by John Dryden
Adam. What more can heaven bestow, or man require?
Raphael. Yes, he can give beyond thy own desire.
A mansion is provided thee, more fair
Than this, and worthy heaven’s peculiar care:
Not framed of common earth, nor fruits, nor flowers
Of vulgar growth, but like celestial bowers:
The soil luxuriant, and the fruit divine,
Where golden apples on green branches shine,
And purple grapes dissolve into immortal wine;
For noon-day’s heat are closer arbours made,
And for fresh evening air the opener glade.
Ascend; and, as we go,
More wonders thou shalt know.
Adam. And, as we go, let earth and heaven above
Sound our great Maker’s power, and greater love. [They ascend to soft music, and a song is sung.
The Scene changes, and represents, above, a Sun gloriously rising and moving orbicularly: at a distance, below, is the Moon; the part next the Sun enlightened, the other dark. A black Cloud comes whirling from the adverse part of the Heavens, bearing Lucifer in it; at his nearer approach the body of the Sun is darkened.
Lucif. Am I become so monstrous, so disfigured,
That nature cannot suffer my approach,
Or look me in the face, but stands aghast;
And that fair light which gilds this new-made orb,
Shorn of his beams, shrinks in? accurst ambition!
And thou, black empire of the nether world,
How dearly have I bought you! But, ’tis past;
I have already gone too far to stop,
And must push on my dire revenge, in ruin
Of this gay frame, and man, my upstart rival,
In scorn of me created. Down, my pride,
And all my swelling thoughts! I must forget
Awhile I am a devil, and put on
A smooth submissive face; else I in vain
Have past through night and chaos, to discover
Those envied skies again, which I have lost.
But stay; far off I see a chariot driven,
Flaming with beams, and in it Uriel,
One of the seven, (I know his hated face)
Who stands in presence of the eternal throne,
And seems the regent of that glorious light.
From that part of the Heavens where the Sun appears, a Chariot is discovered drawn with white Horses, and in it Uriel, the Regent of the Sun. The Chariot moves swiftly towards Lucifer, and at Uriel’s approach the Sun recovers his light.
Uriel. Spirit, who art thou, and from whence arrived?
(For I remember not thy face in heaven)
Or by command, or hither led by choice?
Or wander’st thou within this lucid orb,
And, strayed from those fair fields of light above,
Amidst this new creation want’st a guide,
To reconduct thy steps?
Lucifer. Bright Uriel,
Chief of the seven! thou flaming minister,
Who guard’st this new-created orb of light,
(The world’s eye that, and thou the eye of it)
Thy favour and high office make thee known:
An humble cherub I, and of less note,
Yet bold, by thy permission, hither come,
On high discoveries bent.
Uriel. Speak thy design.
Lucifer. Urged by renown of what I heard above,
Divulged by angels nearest heaven’s high King,
Concerning this new world, I came to view
(If worthy such a favour) and admire
This last effect of our great Maker’s power:
Thence to my wondering fellows I shall turn,
Full fraught with joyful tidings of these works,
New matter of his praise, and of our songs.
Uriel. Thy business is not what deserves my blame,
Nor thou thyself unwelcome; see, fair spirit,
Below yon sphere (of matter not unlike it)
There hangs the ball of earth and water mixt,
Self-centered and unmoved.
Lucifer. But where dwells man?
Uriel. On yonder mount; thou see’st it fenced with rocks,
And round the ascent a theatre of trees,
A sylvan scene, which, rising by degrees,
Leads up the eye below, nor gluts the sight
With one full prospect, but invites by many,
To view at last the whole: There his abode,
Thither direct thy flight.
Lucifer. O blest be thou,
Who to my low converse has lent thy ear,
And favoured my request! Hail, and farewell. [Flies downward out of sight.
Uriel. Not unobserved thou goest, whoe’er thou art;
Whether some spirit on holy purpose bent,
Or some fallen angel from below broke loose,
Who com’st, with envious eyes and curst intent,
To view this world and its created lord:
Here will I watch, and, while my orb rolls on,
Pursue from hence thy much suspected flight,
And, if disguised, pierce through with beams of light. [The Chariot drives forward out of sight.
SCENE II. — Paradise.
Trees cut out on each side, with several Fruits upon them; a Fountain in the midst: At the far end the prospect terminates in Walks.
Adam. If this be dreaming, let me never wake;
But still the joys of that sweet sleep partake.
Methought — but why do I my bliss delay,
By thinking what I thought? Fair vision, stay;
My better half, thou softer part of me,
To whom I yield my boasted sovereignty,
I seek myself, and find not, wanting thee.[Exit.
Enter Eve.
Eve. Tell me, ye hills and dales, and thou fair sun,
Who shin’st above, what am I? Whence begun?
Like myself, I see nothing: From each tree
The feathered kind peep down to look on me;
And beasts with up-cast eyes forsake their shade,
And gaze, as if I were to be obeyed.
Sure I am somewhat which they wish to be,
And cannot; I myself am proud of me.
What’s here? another firmament below,[Looks into a fountain.
Spread wide, and other trees that downward grow!
And now a face peeps up, and now draws near,
With smiling looks, as pleased to see me here.
As I advance, so that advances too,
And seems to imitate whate’er I do:
When I begin to speak, the lips it moves;
Streams drown the voice, or it would say, it loves.
Yet when I would embrace, it will not stay: [Stoops down to embrace.
Lost ere ’tis held; when nearest, far away.
Ah, fair, yet false! ah, Being, formed to cheat,
By seeming kindness, mixt with deep deceit!
Enter Adam.
Adam. O virgin, heaven-begot, and born of man,
Thou fairest of thy great Creator’s works!
Thee, goddess, thee the Eternal did ordain,
His softer substitute on earth to reign;
And, wheresoe’er thy happy footsteps tread,
Nature in triumph after thee is led!
Angels with pleasure view thy matchless grace,
And love their Maker’s image in thy face.
Eve. O, only like myself,(for nothing here
So graceful, so majestic does appear:)
Art thou the form my longing eyes did see,
Loosed from thy fountain, and come out to me?
Yet sure thou art not, nor thy face the same,
Nor thy limbs moulded in so soft a frame;
Thou look’st more sternly, dost more strongly move,
And more of awe thou bear’st, and less of love.
Yet pleased I hear thee, and abo
ve the rest,
I, next myself, admire and love thee best.
Adam. Made to command, thus freely I obey,
And at thy feet the whole creation lay.
Pity that love thy beauty does beget;
What more I shall desire, I know not yet.
First let us locked in close embraces be,
Thence I, perhaps, may teach myself and thee.
Eve. Somewhat forbids me, which I cannot name;
For, ignorant of guilt, I fear not shame:
But some restraining thought, I know not why,
Tells me, you long should beg, I long deny.
Adam. In vain! my right to thee is sealed above;
Look round and see where thou canst place thy love:
All creatures else are much unworthy thee;
They matched, and thou alone art left for me.
If not to love, we both were made in vain;
I my new empire would resign again,
And change with my dumb slaves my nobler mind,
Who, void of reason, more of pleasure find.
Methinks, for me they beg; each silently
Demands thy grace, and seems to watch thy eye.
Eve. I well foresee, whene’er thy suit I grant,
That I my much-loved sovereignty shall want:
Or like myself some other may be made,
And her new beauty may thy heart invade.
Adam. Could heaven some greater master-piece devise,
Set out with all the glories of the skies,
That beauty yet in vain he should decree.
Unless he made another heart for me.
Eve. With how much ease I, whom I love, believe!
Giving myself, my want of worth I grieve.
Here, my inviolable faith I plight,
So, thou be my defence, I, thy delight. [Exeunt, he leading her.
ACT III.
SCENE I. — Paradise.
Lucifer.
Lucif. Fair place! yet what is this to heaven, where I
Sat next, so almost equalled the Most High?
I doubted, measuring both, who was more strong;
Then, willing to forget time since so long,
Scarce thought I was created: Vain desire
Of empire in my thoughts still shot me higher,
To mount above his sacred head: Ah why,
When he so kind, was so ungrateful I?
He bounteously bestowed unenvied good
On me: In arbitrary grace I stood:
To acknowledge this, was all he did exact;
Small tribute, where the will to pay was act.
I mourn it now, unable to repent,
As he, who knows my hatred to relent,
Jealous of power once questioned: Hope, farewell;
And with hope, fear; no depth below my hell
Can be prepared: Then, Ill, be thou my good;
And, vast destruction, be my envy’s food.
Thus I, with heaven, divided empire gain;
Seducing man, I make his project vain,
And in one hour destroy his six days pain.
They come again, I must retire.
Enter Adam and Eve.
Adam. Thus shall we live in perfect bliss, and see,
Deathless ourselves, our numerous progeny.
Thou young and beauteous, my desires to bless;
I, still desiring, what I still possess.
Eve. Heaven, from whence love, our greatest blessing, came,
Can give no more, but still to be the same.
Thou more of pleasure may’st with me partake;
I, more of pride, because thy bliss I make.
Adam. When to my arms thou brought’st thy virgin love,
Fair angels sung our bridal hymn above:
The Eternal, nodding, shook the firmament,
And conscious nature gave her glad consent.
Roses unbid, and every fragrant flower,
Flew from their stalks, to strew thy nuptial bower:
The furred and feathered kind the triumph did pursue,
And fishes leaped above the streams, the passing pomp to view.
Eve. When your kind eyes looked languishing on mine,
And wreathing arms did soft embraces join,
A doubtful trembling seized me first all o’er;
Then, wishes; and a warmth, unknown before:
What followed was all ecstasy and trance;
Immortal pleasures round my swimming eyes did dance,
And speechless joys, in whose sweet tumult tost,
I thought my breath and my new being lost.
Lucif. O death to hear! and a worse hell on earth! [Aside.
What mad profusion on this clod-born birth!
Abyss of joys, as if heaven meant to shew
What, in base matters, such a hand could do:
Or was his virtue spent, and he no more
With angels could supply the exhausted store,
Of which I swept the sky?
And wanting subjects to his haughty will,
On this mean work employed his trifling skill?
Eve. Blest in ourselves, all pleasures else abound;
Without our care behold the unlaboured ground
Bounteous of fruit; above our shady bowers
The creeping jessamin thrusts her fragrant flowers;
The myrtle, orange, and the blushing rose,
With bending heaps so nigh their blooms disclose,
Each seems to swell the flavour which the other blows:
By these the peach, the guava, and the pine,
And, creeping ‘twixt them all, the mantling vine
Does round their trunks her purple clusters twine.
Adam. All these are ours, all nature’s excellence,
Whose taste or smell can bless the feasted sense;
One only fruit, in the mid garden placed, —
The Tree of Knowledge, — is denied our taste;
(Our proof of duty to our Maker’s will:)
Of disobedience, death’s the threatened ill.
Eve. Death is some harm, which, though we know not yet,
Since threatened, we must needs imagine great:
And sure he merits it, who disobeys
That one command, and one of so much ease.
Lucif. Must they then die, if they attempt to know?
He sees they would rebel, and keeps them low.
On this foundation I their ruin lay,
Hope to know more shall tempt to disobey.
I fell by this, and, since their strength is less,
Why should not equal means give like success?
Adam. Come, my fair love, our morning’s task we lose;
Some labour even the easiest life would chuse:
Ours is not great: the dangling boughs to crop,
Whose too luxuriant growth our alleys stop,
And choke the paths: This our delight requires,
And heaven no more of daily work desires.
Eve. With thee to live, is paradise alone:
Without the pleasure of thy sight, is none.
I fear small progress will be made this day;
So much our kisses will our task delay.[Exeunt.
Lucif. Why have not I, like these, a body too,
Formed for the same delights which they pursue!
I could (so variously my passions move)
Enjoy, and blast her in the act of love.
Unwillingly I hate such excellence;
She wronged me not; but I revenge the offence,
Through her, on heaven, whose thunder took away
My birth-right skies! Live happy whilst you may,
Blest pair; y’are not allowed another day![Exit.
Gabriel and Ithuriel descend, carried on bright clouds, and flying cross each other, then light on the ground.
Gab. Ithuriel, since we two commissioned are
From heaven the guardians of this new made pair,
Each m
ind his charge; for, see, the night draws on,
And rising mists pursue the setting sun.
Ithu. Blest is our lot to serve; our task we know:
To watch, lest any, from the abyss below
Broke loose, disturb their sleep with dreams; or worse,
Assault their beings with superior force. [Uriel flies down from the Sun.
Uriel. Gabriel, if now the watch be set, prepare,
With strictest guard, to shew thy utmost care.
This morning came a spirit, fair he seemed,
Whom, by his face, I some young cherub deemed;
Of man he much inquired, and where his place,
With shews of zeal to praise his Maker’s grace;
But I, with watchful eyes, observed his flight,
And saw him on yon steepy mount alight;
There, as he thought, unseen, he laid aside
His borrowed mask, and re-assumed his pride:
I marked his looks, averse to heaven and good;
Dusky he grew, and long revolving stood
On some deep, dark design; thence shot with haste,
And o’er the mounds of Paradise he past:
By his proud port, he seemed the Prince of Hell;
And here he lurks in shades ‘till night: Search well
Each grove and thicket, pry in every shape,
Lest, hid in some, the arch hypocrite escape.
Gab. If any spirit come to invade, or scout
From hell, what earthy fence can keep him out?
But rest secure of this, he shall be found,
And taken, or proscribed this happy ground.
Ithu. Thou to the east, I westward walk the round,
And meet we in the midst.
Uriel. Heaven your design
Succeed; your charge requires you, and me mine. [Uriel flies forward out of sight; the two Angels exeunt severally.
A Night-piece of a pleasant Bower: Adam and Eve asleep in it.
Enter Lucifer.
Lucif. So, now they lie secure in love, and steep
Their sated senses in full draughts of sleep.
By what sure means can I their bliss invade?
By violence? No, for they are immortal made.
Their reason sleeps, but mimic fancy wakes,
Supplies her part, and wild ideas takes,
From words and things, ill sorted and misjoined;
The anarchy of thought, and chaos of the mind:
Hence dreams, confused and various, may arise;
These will I set before the woman’s eyes;
The weaker she, and made my easier prey;
Vain shows and pomp the softer sex betray. [Lucifer sits down by Eve, and seems to whisper in her ear.
A Vision, where a tree rises loaden with fruit; four Spirits rise with it, and draw a canopy out of the tree; other Spirits dance about the tree in deformed shapes; after the dance an Angel enters, with a Woman, habited like Eve.