BOOK NINTH
��2OI
��Than at Circean call the herd disguised. He, bolder now, uncalled before her stood, But as in gaze admiring. Oft he bowed His turret crest and sleek enamelled neck, Fawning, and licked the ground whereon
she trod. His gentle dumb expression turned at
length
The eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad Of her attention gained, with serpent- tongue
Organic, or impulse of vocal air, 530
His fraudulent temptation thus began: "Wonder not, sovran mistress (if per- haps Thou canst who art sole wonder), much less
arm Thy looks, the heaven of mildness, with
disdain, Displeased that I approach thee thus, and
gaze
Insatiate, I thus single, nor have feared 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, 540 With ravishment beheld there best be- held
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. 549
Into the heart of Eve his words made way,
Though at the voice much marvelling; at
length,
Not unarnazed, she thus in answer spake : " What may this mean ? Language of
Man pronounced
By tongue of brute, and human sense ex- pressed !
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 ap- pears.
Thee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field 560
��I knew, but not with human voice endued; Redouble, then, this miracle, and say, How cam'st 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 re- plied: " Empress of this fair World, resplendent
Eve!
Easy to me it is to tell thee all What thou command'st, and right thou shouldst be obeyed. 570
I was at first as other beasts that graze The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and
low,
As was my food, nor aught but food dis- cerned
Or sex, and apprehended nothing high: Till on a day, roving the field, I chanced A goodly tree far distant to behold, Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed, Ruddy and gold. I nearer drew to gaze; When from the boughs a savoury odour
blown,
Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense 580
Than smell of sweetest fennel, or the teats Of ewe or goat dropping with milk at even, Unsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their
play.
To satisfy the sharp desire I had Of tasting those fair Apples, I resolved Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once, Powerful persuaders, quickened at the scent Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen. About the mossy trunk I wound me soon; For, high from ground, the branches would require 590
Thy utmost reach, or Adam's: round the
Tree
All other beasts that saw, with like desire Longing and envying stood, but could not
reach.
Amid the tree now got, where plenty hung Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill I spared not; for such pleasure till that
hour
At feed or fountain never had I found. Sated at length, ere long I might perceive Strange alteration in me, to degree 5^
Of Reason in my inward powers, and Speech Wanted not long, though to this shape re- tained.
�� �
