Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/392

Who slew his brother. Studious they appear
Of arts that polish life, inventors rare;610
Unmindful of their Maker, though his Spirit
Taught them; but they his gifts acknowledge none.
Yet they a beauteous offspring shall beget;
For that fair female troop thou sawest, that seemed
Of goddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay,
Yet empty of all good, wherein consists
Woman's domestic honor and chief praise;
Bred only and completed to the taste
Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance,
To dress, and troll the tongue, and roll the eye . . .620
To these that sober race of men, whose lives
Religious titled them the sons of God,
Shall yield up all their virtue, all thais fame
Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles
Of these fair atheists, and now swim in joy
—Erelong to swim at large—and laugh; for which
The world erelong a world of tears must weep."
To which thus Adam, of short joy bereft:
"O pity and shame, that they, who to live well
Entered so fair, should turn aside to tread630
Paths indirect, or in the midway faint!
But still I see the tenor of Man's woe
Holds on the same, from Woman to begin."
"From Man's effeminate slackness it begins,"