Paradise Lost by John Milton
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 deceived998,
But fondly999 overcome with female charm.
Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;
Sky loured, and muttering Thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin1003
Original1003; while Adam took no thought,
Eating his fill, nor Eve to iterate
Her former trespass feared, the more to soothe
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 dalliance1016 move.
“Eve1017, now I see thou art exact of taste,
And elegant1018, 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 ten1025.
But come, so well refreshed, now let us play,
As meet1028 is, after such delicious fare;
For never did thy beauty since the day1029
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 seized1037, and to a shady bank,
Thick overhead with verdant roof embow’red
He led her nothing loath; flow’rs 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 seal1043,
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 spirits1048 had played, and inmost powers
Made err, was now exhaled, and grosser sleep
Bred of unkindly1050 fumes, with conscious dreams
Encumbered, 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: he1058 covered, but his robe
Uncovered more. So rose the Danite1059 strong,
Herculean1060 Samson, from the harlot-lap
Of Philistean Dalila, and waked
Shorn of his strength, they destitute and bare
Of all their virtue: silent, and in face
Confounded long they sat, as stricken mute,
Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed,
At length gave utterance to these words constrained.
“O Eve, in evil1067 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 store1078;
Even shame, the last of evils1079; 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 Heav’nly shapes
Will dazzle now this Earthly1083, with their blaze
Insufferably bright. O might I here
In solitude live savage, in some glade
Obscured, where highest woods impenetrable
To star or sunlight, spread their umbrage1087 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 obnoxious1094, and unseemliest seen,
Some tree whose broad smooth leaves together sewed,
And girded on our loins, may cover round
Those middle parts, that this newcomer, 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 tree1101, not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day to Indians known
In Malabar1103 or Deccan 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 overarched, and echoing walks between;
There oft the Indian herdsman shunning heat
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loopholes cut through thickest shade: those leaves
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe1111,
And with what skill they had, together sewed,
To gird their waist, vain covering if to hide
Their guilt and dreaded shame; O how unlike
To that first naked glory1115. Such of late
Columbus1116 found th’ American so girt
With feathered cincture1117, 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 sov’reign reason claimed
Superior sway: from thus distempered breast,
Adam, estranged in look and altere
Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewed.1133
“Would thou hadst hearkened to my words, and stayed
With me, as I besought thee, when that strange
Desire of wand’ring 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,
Imput’st thou that to my default, or will
Of wand’ring, as thou call’st it, which who knows
But might as ill have happened thou being by,
Or to thyself perhaps: hadst thou been there,
Or here th’ 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
That error now, which is become my crime,
And thou th’ 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 accusation1187 spent
The fruitless hours1188, but neither self-condemning,
And of their vain contest appeared no end1189.
1. No more: No/know and more have earlier appeared in memorable formulations about the limits of knowledge that Adam and Eve must observe (4.637, 775; 8.194); now, at the beginning of the book in which those limits will be violated, Milton reconfigures these words to announce a fundamental break with unfallen existence. God or angel: Adam spoke with God (8.295–451), and Books 5–8 have chronicled the friendly visit of Raphael to Paradise.
2. familiar: in a familial manner, intimate.
5. Venial: innocent; unblamed: unblamable.
13. sad task: Raphael used the same phrase (5.564) in introducing his narrative of the fall of the rebel angels.
13–19. yet … son: Milton compares his argument or subject matter to earlier accounts of wrath in the epic tradition, Homer on Achilles’ defeat of Hector (Il. 22), Vergil on the bellicose rage of Turnus (Aen. 7), Homer on Neptune’s grudge against Odysseus, and Vergil on Juno’s grudge against Aeneas, Cytherea’s (Venus’) son. The point is that the wrath in Milton’s story, the wrath of the Christian God against human sin, is just, not capricious.
19. Perplexed: tormented.
20. answerable: commensurate (with his more heroic subject).
22. unimplored: Oddly, Milton in fact “implores” his muse at 7.38.
24. unpremeditated: Cp. the morning prayers of 5.149; in Eikonoklastes, Milton argues that prayers should not be imprisoned “in a pinfold of set words” (Yale 3:505).
27. indite: compose.
34. tilting furniture: jousting equipment, which Milton proceeds to list: shields emblazoned with impresses quaint (clever emblems), caparisons and bases (equestrian trappings).
37–38. then marshalled feast … seneschals: The feast is marshalled, full of elaborate arrangements and displays. Sewers, supervised by their chief, the seneschal, seated the guests and served the meal. Milton’s disdain for the ritual civility of the feast may in part be motivated by the primal bad feast he is soon to narrate.
39. office: position, duty. Romance is rejected as a poetry devoted to the superficial artifice of noble manners and amusements.
44. That name: the heroic name of line 40; an age too late: sometimes explained as universal decay, a theory Milton opposed in Naturam non pati senium. He might have felt that England, after the Restoration, had proved itself unworthy of a divinely inspired epic. He stated in RCG that the creation of ambitious Christian art might depend on the “fate of this age” (MLM 841).
44–45. unless … wing: Milton feared that Aristotle was right in declaring that a cold climate such as England’s (at least in comparison with the Mediterranean climates that spawned Homer and Vergil) might leave the mind unripe. See Fink.
45. or years: Milton was almost sixty when his epic was published; George Herbert’s “The Forerunners,” written in his thirties, anticipates senility. damp: discourage (OED 3).
46. Depressed: brought down. Psychological failure is here expressed in the metaphor of failed flight, lower than what Milton intends. Cp. the metaphor of winged flight at 3.13 and 7.4.
49. Hesperus: Venus, the evening star.
56. maugre: despite.
58–69. By night … way: Satan keeps to the darkness for an entire week to evade detection by Uriel. For three days he remains on the equator, flying ahead of the advance of sunlight. He spends the other four days compassing the Earth from north to south, traversing each colure—a reference to two great circles that intersect at right angles on the earth’s poles. “He crosses the world, but not in benediction” (Evans in Broadbent edition).
67. coast averse: the north side of Eden, which is averse (turned away from) the eastern entrance, where cherubim keep watch.
77–82. From Eden … Indus: Satan spans the globe in search of his fit vessel (l. 89) in the animal kingdom. He journeys north from Paradise, to the Pontus (Black Sea), the pool Maeotis (Sea of Azov), and the Ob (a river in Siberia), then down the other side of the earth to Antarctica, and west to the Orontes (a river in Syria), to Darien (Panama), to the Ganges in India, and finally to the Indus, a river near Eden.
89. fittest imp: An imp is a graft or shoot; Satan’s graft of fraud will be fittest, most likely to thrive, on the snake.
93. native subtlety: See Gen. 3.1.
103–105. Adam suffered from the same misapprehension about the heavens (8.273–74n) and was corrected by Raphael (8.85–90n).
113. growth, sense, reason: progressing from vegetable (growth) to animal (sense) to rational (reason).
121–22. hateful siege/Of contraries: Here as elsewhere, Satan recoils from the beautiful, the pleasing, and the good. Cp. the “grateful vicissitude” of 6.8.
142. name: race, stock.
144. to repair his numbers: not, according to 3.289, God’s original motive for the Creation, but a motive
166. This essence: Satan’s angelic matter, earlier said to be uncompounded or undifferentiated with regard to human fixities such as body parts (1.423–31). incarnate: Satan’s parody of the Incarnation is undertaken with high-minded disdain, not love.
170. obnoxious: exposed.
171. Revenge, at first though sweet: repudiating the proverb “Revenge is sweet” (Tilley R90).
172. on itself recoils: The metaphor of cannon, Satan’s self-defining invention (cp. 4.17), continues in the gunnery language of lines 173–74.
174. higher: when aiming higher.
176. son of despite: son of scorn, with the added suggestion that man was created to spite Satan; on Satan’s spite, see 2.384–85.
186. Nor nocent: not harmful. Milton’s unusual phrase signifies “innocence” but suggests its opposite.
191. close: in hiding.
205. still: continually. For the first time, Eve initiates a conversation.
213. hear: 1667; 1674 reads “bear.”
215–17. to wind … to climb: Both ivy and woodbine are in need of a prop, as Eve soon will be (ll. 431–33).
218. spring: thicket.
219. redress: put upright.
240. of love the food: For Ovid hope is the food of love (Met. 9.749); for Shakespeare’s Orsino music is the food of love (TN 1.1.1); for Adam smiles are the food of love—and smiles, we know, lead to kisses (4.499–502).
247–48. but … yield: Having dismissed the idea that Eden cannot be sufficiently tamed through their current work habits, Adam speculates that Eve has had enough converse (conversation).
249. Cp. Masque 375–80.
265. Or: whether.
270. virgin majesty: Technically, Eve is not a virgin. But virgo in Latin and virginale in Italian can sometimes denote “beauty,” “freshness,” “sweetness,” “modesty” (Todd), or simply “woman” (Hume). In English, virgin can mean “chaste” (OED 1) and hence be applied to married women, as Puritans especially stressed.
272. sweet austere composure: The adjectives verge on oxymoron.
276. parting angel overheard: It is likely that Eve overheard 8.630–43, which begins with Raphael taking the “parting sun” to be his signal to “depart.”
292. entire: unblemished.
293. diffident: mistrustful.
296–301. For he … found: Adam seems to be falsely denying that he had entertained the thought (at ll. 265–69) that Eve, if apart from him, might fall. He temporarily projects that thought onto Satan, who does indeed have it.
310. Access: increase.
314. raised unite: unite all his strengths in a state of generally heightened vigor.