Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turn'd. Bold deed thou hast presum'd, advent❜rous Eve, That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence, 920. Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turn'd.] He had till now been speaking to himself; now his speech turns to her, but not with violence, not with noise and rage, it is a deep considerate melancholy. The line cannot be pronounced but as it ought, slowly, gravely. Richardson. 922. who thus hast dar'd,] So it is in the first edition, but in the second by mistake it is printed hath dared, and that is followed in some others. 928. Perhaps thou shalt not die, &c.] How just a picture does Milton here give us of the natural imbecility of the human mind, and its aptness to be warped into false judgments and reasonings by passion and inclination? Adam had but just condemned the action of Eve in eating the forbidden fruit, and 920 925 930 yet drawn by his fondness for her, immediately summons all the force of his reason to prove what she had done to be right. This may probably appear a fault to superficial readers, but all intelligent ones will, I dare say, look upon it as a proof of our author's exquisite knowledge of human nature. Reason is but too often little better than a slave ready at the beck of the will to dress up in plausible colours any opinions that our interest or resentment have made agreeable to us. Thyer. 929. -hainous] So Milton spells this word, which is right and agreeable to its derivation from the French haineux. It is wrong to write it, as it is commonly written, heinous. take notice of these things, as instances of our author's exact ness. We Higher degree of life, inducement strong 935 940 Not well conceiv'd of God, who though his power 945 Creation could repeat, yet would be loath Us to abolish, lest the adversary Triumph and say; Fickle their state whom God Matter of scorn, not to be given the foe. 950 Certain to undergo like doom; if death 955 The bond of nature draw me to my own, 947. -lest the adversary Triumph and say, &c.] 960 Numbers xiv. 13-17. Then the Illustrious evidence, example high! Engaging me to emulate, but short Of thy perfection, how shall I attain, Adam? from whose dear side I boast me sprung, 965 And gladly of our union hear thee speak, One heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof This day affords, declaring thee resolv'd, Rather than death or ought than death more dread 970 To undergo with me one guilt, one crime, Whose virtue (for of good still good proceeds, This happy trial of thy love, which else 975 So eminently never had been known. Were it I thought death menac'd would ensue The worst, and not persuade thee, rather die 978. —I would sustain alone &c.] We have followed the punctuation of the first edition, as the sense requires, which is plainly this, If I thought the death that was threatened would be the consequence of this my attempt, I would suffer the worst alone, and not endeavour to persuade thee, I would rather die by myself forsaken of thee, than oblige thee with a fact &c. Oblige is used here in 980 the large sense of the Latin -Sed tu simul obligâsti Far otherwise th' event, not death, but life Augmented, open'd eyes, new hopes, new joys, 985 Hath touch'd my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh. So saying, she embrac'd him, and for joy 990 995 1000 but the woman being deceived was in the transgression, 1 Tim. ii. 14. Overcome with female charm, which the holy page styles, Hearkening unto the voice of his wife, Gen. iii. 17. Improbe amor, quid non mortalia Virg. En. iv. 412. 1000. Earth trembled from her entrails,] When Dido in the fourth Eneid yielded to that fatal temptation which ruined her, Virgil tells us the earth trembled, the heavens were filled with flashes of lightning, and the nymphs howled upon the moun In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan, Sky low'r'd, and muttering thunder, some sad drops poetical spirit, has described all nature as disturbed upon Eve's eating the forbidden fruit, ver. 780. So saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature Sighing, through all her works gave Upon Adam's falling into the same guilt, the whole creation appears a second time in convulsions. As all nature suffered by the guilt of our first parents, these symptoms of trouble and consternation are wonderfully imagined, not only as prodigies, but as marks of her sympathizing in the fall of man. Addison. It could not be expected that Adam should take any more notice of this second groan of Nature, when he had eaten of the forbidden fruit, than Eve did of the first after her transgression; because they are represented as with new wine intoxicated both. But I wonder that this accurate and careful writer hath not hinted something at Adam's thoughts upon the first convulsion, when he was in a state of innocence, calmness, and retirement. Nature through all her works gave signs of woe, he could not but be very sensible of it: and if so, he must certainly be startled at a phænomenon so strange and new. This I think deserved in some measure to be accounted for; and it might perhaps have As been properly introduced as a reason for his awakening his apprehensions, and making his heart, divine of something ill, misgive him, as well as her so long delayed return, ver. 844. or it might have been cleared up by some other such lucky turn of thought, as our author is master of upon most occasions. Greenwood. 1002. Sky low'r'd, and muttering thunder,] It is not meant that thunder also lowered, but Sky lowered, and muttering thunder in the ablative case absolute, some sad drops wept at completing of the mortal sin. It was not loud claps of thunder, but muttering thunder, melancholy and mournful. The passage alluded to in Virgil is this. En. iv. 166. -Prima et Tellus et pronuba Dant signum; fulsere ignes et con- Connubiis: summoque ulularunt vertice Nymphæ. Ille dies primus lethi, primusque malorum Causa fuit. Then first the trembling earth the signal gave; And flashing fires enlighten all the cave: Hell from below, and Juno from above, And howling nymphs, were con scious to their love. From this ill-omen'd hour, in time arose Debate and death, and all succeeding woes. Dryden. 1002. But surely muttering is an active participle in the |