“O Husband, make a circuit without fail
by a pleasant path on every hand,
to learn if thou canst get as a feast (?)
of food for us something that we would eat.”
Adam went on a well-marked course
near by, and far away;
he did not find, after all,
any wholesome food but herbs of the ground.
Herbs of the soil, green their colour,
food of the senseless animals ;
they are not tender for us as a meal,
after the pleasant food of Paradise.
(Adam speaks)
“O Eve, let us with sincerity
make lasting penance and repentance,
that we might cleanse away before the King of Justice
something of our sins, of our transgressions.”
(Eve replies)
“Give me instruction about that,
O my Lord, O Adam,
because I know not before the great world[1]
how one should do penance.
“Instruct me clearly,
according to thy understanding, according to thy clear
sense,
that I do not exceed,
neither that I fall short in any way.”
- ↑ Lit, “before every quarter” (i.e. of the world).
