No More Learning

Raphael warns Adam to beware lest passion for Eve sway his judgment,
for on him depends the weal or woe, not only of himself, but of all
his sons.


_IX. --The Temptation and the Fall_

While Raphael was in Paradise, for seven nights, Satan hid himself by
circling round in the shadow of the Earth, then, rising as a mist, he
crept into Eden undetected, and entered the serpent as the "fittest
imp of fraud," but not until once more lamenting that the enjoyment of
the earth was not for him. In the morning, when the human pair came
forth to their pleasant labours, Eve suggested that they should work
apart, for when near each other "looks intervene and smiles," and
casual discourse. Adam replied, defending "this sweet intercourse of
looks and smiles," and saying they had been made not for irksome toil,
but for delight.

"But if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield;
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possessed me, lest harm
Befall thee. . . .
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays
Who guards her, or the worst with her endures. "

Eve replies:

"That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
And from the parting Angel overheard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers. "

She, however, repels the suggestion that she can be deceived. Adam
replies that he does not wish her to be tempted, and that united they
would be stronger and more watchful. Eve responds that if Eden is so
exposed that they are not secure apart, how can they be happy?
Adams
gives way, with the explanation that it is not mistrust but tender
love that enjoins him to watch over her, and, as she leaves him,

Her long with ardent look his eye pursued
Delighted, but desiring more her stay.
Oft he to her his charge of quick return
Repeated; she to him as oft engaged
To be returned by noon amid the bower,
And all things in best order to invite
Noontide repast, or afternoon's repose.
O much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve,
Of thy presumed return! Event perverse!
Thou never from that hour in Paradise
Found'st either sweet repast or sound repose.

The Fiend, questing through the garden, finds her

Veiled in a cloud of fragrance where she stood
Half-spied, so thick the roses bushing round
About her glowed. . . . Them she upstays
Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,
From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.

Seeing her, Satan "much the place admired, the person more. "

As one who, long in populous city pent,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight--
The smell of grain, of tedded grass, of kine,
Of dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound--
If chance with nymph-like step fair virgin pass,
What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more,
She most, and in her look seems all delight.
Such pleasure took the Serpent to behold
This flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve
Thus early, thus alone.

The original serpent did not creep on the ground, but was a handsome
creature.

With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant. Pleasing was his shape
And lovely.