Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/243

 BOOK NINTH

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��Than at Circean call the herd disguised. He, bolder now, uncalled before her stood, But as in gaze admiring. Oft he bowed His turret crest and sleek enamelled neck, Fawning, and licked the ground whereon

she trod. His gentle dumb expression turned at

length

The eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad Of her attention gained, with serpent- tongue

Organic, or impulse of vocal air, 530

His fraudulent temptation thus began: "Wonder not, sovran mistress (if per- haps Thou canst who art sole wonder), much less

arm Thy looks, the heaven of mildness, with

disdain, Displeased that I approach thee thus, and

gaze

Insatiate, I thus single, nor have feared Thy awful brow, more awful thus retired. Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair, Thee all things living gaze on, all things

thine

By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore, 540 With ravishment beheld there best be- held

Where universally admired. But here, In this enclosure wild, these beasts among, Beholders rude, and shallow to discern Half what in thee is fair, one man except, Who sees thee (and what is one ?) who

shouldst be seen

A Goddess among Gods, adored and served

By Angels numberless, thy daily train ? "

So glozed the Tempter, and his proem

tuned. 549

Into the heart of Eve his words made way,

Though at the voice much marvelling; at

length,

Not unarnazed, she thus in answer spake : " What may this mean ? Language of

Man pronounced

By tongue of brute, and human sense ex- pressed !

The first at least of these I thought denied To beasts, whom God on their creation-day Created mute to all articulate sound; The latter I demur, for in their looks Much reason, and in their actions, oft ap- pears.

Thee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field 560

��I knew, but not with human voice endued; Redouble, then, this miracle, and say, How cam'st thou speakable of mute, and

how

To me so friendly grown above the rest Of brutal kind that daily are in sight: Say, for such wonder claims attention due." To whom the guileful Tempter thus re- plied: " Empress of this fair World, resplendent

Eve!

Easy to me it is to tell thee all What thou command'st, and right thou shouldst be obeyed. 570

I was at first as other beasts that graze The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and

low,

As was my food, nor aught but food dis- cerned

Or sex, and apprehended nothing high: Till on a day, roving the field, I chanced A goodly tree far distant to behold, Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed, Ruddy and gold. I nearer drew to gaze; When from the boughs a savoury odour

blown,

Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense 580

Than smell of sweetest fennel, or the teats Of ewe or goat dropping with milk at even, Unsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their

play.

To satisfy the sharp desire I had Of tasting those fair Apples, I resolved Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once, Powerful persuaders, quickened at the scent Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen. About the mossy trunk I wound me soon; For, high from ground, the branches would require 590

Thy utmost reach, or Adam's: round the

Tree

All other beasts that saw, with like desire Longing and envying stood, but could not

reach.

Amid the tree now got, where plenty hung Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill I spared not; for such pleasure till that

hour

At feed or fountain never had I found. Sated at length, ere long I might perceive Strange alteration in me, to degree 5^

Of Reason in my inward powers, and Speech Wanted not long, though to this shape re- tained.

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