208
��PARADISE LOST
��" O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear To that false Worm, of whomsoever taught To counterfeit Man's voice true in our
fall,
False in our promised rising; since our eyes 1070
Opened we find indeed, and find we know Both good and evil, good lost and evil got: Bad Fruit of Knowledge, if this be to know, Which leaves us naked thus, of honour void, Of innocence, of faith, of purity, Our wonted ornaments now soiled and
stained,
And in our faces evident the signs Of foul concupiscence; whence evil store, Even shame, the last of evils; of the first Be sure then. How shall I behold the face 1080
Henceforth of God or Angel, erst with joy And rapture so oft beheld ? Those Hea- venly Shapes Will dazzle now this earthly with their
blaze
Insufferably bright. Oh, might I here In solitude live savage, in some glade Obscured, where highest woods, impenetra- ble To star or sunlight, spread their umbrage
broad, And brown as evening ! Cover me, ye
pines !
Ye cedars, with innumerable boughs Hide me, where I may never see them more ! 1090
But let us now, as in bad plight, devise What best may, for the present, serve to
hide The parts of each from other that seem
most
To shame obnoxious, and unseemliestseen Some tree, whose broad smooth leaves, to- gether sewed,
And girded on our loins, may cover round Those middle parts, that this new comer,
Shame,
There sit not, and reproach us as unclean." So counselled he, and both together went Into the thickest wood. There soon they chose i ioo
The fig-tree not that kind for fruit re- nowned,
But such as, at this day, to Indians known, In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms Braunching so broad and long that in the ground
��The bended twigs take root, and daughters
grow
About the mother tree, a pillared shade High overarched, and echoing walks be- tween: There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning
heat, Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing
herds At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.
Those leaves mo
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe, And with what skill they had together
sewed, To gird their waist vain covering, if to
hide Their guilt and dreaded shame ! O how
unlike
To that first naked glory ! Such of late Columbus found the American, so girt With feathered cincture, naked else and
wild,
Among the trees on isles and woody shores. Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their
shame in part
Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, 1 120 They sat them down to weep. Nor only
tears Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse
within
Began to rise, high passions anger, hate, Mistrust, suspicion, discord and shook
sore Their inward state of mind, calm region
once
And full of peace, now tost and turbulent: For Understanding ruled not, and the Will Heard not her lore, both in subjection
now
To sensual Appetite, who, from beneath Usurping over sovran Reason, claimed 1130 Superior sway. From thus distempered
breast
Adam, estranged in look and altered style,
Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewed:
" Would thou hadst hearkened to my
words, and stayed With me, as I besought thee, when that
strange
Desire of wandering, this unhappy morn, I know not whence possessed thee ! We
had then
Remained still happy not, as now, de- spoiled Of all our good, shamed, naked, miserable!
�� �
