The weal or woe in thee is placed; beware! And all the blest: stand fast; to stand or fall So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus Thy condescension, and shall be honour'd ever So parted they; the angel up to heaven From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower. THE ARGUMENT Satan, having compassed the earth, with meditated guile returns, as a mist, by night, into Paradise; enters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart: Adam consents not, alleging the danger lest that enemy, of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her, found alone. Eve, loth to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength; Adam at last yields; the serpent finds her alone: his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking; with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech, and such understanding, not till now: the serpent answers that, by tasting of a certain tree in the garden, he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the tree of knowledge, forbidden: the serpent, now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments, induces her at length to eat; she, pleased with the taste, deliberates awhile whether to impart thereof to Adam or not; at last brings him of the fruit: relates what persuaded her to eat thereof. Adam, at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves, through vehemence of love, to perish with her; and extenuating the trespass, eats also of the fruit: the effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another. PARADISE LOST. BOOK IX. No more of talk where God, or angel guest, Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change And disobedience: on the part of heaven, P And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires Since first this subject for heroic song Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late; Not sedulous by nature to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deem'd; chief mastery to dissect, Not that which justly gives heroic name That name, unless an age too late, or cold "Twixt day and night; and now, from end to end, Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round; When Satan, who late fled before the threats |