Made so adorn for thy delight the more, So awful, that with honour thou may'st love Beyond all other, think the same vouchsafed By which to heavenly love thou mayʼst ascend, To whom thus, half abash'd, Adam replied: "Neither her outside, form'd so fair, nor aught In procreation, common to all kinds (Though higher of the genial bed by far, And with mysterious reverence I deem,) So much delights me, as those graceful acts, Those thousand decencies, that daily flow From all her words and actions, mix'd with love And sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd Union of mind, or in us both one soul: Harmony to behold in wedded pair More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear. Yet these subject not: I to thee disclose Approve the best, and follow what I approve. To whom the angel, with a smile that glow'd Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue, Answer'd. "Let it suffice thee that thou know'st Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars. pure Be strong, live happy, and love; but, first of all, The weal or woe in thee is placed; beware! And all the blest: stand fast; to stand or fall So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus Thy condescension, and shall be honour'd ever From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower. THE ARGUMENT. 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 labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring 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, firet 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 eat 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. |