Impart against his will if all be his?
Or is it envy, and can envy dwell
In heav'nly breasts? thefe, thefe and
Causes import your need of this fair fruit.
Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste.
He ended, and his words replete with guile
Into her heart too eafy entrance won:
Fix'd on the fruit fhe gaz'd, which to behold 735
Might tempt alone, and in her ears the found
Yet rung of his perfuafive words, impregn'd
With reason, to her feeming, and with truth;
Mean while the hour of noon drew on, and wak'd
eager appetite, rais'd by the smell
So favory of that fruit, which with defire,
Inclinable now grown to touch or taste,
Solicited her longing eye; yet firft
Paufing a while, thus to herself she mus’d.
Knowledge of good and evil in this
So that him and his here refer to him,
who inclos'd &c. Pearce.
He seems to use both numbers pro-
mifcuoufly, fometimes fpeaking of
God and fometimes of Gods; and I
think we may obferve that he gene-
rally speaks of Gods, when the fen-
timent would be too horrid, if it
was spoken of God.
Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits, 745 Though kept from man, and worthy to be' admir'd, Whose tafte, too long forborn, at first affay Gave elocution to the mute, and taught
The tongue not made for fpeech to speak thy praise :
Thy praise he alfo who forbids thy ufe,
Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree
Of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
Forbids us then to tafte, but his forbidding
Commends thee more, while it infers the good
By thee communicated, and our want:
For good unknown, fure is not had, or had
And yet unknown, is as not had at all.
In plain then, what forbids he but to know,
Forbids us good, forbids us to be wife?
Such prohibitions bind not.
order to make the folly and impiety of Eve appear lefs extravagant and monftrous.
750.→→→→→→ be alfo who forbids] As if it had not been God who had forbidden; but God was not now in all her thoughts. She afterwards profeffes herself ignorant of him, ver. 775.
Bind us with after-bands, what profits then
Our inward freedom? In the day we eat
Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die.
How dies the Serpent? he hath eat'n and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, 765
Irrational till then. For us alone
Was death invented? or to us deny'd
This intellectual food, for beafts reserv'd?
For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first
Hath tafted, envies not, but brings with joy
The good befall'n him, author unfufpect,
Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile.
What fear I then, rather what know to fear
Under this ignorance of good and evil,
Of God or death, of law or penalty?
Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wife: what hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body' and mind?
So faying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, fhe pluck'd, fhe eat:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her feat
Sighing through all her works gave figns of woe,
That all was loft. Back to the thicket flunk
The guilty Serpent, and well might, for Eve
Intent now wholly on her tafte, nought elfe
Regarded, fuch delight till then, as feem'd,
In fruit she never tafted, whether true
Or fancy'd fo, through expectation high
Of knowledge, nor was God-head from her thought.
Greedily the ingorg'd without restraint,
And knew not eating death: Satiate at length,
And highten'd as with wine, jocond and boon,
Thus to herself she pleasingly began.
Shall I appear? fhall I to him make known
As yet my change, and give him to partake
Full happiness with me, or rather not,
But keep the odds of knowledge in my power 820
Without copartner? fo to add what wants
In female fex, the more to draw his love,
And render me more equal, and perhaps,
A thing not undefirable, fometime
Superior; for inferior who is free?
This may be well: but what if God have seen,
And death enfue? then I fhall be no more,
tibi Divum pater atque homi
Et mulcere dedit fluctus et tollere vento.
tu das epulis accumbere Divum. ver. 522.
O regina, novam cui condere Ju-
piter urbem,
Juftitiaque dedit gentes frænare fu-
perbas.
I wonder he did not farther take
notice of the fame expreffion in his
favorite Milton, in this place and in
I. 736.
and gave to rule, Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright. 823.
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