212
��Were such as under government well
seemed
Unseemly to bear rule ; which was thy part And person, hadst thou known thyself
aright."
So having said, he thus to Eve in few: " Say, Woman, what is this which thou
hast done ? "
To whom sad Eve, with shame nigh over- whelmed, 159 Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge Bold or loquacious, thus abashed replied: " The Serpent me beguiled, and I did eat." Which when the Lord God heard, with- out delay
To judgment he proceeded on the accused Serpent, though brute, unable to transfer The guilt on him who made him instru- ment
Of mischief, and polluted from the end Of his creation justly then accursed, As vitiated in nature. More to know Concerned not Man (since he no further knew), 170
Nor altered his offence; yet God at last To Satan, first in sin, his doom applied, Though in mysterious terms, judged as
then best; And on the Serpent thus his curse let
fall: " Because thou hast done this, thou art
accursed
Above all cattle, each beast of the field ; Upon thy belly grovelling thou shalt go, And dust shalt eat all the days of thy life. Between thee and the Woman I will put Enmity, and between thine and her seed; Her seed shall bruise thy head, thou bruise his heel." 181
So spake this oracle then verified When Jesus, son of Mary, second Eve, Saw Satan fall like lightning down from
Heaven, Prince of the Air; then, rising from his
grave,
Spoiled Principalities and Powers, tri- umphed
In open shew, and, with ascension bright, Captivity led captive through the Air, The realm itself of Satan, long usurped, Whom He shall tread at last under our feet, 190
Even He who now foretold his fatal bruise, And to the Woman thus his sentence turned:
��" Thy sorrow I will greatly multiply By thy conception; children thou shalt
bring
In sorrow forth, and to thy husband's will Thine shall submit; he over thee shall
rule."
On Adam last thus judgment he pro- nounced: " Because thou hast hearkened to the voice
of thy wife,
And eaten of the Tree concerning which I charged thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat thereof, 200
Curs'd is the ground for thy sake; thou in
sorrow
Shalt eat thereof all the days of thy life ; Thorns also and thistles it shall bring thee
forth Unbid; and thou shalt eat the herb of the
field; In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat
bread,
Till thou return unto the ground; for thou Out of the ground wast taken: know thy
birth,
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust re- turn."
So judged he Man, both Judge and Sa- viour sent,
And the instant stroke of death, denounced
that day, 210
Removed far off; then, pitying how they
stood
Before him naked to the air, that now Must suffer change, disdained not to begin Thenceforth the form of servant to assume. As when he washed his servants' feet, so
now,
As Father of his family, he clad Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or
slain,
Or, as the snake, with youthful coat repaid ; And thought not much to clothe his ene- mies.
Nor he their outward only with the skins Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more 221
Opprobrious,with his robe of righteousness Arraying, covered from his Father's sight. To him with swift ascent he up returned, Into his blissful bosom reassumed In glory as of old; to him, appeased, All, though all-knowing, what had passed
with Man Recounted, mixing intercession sweet.
�� �
