~ BOOK IX ~
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
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BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
BOOK IX
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BOOK IX
BOOK IX |
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~ BOOK IX ~
- No 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
- Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach
- Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
- And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
- Now alienated, distance and distaste,
- Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,
- That brought into this world a world of woe,
- Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
- Death's harbinger: Sad talk, yet argument
- Not less but more heroic than the wrath
- Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
- Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
- Of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused;
- Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
- Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:
- If answerable style I can obtain
- 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
- With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
- In battles feigned; the better fortitude
- Of patience and heroic martyrdom
- Unsung; or to describe races and games,
- Or tilting furniture, imblazoned shields,
- Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
- Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
- At joust and tournament; then marshaled feast
- Served up in hall with sewers and seneschals;
- The skill of artifice or office mean,
- Not that which justly gives heroic name
- To person, or to poem. Me, of these
- Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument
- Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
- That name, unless an age too late, or cold
- Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
- Depressed; and much they may, if all be mine,
- Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
- The sun was sunk, and after him the star
- Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
- Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
- 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 might hap
- Of heavier on himself, fearless returned.
- By night he fled, and at midnight returned
- From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
- Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
- His entrance, and forewarned the Cherubim
- That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
- The space of seven continued nights he rode
- With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
- He circled; four times crossed the car of night
- From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
- On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
- From entrance or Cherubic watch, by stealth
- 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,
- From Eden over Pontus and the pool
- Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
- Downward as far Antarctic; and in length,
- West from Orontes to the ocean barred
- At Darien ; thence to the land where flows
- Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
- With narrow search; and with inspection deep
- Considered every creature, which of all
- Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
- The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
- Him after long debate, irresolute
- Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
- Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
- To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
- From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
- Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
- As from his wit and native subtlety
- Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
- Doubt might beget of diabolic power
- Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
- Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
- His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
- More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
- With second thoughts, reforming what was old.
- Oh Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
- For what God, after better, worse would build?
- Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
- That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
- Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
- In thee concentering all their precious beams
- Of sacred influence. As God in Heaven
- Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
- Centering, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
- Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
- Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
- 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 shores with forest crowned,
- Rocks, dens, and caves. But I in none of these
- Find place or refuge; and the more I see
- Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
- Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
- 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
- To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
- Or won to what may work his utter loss,
- For whom all this was made, all this will soon
- Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
- In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
- To me shall be the glory sole among
- The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
- What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
- Continued making; and who knows how long
- Before had been contriving? though perhaps
- Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
- From servitude inglorious well nigh half
- The angelic name, and thinner left the throng
- Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
- And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
- Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
- More angels to create, if they at least
- Are his created, or, to spite us more,
- Determined to advance into our room
- A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
- Exalted from so base original,
- With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
- He effected; man he made, and for him built
- Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
- Him lord pronounced; and, Oh indignity!
- Subjected to his service angel-wings,
- And flaming ministers to watch and tend
- Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
- I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapped in mist
- Of midnight vapor glide obscure, and pry
- In every bush and brake, where hap may find
- The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
- To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
- Oh foul descent! that I, who erst contended
- With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
- Into a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime,
- This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
- That to the heighth of Deity aspired.
- But what will not ambition and revenge
- Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
- As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
- To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
- Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
- Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
- Since higher I fall short, on him who next
- Provokes my envy, this new favorite
- Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
- Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
- From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
- So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
- Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
- His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
- The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
- In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
- His head the midst, well stored with subtle wiles:
- Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
- Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
- Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
- The devil entered; and his brutal sense,
- In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
- With act intelligential; but his sleep
- Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
- Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
- In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
- Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
- From the Earth's great altar send up silent praise
- To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
- With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
- And joined their vocal worship to the quire
- Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
- The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
- Then commune, how that day they best may ply
- Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
- The hands' dispatch of two gardening so wide,
- And Eve first to her husband thus began.
- Adam, well may we labor still to dress
- This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
- Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
- Aid us, the work under our labor grows,
- Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
- Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
- One night or two with wanton growth derides
- Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise,
- Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
- Let us divide our labors; thou, where choice
- Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
- The woodbine round this arbor, or direct
- The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
- In yonder spring of roses intermixed
- With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
- For, while so near each other thus all day
- Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
- Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
- Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
- Our day's work, brought to little, though begun
- Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
- To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
- Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
- Compare above all living creatures dear,
- Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
- How we might best fulfill the work which here
- God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
- Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
- In woman, than to study household good,
- And good works in her husband to promote.
- Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
- Labor, as to debar us when we need
- Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
- Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse
- Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
- To brute denied, and are of love the food;
- Love, not the lowest end of human life.
- For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
- He made us, and delight to reason joined.
- These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
- Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
- As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
- Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
- Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
- For solitude sometimes is best society,
- And short retirement urges sweet return.
- But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
- Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
- What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
- Envying our happiness, and of his own
- Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
- By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
- Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
- His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
- Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
- To other speedy aid might lend at need:
- Whether his first design be to withdraw
- Our fealty from God, or to disturb
- Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
- Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
- Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
- That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
- The wife, where danger or dishonor lurks,
- Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
- Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
- To whom the virgin majesty of Eve,
- As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
- With sweet austere composure thus replied.
- Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth's Lord,
- That such an enemy we have, who seeks
- Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
- And from the parting angel over-heard,
- As in a shady nook I stood behind,
- Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
- But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
- To God or thee, because we have a foe
- May tempt it, I expected not to hear.
- His violence thou fearest not, being such
- As we, not capable of death or pain,
- Can either not receive, or can repel.
- His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
- Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
- Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
- Thoughts, which how found they harbor in thy breast,
- Adam, misthought of her to thee so dear?
- To whom with healing words Adam replied.
- Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve,
- For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
- Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
- Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
- The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
- For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
- The tempted with dishonor foul; supposed
- Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
- Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
- And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
- Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
- If such affront I labor to avert
- From thee alone, which on us both at once
- The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
- Or daring, first on me the assault shall light.
- Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
- Subtle he needs must be, who could seduce
- Angels; nor think superfluous other's aid.
- I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
- Access in every virtue; in thy sight
- More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
- Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
- Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
- Would utmost vigor raise, and raised unite.
- Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
- When I am present, and thy trial choose
- With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
- So spake domestic Adam in his care
- And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
- Less attributed to her faith sincere,
- Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
- If this be our condition, thus to dwell
- In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
- Subtle or violent, we not endued
- Single with like defense, wherever met;
- How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
- But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
- Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
- Of our integrity: his foul esteem
- Sticks no dishonor on our front, but turns
- Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
- By us? who rather double honor gain
- From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
- Favor from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
- And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
- Alone, without exterior help sustained?
- Let us not then suspect our happy state
- Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
- As not secure to single or combined.
- Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
- And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
- To whom thus Adam fervently replied.
- Oh Woman, best are all things as the will
- Of God ordained them: His creating hand
- Nothing imperfect or deficient left
- Of all that he created, much less Man,
- Or aught that might his happy state secure,
- Secure from outward force; within himself
- The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
- Against his will he can receive no harm.
- But God left free the will; for what obeys
- Reason, is free; and Reason he made right,
- But bid her well be ware, and still erect;
- Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
- She dictate false; and misinform the will
- To do what God expressly hath forbid.
- Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
- That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
- Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
- Since Reason not impossibly may meet
- Some specious object by the foe suborned,
- And fall into deception unaware,
- Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
- Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
- Were better, and most likely if from me
- Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
- Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
- First thy obedience; the other who can know,
- Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
- But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
- Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
- Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;
- Go in thy native innocence, rely
- On what thou hast of virtue; summon all
- For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.
- So spake the patriarch of mankind; but Eve
- Persisted; yet submiss, though last, replied.
- With thy permission then, and thus forewarned
- Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words
- Touched only; that our trial, when least sought,
- May find us both perhaps far less prepared,
- The willinger I go, nor much expect
- A foe so proud will first the weaker seek;
- So bent, the more shall shame him his repulse.
- Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand
- Soft she withdrew; and, like a Wood-Nymph light,
- Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train,
- Betook her to the groves; but Delia's self
- In gait surpassed, and Goddess-like deport,
- Though not as she with bow and quiver armed,
- But with such gardening tools as Art yet rude,
- Guiltless of fire, had formed, or angels brought.
- To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned,
- Likest she seemed, Pomona when she fled
- Vertumnus, or to Ceres in her prime,
- Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove.
- Her long with ardent look his eye pursued
- Delighted, but desiring more her stay.
- Oft he to her his charge of quick return
- Repeated; she to him as oft engaged
- To be returned by noon amid the bower,
- And all things in best order to invite
- Noontide repast, or afternoon's repose.
- Oh much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve,
- Of thy presumed return event perverse!
- Thou never from that hour in Paradise
- Foundst either sweet repast, or sound repose;
- Such ambush, hid among sweet flowers and shades,
- Waited with hellish rancor imminent
- To intercept thy way, or send thee back
- Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss.
- For now, and since first break of dawn, the Fiend,
- Mere serpent in appearance, forth was come;
- And on his quest, where likeliest he might find
- The only two of mankind, but in them
- The whole included race, his purposed prey.
- In bower and field he sought, where any tuft
- Of grove or garden-plot more pleasant lay,
- Their tendance, or plantation for delight;
- By fountain or by shady rivulet
- He sought them both, but wished his hap might find
- Eve separate; he wished, but not with hope
- Of what so seldom chanced; when to his wish,
- Beyond his hope, Eve separate he spies,
- Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,
- Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
- About her glowed, oft stooping to support
- Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay
- Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold,
- Hung drooping unsustained; them she upstays
- Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
- Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,
- From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.
- 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 mystic, 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
- Angelic, 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:
- 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
- Heroic 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 terror be in love
- And beauty, not approached by stronger hate,
- 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 heighth 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 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 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 enameled 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
- Organic, or impulse of vocal air,
- His fraudulent temptation thus began.
- Wonder not, sovereign 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:
- 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; 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 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, 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
- 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
- Sovereign 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 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 the amazed night-wanderer from his way
- To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;
- There swallowed up and lost, from succor 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;
- 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 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 heighth began, as no delay
- Of preface brooking, through his zeal of right:
- So standing, moving, or to heighth up grown,
- The Tempter, all impassioned, thus began.
- Oh 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
- 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
- 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,
- 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:
- Mean while 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.
- 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 evil;
- 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
- 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
- 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 and 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 ate.
- Earth felt the wound; and nature from her seat,
- 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, naught else
- Regarded; such delight till then, as seemed,
- In fruit she never tasted, whether true
- Or fancied so, through expectation high
- Of knowledge; not was Godhead from her thought.
- Greedily she ingorged without restraint,
- And knew not eating death: Satiate at length,
- And heightened as with wine, jocund and boon,
- Thus to herself she pleasingly began.
- Oh sovereign, 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
- 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 openest wisdom's way,
- And givest access, though secret she retire.
- 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 keeps the odds of knowledge in my power
- Without copartner? so to add what wants
- 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:
- 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 labors 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
- 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 too prompt;
- Which, with bland words at will, she thus addressed.
- Hast thou not wondered, Adam, at my stay?
- Thee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived
- Thy presence; agony of love till now
- Not felt, nor shall be twice; for never more
- Mean I to try, what rash untried I sought,
- The pain of absence from thy sight. But strange
- Hath been the cause, and wonderful to hear:
- This tree is not, as we are told, a tree
- Of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown
- Opening the way, but of divine effect
- To open eyes, and make them Gods who taste;
- And hath been tasted such: The serpent wise,
- Or not restrained as we, or not obeying,
- Hath eaten of the fruit; and is become,
- Not dead, as we are threatened, but thenceforth
- Endued with human voice and human sense,
- Reasoning to admiration; and with me
- Persuasively hath so prevailed, that I
- Have also tasted, and have also found
- The effects to correspond; opener mine eyes,
- Dim erst, dilated spirits, ampler heart,
- And growing up to Godhead; which for thee
- Chiefly I sought, without thee can despise.
- For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss;
- Tedious, unshared with thee, and odious soon.
- Thou therefore also taste, that equal lot
- May join us, equal joy, as equal love;
- Lest, thou not tasting, different degree
- Disjoin us, and I then too late renounce
- Deity for thee, when Fate will not permit.
- Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told;
- But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed.
- On the other side Adam, soon as he heard
- The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,
- Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill
- Ran through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;
- From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve
- Down dropt, and all the faded roses shed:
- Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length
- First to himself he inward silence broke.
- Oh fairest of creation, last and best
- Of all God's works, Creature in whom excelled
- Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
- Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet,
- How art thou lost! how on a sudden lost,
- Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!
- Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress
- The strict forbiddance, how to violate
- The sacred fruit forbidden? Some cursed fraud
- Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
- And me with thee hath ruined; for with thee
- Certain my resolution is to die:
- How can I live without thee? how forego
- Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
- To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
- Should God create another Eve, and I
- Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
- Would never from my heart. No, no! I feel
- The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
- Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
- Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
- So having said, as one from sad dismay
- Recomforted, and after thoughts disturbed
- Submitting to what seemed remediless,
- Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned.
- Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve,
- And peril great provoked, who thus hast dared,
- Had it been only coveting to eye
- That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,
- Much more to taste it under ban to touch.
- But past who can recall, or done undo?
- Not God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so
- Perhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact
- Is not so heinous now, foretasted fruit,
- Profaned first by the serpent, by him first
- Made common, and unhallowed, ere our taste;
- Nor yet on him found deadly; yet he lives;
- Lives, as thou saidst, and gains to live, as Man,
- Higher degree of life; inducement strong
- To us, as likely tasting to attain
- Proportional ascent; which cannot be
- But to be gods, or angels, demigods.
- Nor can I think that God, Creator wise,
- Though threatening, will in earnest so destroy
- Us his prime creatures, dignified so high,
- Set over all his works; which in our fall,
- For us created, needs with us must fail,
- Dependant made; so God shall uncreate,
- Be frustrate, do, undo, and labor lose;
- Not well conceived of God, who, though his power
- Creation could repeat, yet would be loath
- Us to abolish, lest the Adversary
- Triumph, and say; Fickle their state whom God
- Most favors; who can please him long? Me first
- He ruined, now Mankind; whom will he next?
- Matter of scorn, not to be given the Foe.
- However I with thee have fixed my lot,
- Certain to undergo like doom: If death
- Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
- So forcible within my heart I feel
- The bond of Nature draw me to my own;
- My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
- Our state cannot be severed; we are one,
- One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.
- So Adam; and thus Eve to him replied.
- Oh glorious trial of exceeding love,
- Illustrious evidence, example high!
- Engaging me to emulate; but, short
- Of thy perfection, how shall I attain,
- Adam, from whose dear side I boast me sprung,
- And gladly of our union hear thee speak,
- One heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof
- This day affords, declaring thee resolved,
- Rather than death, or aught than death more dread,
- Shall separate us, linked in love so dear,
- To undergo with me one guilt, one crime,
- If any be, of tasting this fair fruit;
- Whose virtue for of good still good proceeds,
- Direct, or by occasion, hath presented
- This happy trial of thy love, which else
- So eminently never had been known?
- Were it I thought death menaced would ensue
- This my attempt, I would sustain alone
- The worst, and not persuade thee, rather die
- Deserted, than oblige thee with a fact
- Pernicious to thy peace; chiefly assured
- Remarkably so late of thy so true,
- So faithful, love unequalled: but I feel
- Far otherwise the event; not death, but life
- Augmented, opened eyes, new hopes, new joys,
- Taste so divine, that what of sweet before
- Hath touched my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh.
- On my experience, Adam, freely taste,
- And fear of death deliver to the winds.
- So saying, she embraced him, and for joy
- Tenderly wept; much won, that he his love
- Had so ennobled, as of choice to incur
- Divine displeasure for her sake, or death.
- In recompense for such compliance bad
- Such recompense best merits from the bough
- She gave him of that fair enticing fruit
- With liberal hand: he scrupled not to eat,
- Against his better knowledge; not deceived,
- But fondly overcome with female charm.
- Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
- In pangs; and Nature gave a second groan;
- Sky lowered; and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
- Wept at completing of the mortal sin
- Original: while Adam took no thought,
- Eating his fill; nor Eve to iterate
- Her former trespass feared, the more to sooth
- Him with her loved society; that now,
- As with new wine intoxicated both,
- They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel
- Divinity within them breeding wings,
- Wherewith to scorn the earth: But that false fruit
- Far other operation first displayed,
- Carnal desire inflaming; he on Eve
- Began to cast lascivious eyes; she him
- As wantonly repaid; in lust they burn:
- Till Adam thus 'gan Eve to dalliance move.
- Eve, now I see thou art exact of taste,
- And elegant, of sapience no small part;
- Since to each meaning savor we apply,
- And palate call judicious; I the praise
- Yield thee, so well this day thou hast purveyed.
- Much pleasure we have lost, while we abstained
- From this delightful fruit, nor known till now
- True relish, tasting; if such pleasure be
- In things to us forbidden, it might be wished,
- For this one tree had been forbidden ten.
- But come, so well refreshed, now let us play,
- As meet is, after such delicious fare;
- For never did thy beauty, since the day
- I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorned
- With all perfections, so inflame my sense
- With ardor to enjoy thee, fairer now
- Than ever; bounty of this virtuous tree.
- So said he, and forbore not glance or toy
- Of amorous intent; well understood
- Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire.
- Her hand he seized; and to a shady bank,
- Thick over-head with verdant roof imbowered,
- He led her nothing loath; flowers were the couch,
- Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,
- And hyacinth; Earth's freshest softest lap.
- There they their fill of love and love's disport
- Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal,
- The solace of their sin; till dewy sleep
- Oppressed them, wearied with their amorous play,
- Soon as the force of that fallacious fruit,
- That with exhilarating vapor bland
- About their spirits had played, and inmost powers
- Made err, was now exhaled; and grosser sleep,
- Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams
- Incumbered, now had left them; up they rose
- As from unrest; and, each the other viewing,
- Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds
- How darkened; innocence, that as a veil
- Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone;
- Just confidence, and native righteousness,
- And honor, from about them, naked left
- To guilty Shame; he covered, but his robe
- Uncovered more. So rose the Danite strong,
- Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap
- Of Philistine Delilah, and waked
- Shorn of his strength. They destitute and bare
- Of all their virtue: Silent, and in face
- Confounded, long they sat, as strucken mute:
- Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed,
- At length gave utterance to these words constrained.
- Oh Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear
- To that false worm, of whomsoever taught
- To counterfeit Man's voice; true in our fall,
- False in our promised rising; since our eyes
- Opened we find indeed, and find we know
- Both good and evil; good lost, and evil got;
- Bad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know;
- Which leaves us naked thus, of honor void,
- Of innocence, of faith, of purity,
- Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained,
- And in our faces evident the signs
- Of foul concupiscence; whence evil store;
- Even shame, the last of evils; of the first
- Be sure then. How shall I behold the face
- Henceforth of God or angel, erst with joy
- And rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shapes
- Will dazzle now this earthly with their blaze
- Insufferably bright. Oh might I here
- In solitude live savage; in some glade
- Obscured, where highest woods, impenetrable
- To star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad
- And brown as evening: Cover me, ye Pines,
- Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughs
- Hide me, where I may never see them more.
- But let us now, as in bad plight, devise
- What best may for the present serve to hide
- The parts of each from other, that seem most
- To shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen;
- Some tree, whose broad smooth leaves together sewed,
- And girded on our loins, may cover round
- Those middle parts; that this new comer, Shame,
- There sit not, and reproach us as unclean.
- So counseled he, and both together went
- Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
- The fig-tree; not that kind for fruit renowned,
- But such as at this day, to Indians known,
- In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms
- Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
- The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
- About the mother tree, a pillared shade
- High over-arched, and echoing walks between:
- There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
- Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
- At loop-holes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves
- They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe;
- And, with what skill they had, together sewed,
- To gird their waist; vain covering, if to hide
- Their guilt and dreaded shame. Oh, how unlike
- To that first naked glory! Such of late
- Columbus found the American, so girt
- With feathered cincture; naked else, and wild
- Among the trees on isles and woody shores.
- Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part
- Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind,
- They sat them down to weep; nor only tears
- Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within
- Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate,
- Mistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore
- Their inward state of mind, calm region once
- And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent:
- For Understanding ruled not, and the Will
- Heard not her lore; both in subjection now
- To sensual Appetite, who from beneath
- Usurping over sovereign Reason claimed
- Superior sway: From thus distempered breast,
- Adam, estranged in look and altered style,
- Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewed.
- Would thou hadst hearkened to my words, and staid
- With me, as I besought thee, when that strange
- Desire of wandering, this unhappy morn,
- I know not whence possessed thee; we had then
- Remained still happy; not, as now, despoiled
- Of all our good; shamed, naked, miserable.
- Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve
- The faith they owe; when earnestly they seek
- Such proof, conclude, they then begin to fail.
- To whom, soon moved with touch of blame, thus Eve.
- What words have passed thy lips, Adam severe!
- Imputest thou that to my default, or will
- Of wandering, as thou callest it, which who knows
- But might as ill have happened thou being by,
- Or to thyself perhaps? Hadst thou been there,
- Or here the attempt, thou couldst not have discerned
- Fraud in the Serpent, speaking as he spake;
- No ground of enmity between us known,
- Why he should mean me ill, or seek to harm.
- Was I to have never parted from thy side?
- As good have grown there still a lifeless rib.
- Being as I am, why didst not thou, the head,
- Command me absolutely not to go,
- Going into such danger, as thou saidst?
- Too facile then, thou didst not much gainsay;
- Nay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss.
- Hadst thou been firm and fixed in thy dissent,
- Neither had I transgressed, nor thou with me.
- To whom, then first incensed, Adam replied.
- Is this the love, is this the recompense
- Of mine to thee, ingrateful Eve! expressed
- Immutable, when thou wert lost, not I;
- Who might have lived, and joyed immortal bliss,
- Yet willingly chose rather death with thee?
- And am I now upbraided as the cause
- Of thy transgressing? Not enough severe,
- It seems, in thy restraint: What could I more
- I warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold
- The danger, and the lurking enemy
- That lay in wait; beyond this, had been force;
- And force upon free will hath here no place.
- But confidence then bore thee on; secure
- Either to meet no danger, or to find
- Matter of glorious trial; and perhaps
- I also erred, in overmuch admiring
- What seemed in thee so perfect, that I thought
- No evil durst attempt thee; but I rue
- The error now, which is become my crime,
- And thou the accuser. Thus it shall befall
- Him, who, to worth in women overtrusting,
- Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook;
- And, left to herself, if evil thence ensue,
- She first his weak indulgence will accuse.
- Thus they in mutual accusation spent
- The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning;
- And of their vain contest appeared no end.
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Are you ready to make money automatically?
Get the full details here