BOOK TENTH
��223
��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 cursed world a woeful race, That, after wretched life, must be at last Food for so foul a Monster), iu thy power It lies, yet ere conception, to prevent The race unblest, to being yet unbegot. Childless thou art; childless remain. So
Death
Shall be deceived his glut, and with us two 990
Be forced to satisfy his ravenous maw. But, if thou judge it hard and difficult, Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain From love's due rites, nuptial imbraces
sweet,
And with desire to languish without hope Before the present object languishing With like desire which would be misery And torment less than none of what we
dread Then, both our selves and seed at once to
free
From what we fear for both, let us make short ; :<xx>
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 shew 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 Broke off the rest; so much of death her
thoughts Had entertained as dyed her cheeks with
pale.
But Adam, with such counsel nothing swayed, 1010
To better hopes his more attentive mind Labouring had raised, and thus to Eve re- plied: " Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure
seems
To argue in thee something more sublime And excellent than what thy mind con- temns:
But self-destruction therefore sought re- futes
That excellence thought in thee, and implies Not thy contempt, but anguish and regret For loss of life and pleasure overloved. Or, if thou covet death, as utmost end 1020
��Of misery, so thinking to evade
The penalty pronounced, doubt not but
God Hath wiselier armed his vengeful ire than
so To be forestalled. Much more I fear lest
death So snatched will not exempt us from the
pain
We are by doom to pay; rather such acts Of contumacy will provoke the Highest To make death in us live. Then let us
seek
Some safer resolution which methinks I have in view, calling to mind with heed Part of our sentence, that thy seed shall
bruise 1031
The Serpent's head. Piteous amends ! un- less Be meant whom I conjecture, our grand
foe,
Satan, who in the Serpent hath contrived Against us this deceit. To crush his head Would be revenge indeed which will be
lost By death brought on ourselves, or childless
days
Resolved as thou proposest; so our foe Shall scape his punishment ordained, and
we 1039
Instead shall double ours upon our heads. No more be mentioned, then, of violence Against ourselves, and wilful barrenness That cuts us off from hope, and savours
only
Rancour and pride, impatience and despite, Reluctance against God and his just yoke Laid on our necks. Remember with what
mild And gracious temper he both heard and
judged,
Without wrauth or reviling. We expected Immediate dissolution, which we thought Was meant by death that day; when, lo !
to thee 1050
Pains only in child-bearing were foretold, And bringing forth, soon recompensed with
jy
Fruit of thy womb. On me the curse aslope Glanced on the ground. With labour I
must earn My bread; what harm ? Idleness had been
worse;
My labour will sustain me; and, lest cold Or heat should injure us, his timely care
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