Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (66 page)

In this delicious garden? As my will

Concurred not to my being, it were but right

And equal
⁷⁴⁸
to reduce me to my dust,

Desirous to resign, and render back

All I received, unable to perform

Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold

The good I sought not. To the loss of that,

Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added

The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable

Thy justice seems; yet to say truth, too late,

I thus contest; then should have been refused

Those terms whatever, when they were proposed:

Thou
⁷⁵⁸
didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good,

Then cavil the conditions? And though God

Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son

Prove disobedient, and reproved, retort,

‘Wherefore didst
⁷⁶²
thou beget me? I sought it not,’

Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee

That proud excuse? Yet him not thy election,

But natural necessity begot.

God made thee of choice his own, and of his own

To serve him, thy reward was of his grace,

Thy punishment then justly is at his will.

Be it so, for I submit, his doom is fair,

That dust I am, and shall to dust return:

O welcome hour whenever! Why delays

His hand to execute what his decree

Fixed on this day? Why do I overlive,

Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out

To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet

Mortality my sentence, and be earth

Insensible, how glad would lay me down

As in my mother’s lap! There I should rest

And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more

Would thunder in my ears, no fear of worse

To me and to my offspring would torment me

With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
⁷⁸²

Pursues me still, lest all
⁷⁸³
I cannot die,

Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man

Which God inspired, cannot together perish

With this corporeal clod; then
⁷⁸⁶
in the grave,

Or in some other dismal place who knows

But I shall die a living death? O thought

Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath

Of Life that sinned; what dies but what had life

And sin? The body properly hath neither
⁷⁹¹
.

All of me then shall die: let this appease

The doubt, since human reach no further knows.

For though the Lord of all be infinite,

Is his wrath also? Be it, man is not so,

But mortal doomed. How can he exercise

Wrath without end on man whom death must end?

Can he make
⁷⁹⁸
deathless death? That were to make

Strange contradiction, which to God himself

Impossible is held, as argument

Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out,

For anger’s sake, finite to infinite

In punished man, to satisfy his rigor

Satisfied never? That were to extend

His sentence beyond dust and nature’s law,

By which all causes else according still

To the reception of their matter act,

Not to th’ extent of their own sphere. But say

That death be not one stroke, as I supposed,

Bereaving sense, but endless misery

From this day onward, which l feel begun

Both in me, and without me, and so last

To perpetuity; ay me, that fear

Comes thund’ring back with dreadful revolution

On my
⁸¹⁵
defenseless head; both Death and I

Am found eternal, and incorporate both,

Nor I on my part single, in me all

Posterity stands cursed: fair patrimony

That I must leave ye, sons; O were I able

To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!

So disinherited how would ye bless

Me now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind

For one man’s fault thus guiltless be condemned,

If guiltless? But from me what can proceed,

But all corrupt, both mind and will depraved,

Not to do only, but to will the same

With me? How can they then acquitted stand

In sight of God? Him after all disputes

Forced I absolve: all my evasions vain,

And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me still

But to my own conviction
⁸³¹
: first and last

On me, me only, as the source and spring

Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;

So might the wrath. Fond wish! Couldst thou support

That burden heavier than the Earth to bear,

Than all the world much heavier, though divided

With that bad woman? Thus what thou desir’st
⁸³⁷

And what thou fear’st, alike destroys all hope

Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable

Beyond all past example and future,

To Satan only like both crime and doom.

O conscience
⁸⁴²
, into what abyss of fears

And horrors hast thou driv’n me; out of which

I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged!”

   Thus Adam to himself lamented loud

Through the still night, not now, as ere man fell,

Wholesome and cool, and mild, but with black air

Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom,

Which to his evil conscience represented
⁸⁴⁹

All things with double terror
⁸⁴⁹
: on the ground

Outstretched he lay, on the cold ground, and oft

Cursed his creation, Death as oft accused

Of tardy execution, since denounced
⁸⁵³

The day of his offense
⁸⁵³
. “Why comes not Death,”

Said he, “with one thrice acceptable stroke

To end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her word,

Justice Divine not hasten to be just?

But Death comes not at call, Justice Divine

Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.

O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales and bow’rs,

With other echo late I taught your shades

To answer, and resound far other song.”

Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,

Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,

Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed:

But her with stern regard he thus repell’d.

   “Out of my
⁸⁶⁷
sight, thou serpent, that name best

Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false

And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,

Like his, and color serpentine may show

Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee

Henceforth; lest that too Heav’nly form, pretended
⁸⁷²

To
⁸⁷²
Hellish falsehood, snare them. But for thee

I had persisted happy, had not thy pride

And wand’ring vanity, when least was safe,

Rejected my forewarning, and disdained

Not to be trusted, longing to be seen

Though by the Devil himself, him overweening

To overreach, but with the serpent meeting

Fooled and beguiled, by him thou, I by thee,

To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,

Constant, mature, proof against all assaults,

And understood not all was but a show

Rather than solid virtue, all but a rib

Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,

More to the part sinister
⁸⁸⁶
from me drawn,

Well if
⁸⁸⁷
thrown out, as supernumerary

To my just number found. O why
⁸⁸⁸
did God,

Creator wise, that peopled highest Heav’n

With spirits masculine
⁸⁹⁰
, create at last

This novelty on Earth, this fair defect
⁸⁹¹

Of nature
⁸⁹¹
, and not fill the world at once

With men as angels without feminine,

Or find some other way to generate

Mankind? This mischief had not then befall’n,

And more that shall befall, innumerable

Disturbances on Earth through female snares,

And strait conjunction with this sex: for either

He never shall find out fit mate, but such

As some misfortune brings him, or mistake,

Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain

Through her perverseness, but shall see her gained

By a far worse, or if she love, withheld

By parents, or his happiest choice too late

Shall meet, already linked and wedlock-bound

To a fell adversary, his hate or shame:

Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound.”

   He added not, and from her turned, but Eve

Not so repulsed, with tears that ceased not flowing,

And tresses all disordered, at his feet

Fell humble, and embracing them, besought

His peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint.

   “Forsake me not thus, Adam, witness Heav’n

What love sincere, and reverence in my heart

I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,

Unhappily deceived; thy suppliant

I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not,

Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,

Thy counsel in this uttermost distress,

My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee,

Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?

While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps,

Between us two let there be peace, both joining,

As joined
⁹²⁵
in injuries, one enmity

Against a foe by doom express assigned us,

That cruel serpent: on me exercise not

Thy hatred for this misery befall’n,

On me already lost, me than thyself

More miserable; both have sinned, but thou

Against God only, I against God and thee,

And to the place of judgment will return,

There with my cries importune Heaven, that all

The sentence from thy head removed may light

On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe,

Me me only just object of his ire.”

   She ended weeping, and her lowly plight,

Immovable till peace obtained from fault

Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought

Commiseration
⁹⁴⁰
; soon his heart relented

Towards her, his life so late and sole delight,

Now at his feet submissive in distress,

Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,

His counsel whom she had displeased, his aid;

As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,

And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon.

   “Unwary, and too desirous, as before,

So now of what thou know’st not, who desir’st

The punishment all on thyself; alas,

Bear thine own first, ill able to sustain

His full wrath whose thou feel’st as yet least part,

And my displeasure bear’st so ill. If prayers

Could alter high decrees, I to that place

Would speed before thee, and be louder heard,

That on my head all might be visited,

Thy frailty and infirmer sex forgiv’n,

To me committed and by me exposed.

But rise, let us no more contend, nor blame

Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive

In offices of love, how we may light’n

Each other’s burden in our share of woe;

Since this day’s death denounced, if aught I see,

Will prove no sudden, but a slow-paced evil,

A long day’s dying to augment our pain,

And to our seed (O hapless seed!) derived
⁹⁶⁵
.”

   To whom thus Eve, recovering heart, replied.

“Adam, by sad experiment I know

How little weight my words with thee can find,

Found so erroneous, thence by just event
⁹⁶⁹

Found so unfortunate; nevertheless,

Restored by thee, vile as I am, to place

Of new acceptance, hopeful to regain

Thy love, the sole contentment of my heart,

Living or dying, from thee I will not hide

What thoughts in my unquiet breast are ris’n,

Tending to some relief of our extremes,

Or end, though sharp and sad, yet tolerable,

As in
⁹⁷⁸
our evils, and of easier choice.

If care
⁹⁷⁹
of our descent perplex us most,

Which must be born to certain woe, devoured

By Death at last, and miserable it is

To be to others cause of misery,

Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring

Into this cursèd world a woful race,

That after wretched life must be at last

Food for so foul a monster, in thy power

It lies, yet ere conception to prevent

The race unblest, to being yet unbegot.

Childless thou
⁹⁸⁹
art, childless remain: so Death

Shall be deceived
⁹⁹⁰
his glut, and with us two

Be forced to satisfy his rav’nous maw.

But if thou judge it hard and difficult,

Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain

From love’s due rites, nuptial embraces sweet
⁹⁹⁴
,

And with desire to languish without hope,

Before the present object languishing

With like
⁹⁹⁷
desire, which would be misery

And torment less than none of what we dread,

Then both ourselves and seed at once to free

From what we fear for both, let us make short,

Let us seek Death, or he not found, supply

With our own hands his office on ourselves;

Why stand we longer shivering under fears,

That show no end but death, and have the power,

Of many ways to die the shortest choosing,

Destruction with destruction to destroy?”

   She ended here, or vehement despair