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Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring. And what are gods, that man may not become As they, participating godlike 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 whose 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: 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 fruit, 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?

PARADISE LOST.

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 only on her taste, nought else