PARADISE LOST. BOOK IX. 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, loath 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, first 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: Tho 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. No more of talk where God or Angel guest Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change And disobedience: on the part of Heaven, 10 15 Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage 20 Of my celestial patroness, who deigns 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; Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deem'd; chief mastery to dissect That name, unless an age too late, or cold 45 Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter 50 'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round: When Satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improved On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap 555 60 That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven, He circled; four times cross'd the car of night. 65 From pole to pole, traversing each colure; On the eighth return'd; and, on the coast averse Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, 71 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 75 Where to lie hid; sea he had 'search'd, and land, From Eden over Pontus and the pool Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob; Downward as far antarctic; and in length, 80 At Darien; thence to the land where flows. Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roam'd With narrow search; and with inspection deep Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found 85 Him after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 90 Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark, 95 100 O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferr'd More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old! 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 concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven Is centre, yet extends to all; so thou,' 105 Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summ'd up in Man. 115 120 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; 125 By what I scek, but others to make such To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroy'd, 130 135 140 And to repair his numbers thus impair'd, Whether such virtue spent of old now fail'd 145 A creature form'd of earth, and him endow, 150 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, O indignity! 155 160 O foul descent! that I, who erst contended With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrain'd 165 This essence to incarnate and imbrute, |