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 :
Fix'd on the fruit she gazed, which to behold
Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound
Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregn'd
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 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 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 pluck'd, 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 only on her taste, nought else
Regarded; such delight till then, as seem'd,
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 heighten'd as with wine, jocund and boon,
Thus to herself she pleasingly began:

"O 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, offer'd 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 remain'd
In ignorance; thou open'st 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 keep 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! Confirm'd, 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 turn'd, 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

As

Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown,
reapers oft are wont their harvest queen.
Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new
Solace in her return, so long delay'd:

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 gather'd, 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 address'd : "Hast thou not wonder'd, Adam, at my stay? Thee I have miss'd, 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 restrain'd as we, or not obeying,
Hath eaten of the fruit; and is become,
Not dead, as we are threaten'd, but thenceforth
Endued with human voice and human sense,
Reasoning to admiration and with me
Persuasively hath so prevail'd, that I