So standing, moving, or to height upgrown, The tempter, all impassioned, thus began: "O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant, "Mother of science! now I feel thy power "Within me clear; not only to discern "Things in their causes, but to trace the ways "Of highest agents, deemed however wise. "Queen of this universe! do not believe "Those rigid threats of death: ye shall not die;1 "How should you? By the fruit? it gives you life "To knowledge;2 By the threatener? look on me"Me, who have touched and tasted; yet both live, "And life more perfect have attained than fate "Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot. "Shall that be shut to Man, which to the beast "Is open? or will God incense his ire "For such a petty trespass; and not praise "Rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain "Of death denounced, (whatever thing death be,) "Deterred not from achieving what might lead "To happier life-knowledge of good and evil? "Of good, how just? of evil, (if what is evil "Be real,) why not known, since easier shunned? "God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just: "Not just, not God-nor feared then, nor obeyed: "Your fear itself of death removes the fear, "Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe? "Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant, "His worshippers? He knows, that in the day "Ye eat thereof, your eyes, that seem so clear,— "Yet are but dim,-shall perfectly be then "Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods, "Knowing both good and evil, as they know.

1 Ye shall not die;-Gen. iii. 4.

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2 To knowledge;-in addition to. The sophistical reasoning in this speech is quite in character for him who is "a liar, and the father of lies." It is easy to see that the terms are so adjusted, that while the tempter meant one thing, Eve would readily understand another.

S

"That ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man,
"Internal Man, is but proportion meet;
"I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.
"So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off

"Human, to put on Gods;1 death to be wished,

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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 inclosed
66 Knowledge of good and evil in this tree,
"That whoso eats thereof forthwith attains
"Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies

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"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 730 "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

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So savoury of that fruit which, with desire,

1 To put on Gods,-alluding to the Scripture phrase, "This mortal must put on immortality." 1 Cor. xv. 53.

2 If they all things,—if, indeed, they produced all things, how are we to account for the properties of this tree, which has such effects without their leave?

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! 745 "(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.

66

Thy praise he also, who forbids thy use, "Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree

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"Of knowledge-knowledge both of good and evil,—
"Forbids us then to taste! but his forbidding
"Commends thee more, while it infers the good
66 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!

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"How dies the serpent? he hath eaten and lives,

"And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, 765

"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-1
"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,

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1 Author unsuspect,author, in the Latin sense of "informant;" unsus

pect,-who cannot be suspected of unworthy motives; from whom I have nothing to fear.

"Best guide! not following thee, I had remained

"In ignorance; thou openest wisdom's way "And givest access, though secret she retire

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"And I perhaps am secret: Heaven is high,1
"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.2 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

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"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?

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"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! Confirmed 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 turned;

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1 And I perhaps am secret: Heaven is high, -Compare Ps. x. 11; xciv. 7.

2 Safe with all his spies about him.-The word safe has perplexed commentators. The sense of "no longer dangerous, placed beyond the power of doing harm," is a ludicrous application of the word, and can have no place here. As classical usage supplies a good key to many of the difficulties in Milton's style, Prendeville judiciously appeals to the use of corresponding words in Latin, and interprets safe, as meaning here "having no uneasiness, negligent, remiss, at ease. Eve apprehended no danger from God, because he had so many spies about him, which rendered him free from all thought or apprehension, and careless, as she imagined, of Satan's entrance into Paradise to work annoyance to him, or danger to man."