Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight,

Now at his feet submissive in distress;

Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,

His counsel, whom she had displeased, his aid:

As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,

And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon.

“Unwary, and too desirous, as before,

So now of what thou knowest not, who desirest

The punishment all on thyself; alas!

Bear thine own first, ill able to sustain

His full wrath, whose thou feelest as yet least part,

And my displeasure bearest so ill. If prayers

Could alter high decrees, I to that place

Would speed before thee, and be louder heard,

That on my head all might be visited;

Thy frailty and infirmer sex forgiven,

To me committed, and by me exposed.

But rise; let us no more contend, nor blame

Each other, blamed enough elsewhere; but strive

In offices of love, how we may lighten

Each other’s burden, in our share of woe;

Since this day’s death denounced, if aught I see,

Will prove no sudden, but a slow-paced evil;

A long day’s dying, to augment our pain;

And to our seed (O hapless seed!) derived.”

To whom thus Eve, recovering heart, replied.

“Adam, by sad experiment I know

How little weight my words with thee can find,

Found so erroneous; thence by just event

Found so unfortunate: Nevertheless,

Restored by thee, vile as I am, to place

Of new acceptance, hopeful to regain

Thy love, the sole contentment of my heart

Living or dying, from thee I will not hide

What thoughts in my unquiet breast are risen,

Tending to some relief of our extremes,

Or end; though sharp and sad, yet tolerable,

As in our evils, and of easier choice.

If care of our descent perplex us most,

Which must be born to certain woe, devoured

By Death at last; and miserable it is

To be to others cause of misery,

Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring

Into this cursed world a woeful race,

That after wretched life must be at last

Food for so foul a monster; in thy power

It lies, yet ere conception to prevent

The race unblest, to being yet unbegot.

Childless thou art, childless remain: so Death

Shall be deceived his glut, and with us two

Be forced to satisfy his ravenous maw.

But if thou judge it hard and difficult,

Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain

From love’s due rights, nuptial embraces sweet;

And with desire to languish without hope,

Before the present object languishing

With like desire; which would be misery

And torment less than none of what we dread;

Then, both ourselves and seed at once to free

From what we fear for both, let us make short,

Let us seek Death; or, he not found, supply

With our own hands his office on ourselves:

Why stand we longer shivering under fears,

That show no end but death, and have the power,