ner? Look on me,

Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live,

life more perfect have attained than fate

Meant me, by vent’ring 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 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
⁶⁹⁸
, 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 worshipers; 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
⁷¹⁰
should 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
⁷¹⁷
godlike food?

The gods are first, and that advantage use

On our belief, that all from them proceeds;

I question
⁷²⁰
it, for this fair Earth I see,

Warmed by the sun, producing every kind,

Them nothing: if they all things
⁷²²
, who enclosed

Knowledge of good and evil in this Tree,

That whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains

Wisdom without their leave? And wherein lies

Th’ offense, 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 Heav’nly breasts? These, these and many more

Causes import your need of this fair fruit.

Goddess humane
⁷³²
, reach then, and freely taste.”

   He ended, and his words replete with guile

Into her heart too easy entrance won:

Fixed on
⁷³⁵
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 savory 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 mused
⁷⁴⁴
.

   “Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,

Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired,