Side 174 af 239

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK IX.-537-570]

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 shouldst 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 marvelling: 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.

1 The latter I demur. - Question, doubt.