Is open? or will God incense his ire

For such a petty trespass? and not praise

Rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain

Of death denounced, whatever thing death be,

Deterred not from achieving what might lead

To happier life, knowledge of good and evil;

Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil

Be real, why not known, since easier shunned?

God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;

Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed:

Your fear itself of death removes the fear.

Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe;

Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant,

His worshippers? He knows that in the day

Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear,

Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then

Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods,

Knowing both good and evil, as they know.

That ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man,

Internal Man, is but proportion meet;

I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods.

So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off

Human, to put on Gods; death to be wished,

Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring.

And what are Gods, that Man may not become

As they, participating God-like food?

The Gods are first, and that advantage use

On our belief, that all from them proceeds:

I question it; for this fair earth I see,

Warmed by the sun, producing every kind;

Them, nothing: if they all things, who enclosed

Knowledge of good and evil in this tree,

That whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains

Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies

The offence, that Man should thus attain to know?

What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree

Impart against his will, if all be his?

Or is it envy? and can envy dwell

In heavenly breasts? These, these, and many more

Causes import your need of this fair fruit.

Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste!”

He ended; and his words, replete with guile,

Into her heart too easy entrance won:

Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold

Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound

Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned

With reason, to her seeming, and with truth:

Meanwhile the hour of noon drew on, and waked

An eager appetite, raised by the smell

So savoury of that fruit, which with desire,

Inclinable now grown to touch or taste,

Solicited her longing eye; yet first

Pausing a while, thus to herself she mused.

“Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,

Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired;

Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assay

Gave elocution to the mute, and taught

The tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise:

Thy praise he also, who forbids thy use,

Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree

Of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;

Forbids us then to taste! but his forbidding