Please read attached files to answer both questions Video link to question two https://youtu.be/6swmTBVI83k Part 1: How do you evaluate Satan’s argument to Eve to eat the forbidden fruit? How and wher

Please read attached files to answer both questions Video link to question two https://youtu.be/6swmTBVI83k Part 1: How do you evaluate Satan’s argument to Eve to eat the forbidden fruit? How and wher
Historians Decode the Religious Symbolism and Queer Iconography of Lil Nas X’s ‘Montero’ Video Time.com Left: MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) album cover; Right: The Creation of Adam Columbia Records; Wikimedia Commons By Andrew R. Chow March 30, 2021 11:49 AM EDT Over the past few days, a tumultuous discourse around the musician Lil Nas X has reached a fever pitch regarding two things: the lap dance he gives the devil in his new music video “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” and his sale of “Satan Shoes,” which allegedly have a drop of human blood in them. On those two topics, Lil Nas has drawn unsolicited commentary from everyone from South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem to basketball player Nick Young to conservative commentator Candace Owens. At the same time, the video has drawn praise, and not just among those celebrating its proud embrace of LGBTQ imagery and themes. Another contingent has also excitedly rallied around the music video: historical scholars. “Montero,” across its three-minute runtime, is stuffed with Greco-Roman and medieval Christian motifs and messages in both Greek and Latin. Lil Nas, in an interview with TIME, says he wanted to deploy this type of iconography and symbolism to draw a connection between ancient and modern-day persecution. “I wanted to use these things that have been around for so long to tell my own story, and the story of so many other people in the community—or people who have been outcast in general through history,” he says. “It’s the same thing over and over.” And scholars have come away impressed by the video’s attention to detail and conceptual sharpness; they say it is deeply researched and builds a powerful historical narrative that centers queerness in historical and religious spaces where it is too often erased. “Watching this video, I was a little bit shocked just because of how much knowledge you need to have to unpack some of these elements,” Roland Betancourt, a professor at University of California, Irvine and the author of Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages, says. “It says that institutionalization of homophobia is a learned thing—and that there are other origin myths available to us that are not rooted in those ideas.” The Garden of Eden “Montero,” which was co-directed by Lil Nas X and Tanu Muino, is composed of three acts. The first one takes place in the garden of Eden, where Lil Nas plays either Adam, Eve or some combination of the two. His character is tempted into sin by a snake, who also has Lil Nas’ face. “The story of the garden is a tradition that is historically misogynist,” Joseph Howley, an associate professor of classics at Columbia University, says. “It aligns women with evil; it aligns sexuality with women and with evil. Lil Nas is turning that on its head with the way that his character and the serpent interact.” Betancourt also notes that Lil Nas’ snake resembles not just the serpent in most retellings of the Bible, but Lilith, Adam’s first wife from Jewish mythology. In the Middle Ages, many paintings were drawn of Lilith as a part-serpent, part-human demon who tries to tempt Adam into all sorts of bad behavior—including having sex on top of Adam, which is depicted in “Montero.” “Lilith still has this popular culture degree to her and is understood to still exist in the world,” Betancourt says; he cites the popularity of the character on TikTok, where videos tagged #lilith have accrued 193 million views. In recent TV shows, Lilith has been used as a symbol of revolt against the patriarchy. (And remember Lilith Fair?) Left: The serpent in the Garden of Eden in Lil Nas X’s “Montero.”; Right: Base for a Statuette in which the figures of Eve and the serpent appear on either side of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. YouTube; The Metropolitan Museum of Art After Lil Nas’ Adam/Eve character gives into Lilith’s advances, the camera pans toward the tree of knowledge, which is inscribed with a Greek phrase that translates to: “After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half.” The phrase is taken from Plato’s groundbreaking philosophical text Symposium, and specifically from a passage delivered by Plato’s rendering of the playwright Aristophanes. The playwright recounts an origin story of mankind, in which humans were originally two bodies stuck together—some man and man, some woman and woman, and some man and woman. When the bodies were separated by angry Zeus, each one longed for their other half—which explains why we feel love and desire for different types of bodies. The tree of life, inscribed with a passage from Plato’s “Symposium,” in Lil Nas X’s “Montero.” YouTube / Columbia Records “The passage speaks to a capacity to imagine an equal level of naturality to all of what we think of as sexual orientations,” Howley says. “It’s an early example of homosexuality and bisexuality represented as being familiar or acceptable in ways they are not always in our society today.” Vanessa Stovall, a scholar of classical studies and ancient mythology, says that this passage of Symposium has long been a source of fascination and inspiration in queer spaces. In 1998, the passage was popularized further by the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which tells the story of a genderqueer East German singer. In it, Aristophanes’ story is told through song by the eponymous main character in “The Origin of Love”; Neil Patrick Harris would go on to win the 2014 Tony for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for inhabiting the role on Broadway. (Lil Nas told TIME that he was not familiar with the musical.) Stovall says that not only does Lil Nas’s usage of the quote place him in a lineage of queer scholarship and performance, but that he also expands the trope to adhere with a 21st century notion of self-love. Much of the imagery and symbolism both inside the “Montero” video and surrounding it deals with self-reflection and discovery: the song (and upcoming album) are called “Montero,” which is Lil Nas’ given name; he wrote a letter to a younger version of himself on Twitter; and the song’s cover art depicts him as both God and Adam in a take on Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.” “My and many people’s critique of this Aristophanes story is that we don’t need another person to be whole,” Stovall says. “So I love the idea of Lil Nas trying to find himself. There is a long history of this quote within classical and queer receptions, and a lot of interesting ways to take it—and I think he did a really, really cool one.” The Colosseum As the song’s second verse begins, the video turns to the Colosseum, where Lil Nas emerges shackled in a Marie Antoinette-like wig. While Nas himself is human, the angry masses in the crowd are all seemingly made of stone, which perhaps indicates that the mob turning against him lacks independent thought. Betancourt says the scene casts Lil Nas as a Christian martyr in the tradition of Roman Catholics getting murdered for their faith. (Many scholars have disputed the idea that such stonings happened in the Colosseum, but there is plenty of historical evidence of Christians being stoned to death in general—including St. Stephen in Jerusalem in 36 A.D.) When Lil Nas starts to ascend to heaven, however, a crucial tweak is made: he is greeted not by St. Peter, but a male angel resembling the Greek mythological figure Ganymede. Ganymede, according to lore, was a boy whose beauty was so intense that Zeus turned into an Eagle and carried him to Olympus; he has long been a symbol of homosexuality, including in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “In this moment of Christian ascent, you have this very queer iconography and this early example of representation of same-gender desire in antiquity,” Betancourt says. “I see that scene of salvation as not that he’s going to heaven, but rather having a same-gender consummation that is legitimized by Pagan gods.” Left: An angelic figure, which resembles the Greek mythological figure Ganymede, in Lil Nas X’s “Montero.”; Right: The painting “The Rape of Ganymede” by Rubens. YouTube; Commons Descent into Hell Before Lil Nas can reach Ganymede, however, a pole emerges from below; Lil Nas’ fingers curl around it, and he sails downward to hell. At the bottom, he lands in a red and black landscape that Betancourt says is indebted to both gothic traditions of architecture that were omnipresent during the rise of medieval Christianity and Disney’s more recent conception of the Middle Ages in films like Maleficent. As Lil Nas walks up to the devil on his throne, he passes a phrase in Latin that states, “They condemn what they do not understand.” Lil Nas X’s version of hell. Columbia Records / YouTube Betancourt reads the scene not as evidence of devil worship—as many detractors are claiming—but actually a critique of Christianity itself and its repressive nature. “To me, the narrative here is that Christianity takes over and suddenly you are going to be martyred for your sexual desire,” he says. Betancourt also points out that in the Middle Ages, when Christianity was rising across Europe, the church’s relationship to homosexuality was more ambivalent than it is now. He references historical texts about individuals who were assigned female at birth but became monks in all-male monastic communities, as well as “brother-making” rites which bound two men in a marriage-like unions. “Homophobia wasn’t always the central tenet of Christianity,” he says. “As a medievalist, modern Christianity seems utterly foreign to me.” “Rock and Roll Tradition” While some scholars are looking at “Montero” through the lens of centuries, others see it continuing a more recent tradition: rock and roll. Steven Fullwood, the co-founder of The Nomadic Archivists Project and a scholar of Black LGBTQ history, says that the intense blowback to the video from Christian and other traditional establishments reminds him of the reaction to previous Black rock artists who subverted ideas of masculinity. “When people say, ‘we need to protect the children,’ it’s a lazy distraction from really looking at rock and roll, at people being rebellious,” Fullwood says. “Your kid’s first influence is going to be the culture that they grew up in and the education that they got. It’s not Lil Nas X; it wasn’t Little Richard; it wasn’t Prince. They hate whatever is counter to the idea of a particular kind of white, heterosexual male sensibility.” On Twitter, the video has been embraced by many in the LGBTQ community. “Lil Nas X’s authenticity is generations in the making,” the transgender rights activist Raquel Willis wrote. Meanwhile, the aforementioned scholars said they all see plenty more intertextual allusions to modern and antique touchpoints laced through the video—whether to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Lady Gaga’s “Judas,” or the Colossus of Constantine. Howley, who teaches the introductory Literature Humanities course at Columbia, says that if he weren’t on sabbatical this year, he would have showed the video in class this week. ” It would be the first thing we did in class today; we could talk for at least an hour about it,” Howley says. “I’m always here for new treatments of motifs that are prominent and have longstanding authority in our culture.”
Please read attached files to answer both questions Video link to question two https://youtu.be/6swmTBVI83k Part 1: How do you evaluate Satan’s argument to Eve to eat the forbidden fruit? How and wher
BOOK 9 THE ARGUMENT Satan having compast the Earth, with meditated guile returns as a mist by Night into Paradise, enters into the Serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the Morning go forth to thir labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart: Adam consents not, alledging the danger, lest that Enemy, of whom they were forewarn’d, should attempt her found alone: Eve loath to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make tryal of her strength; Adam at last yields: The Serpent finds her alone; his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking, with much flattery extolling Eve above all other Creatures. Eve wondring to hear the Serpent speak, asks how he attain’d to human speech and such understanding not till now; the Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain Tree in the Garden he attain’d both to Speech and Reason, till then void of both: Eve requires him to bring her to that Tree, and finds it to be the Tree of Knowledge forbidden: The Serpent now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat; she pleas’d with the taste deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not, at last brings him of the Fruit, relates what perswaded her to eat thereof: Adam at first amaz’d, but perceiving her lost, resolves through vehemence of love to perish with her; and extenuating the trespass, eats also of the Fruit: The Effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover thir nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another. ***In what follows, Satan (disguised as a serpent) approaches Eve, who is working alone in the Garden of Eden, and persuades her to eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God has already warned them to stay away from that tree, and that if they eat its fruit, they will surely die. Satan’s goal is to persuade Eve to eat the forbidden fruit so that God forces both Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Such Pleasure took the Serpent to behold [ 455 ]This Flourie Plat, the sweet recess of EveThus earlie, thus alone; her Heav’nly formeAngelic, but more soft, and Feminine,Her graceful Innocence, her every AireOf gesture or lest action overawd [ 460 ]His Malice, and with rapine sweet bereav’dHis fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:That space the Evil one abstracted stoodFrom his own evil, and for the time remaindStupidly good, of enmitie disarm’d, [ 465 ]Of guile, of hate, of envie, of revenge;But the hot Hell that alwayes in him burnes,Though in mid Heav’n, soon ended his delight,And tortures him now more, the more he seesOf pleasure not for him ordain’d: then soon [ 470 ]Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughtsOf mischief, gratulating, thus excites. Thoughts, whither have ye led me, with what sweetCompulsion thus transported to forgetWhat hither brought us, hate, not love, nor hope [ 475 ]Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to tasteOf pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy,Save what is in destroying, other joyTo me is lost. Then let me not let passOccasion which now smiles, behold alone [ 480 ]The Woman, opportune to all attempts,Her Husband, for I view far round, not nigh,Whose higher intellectual more I shun,And strength, of courage hautie, and of limbHeroic built, though of terrestrial mould, [ 485 ]Foe not informidable, exempt from wound,I not; so much hath Hell debas’d, and paineInfeebl’d me, to what I was in Heav’n.Shee fair, divinely fair, fit Love for Gods,Not terrible, though terrour be in Love [ 490 ]And beautie, not approacht by stronger hate,Hate stronger, under shew of Love well feign’d,The way which to her ruin now I tend. So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos’dIn Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward Eve [ 495 ]Address’d his way, not with indented wave,Prone on the ground, as since, but on his reare,Circular base of rising foulds, that tour’dFould above fould a surging Maze, his HeadCrested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes; [ 500 ]With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erectAmidst his circling Spires, that on the grassFloted redundant: pleasing was his shape,And lovely, never since of Serpent kindLovelier, not those that in Illyria chang’d [ 505 ]Hermione and Cadmus, or the GodIn Epidaurus; nor to which transformdAmmonian Jove, or Capitoline was seen,Hee with Olympias, this with her who boreScipio the highth of Rome. With tract oblique [ 510 ]At first, as one who sought access, but feardTo interrupt, side-long he works his way.As when a Ship by skilful Stearsman wroughtNigh Rivers mouth or Foreland, where the WindVeres oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her Saile; [ 515 ]So varied hee, and of his tortuous TraineCurld many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,To lure her Eye; shee busied heard the soundOf rusling Leaves, but minded not, as us’dTo such disport before her through the Field, [ 520 ]From every Beast, more duteous at her call,Then at Circean call the Herd disguis’d.Hee boulder now, uncall’d before her stood;But as in gaze admiring: Oft he bowdHis turret Crest, and sleek enamel’d Neck, [ 525 ]Fawning, and lick’d the ground whereon she trod.His gentle dumb expression turnd at lengthThe Eye of Eve to mark his play; he gladOf her attention gaind, with Serpent TongueOrganic, or impulse of vocal Air, [ 530 ]His fraudulent temptation thus began. Wonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhapsThou canst, who art sole Wonder, much less armThy looks, the Heav’n of mildness, with disdain,Displeas’d that I approach thee thus, and gaze [ 535 ]Insatiate, I thus single, nor have feardThy awful brow, more awful thus retir’d.Fairest resemblance of thy Maker faire,Thee all things living gaze on, all things thineBy gift, and thy Celestial Beautie adore [ 540 ]With ravishment beheld, there best beheldWhere universally admir’d; but hereIn this enclosure wild, these Beasts among,Beholders rude, and shallow to discerne Half what in thee is fair, one man except, [ 545 ]Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who shouldst be seenA Goddess among Gods, ador’d and serv’dBy Angels numberless, thy daily Train. So gloz’d the Tempter, and his Proem tun’d;Into the Heart of Eve his words made way, [ 550 ]Though at the voice much marveling; at lengthNot unamaz’d she thus in answer spake.What may this mean? Language of Man pronounc’tBy Tongue of Brute, and human sense exprest?The first at lest of these I thought deni’d [ 555 ]To Beasts, whom God on thir Creation-DayCreated mute to all articulat sound;The latter I demurre, for in thir looksMuch reason, and in thir actions oft appeers.Thee, Serpent, suttlest beast of all the field [ 560 ]I knew, but not with human voice endu’d;Redouble then this miracle, and say,How cam’st thou speakable of mute, and howTo me so friendly grown above the restOf brutal kind, that daily are in sight? [ 565 ]Say, for such wonder claims attention due. To whom the guileful Tempter thus reply’d.Empress of this fair World, resplendent Eve,Easie to mee it is to tell thee allWhat thou commandst and right thou shouldst be obeyd: [ 570 ]I was at first as other Beasts that grazeThe trodden Herb, of abject thoughts and low,As was my food, nor aught but food discern’dOr Sex, and apprehended nothing high:Till on a day roaving the field, I chanc’d [ 575 ]A goodly Tree farr distant to beholdLoaden with fruit of fairest colours mixt,Ruddie and Gold: I nearer drew to gaze;When from the boughes a savorie odour blow’n,Grateful to appetite, more pleas’d my sense, [ 580 ]Then smell of sweetest Fenel or the TeatsOf Ewe or Goat dropping with Milk at Eevn,Unsuckt of Lamb or Kid, that tend thir play.To satisfie the sharp desire I hadOf tasting those fair Apples, I resolv’d [ 585 ]Not to deferr; hunger and thirst at once,Powerful perswaders, quick’nd at the scentOf that alluring fruit, urg’d me so keene.About the mossie Trunk I wound me soon,For high from ground the branches would require [ 590 ]Thy utmost reach or Adams: Round the TreeAll other Beasts that saw, with like desireLonging and envying stood, but could not reach.Amid the Tree now got, where plenty hungTempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill [ 595 ]I spar’d not, for such pleasure till that hourAt Feed or Fountain never had I found.Sated at length, ere long I might perceaveStrange alteration in me, to degreeOf Reason in my inward Powers, and Speech [ 600 ]Wanted not long, though to this shape retain’d.Thenceforth to Speculations high or deepI turnd my thoughts, and with capacious mindConsiderd all things visible in Heav’n,Or Earth, or Middle, all things fair and good; [ 605 ]But all that fair and good in thy DivineSemblance, and in thy Beauties heav’nly RayUnited I beheld; no Fair to thineEquivalent or second, which compel’dMee thus, though importune perhaps, to come [ 610 ]And gaze, and worship thee of right declar’dSovran of Creatures, universal Dame. So talk’d the spirited sly Snake; and EveYet more amaz’d unwarie thus reply’d. Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt [ 615 ]The vertue of that Fruit, in thee first prov’d:But say, where grows the Tree, from hence how far?For many are the Trees of God that growIn Paradise, and various, yet unknownTo us, in such abundance lies our choice, [ 620 ]As leaves a greater store of Fruit untoucht,Still hanging incorruptible, till menGrow up to thir provision, and more handsHelp to disburden Nature of her Bearth. To whom the wilie Adder, blithe and glad. [ 625 ]Empress, the way is readie, and not long,Beyond a row of Myrtles, on a Flat,Fast by a Fountain, one small Thicket pastOf blowing Myrrh and Balme; if thou acceptMy conduct, I can bring thee thither soon. [ 630 ] Lead then, said Eve. Hee leading swiftly rowldIn tangles, and made intricate seem strait,To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joyBright’ns his Crest, as when a wandring FireCompact of unctuous vapor, which the Night [ 635 ]Condenses, and the cold invirons round,Kindl’d through agitation to a Flame,Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attendsHovering and blazing with delusive Light,Misleads th’ amaz’d Night-wanderer from his way [ 640 ]To Boggs and Mires, and oft through Pond or Poole,There swallow’d up and lost, from succour farr.So glister’d the dire Snake, and into fraudLed Eve our credulous Mother, to the TreeOf prohibition, root of all our woe; [ 645 ]Which when she saw, thus to her guide she spake. Serpent, we might have spar’d our coming hither,Fruitless to mee, though Fruit be here to excess,The credit of whose vertue rest with thee,Wondrous indeed, if cause of such effects. [ 650 ]But of this Tree we may not taste nor touch;God so commanded, and left that CommandSole Daughter of his voice; the rest, we liveLaw to our selves, our Reason is our Law. To whom the Tempter guilefully repli’d. [ 655 ]Indeed? hath God then said that of the FruitOf all these Garden Trees ye shall not eate,Yet Lords declar’d of all in Earth or Aire? To whom thus Eve yet sinless. Of the FruitOf each Tree in the Garden we may eate, [ 660 ]But of the Fruit of this fair Tree amidstThe Garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eateThereof, nor shall ye touch it, least ye die. She scarse had said, though brief, when now more boldThe Tempter, but with shew of Zeale and Love [ 665 ]To Man, and indignation at his wrong,New part puts on, and as to passion mov’d,Fluctuats disturbd, yet comely and in actRais’d, as of som great matter to begin.As when of old som Orator renound [ 670 ]In Athens or free Rome, where EloquenceFlourishd, since mute, to som great cause addrest,Stood in himself collected, while each part,Motion, each act won audience ere the tongue,Somtimes in highth began, as no delay [ 675 ]Of Preface brooking through his Zeal of Right.So standing, moving, or to highth upgrownThe Tempter all impassiond thus began. O Sacred, Wise, and Wisdom-giving Plant,Mother of Science, Now I feel thy Power [ 680 ]Within me cleere, not onely to discerneThings in thir Causes, but to trace the wayesOf highest Agents, deemd however wise.Queen of this Universe, doe not believeThose rigid threats of Death; ye shall not Die: [ 685 ]How should ye? by the Fruit? it gives you LifeTo Knowledge, By the Threatner? look on mee,Mee who have touch’d and tasted, yet both live,And life more perfet have attaind then FateMeant mee, by ventring higher then my Lot. [ 690 ]Shall that be shut to Man, which to the BeastIs open? or will God incense his ireFor such a petty Trespass, and not praiseRather your dauntless vertue, whom the painOf Death denounc’t, whatever thing Death be, [ 695 ]Deterrd not from atchieving what might leadeTo happier life, knowledge of Good and Evil;Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evilBe real, why not known, since easier shunnd? God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; [ 700 ]Not just, not God ; not feard then, nor obeyd:Your feare it self of Death removes the feare.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 [ 705 ]Ye Eate thereof, your Eyes that seem so cleere,Yet are but dim, shall perfetly be thenOp’nd and cleerd, and ye shall be as Gods,Knowing both Good and Evil as they know.That ye should be as Gods, since I as Man, [ 710 ]Internal Man, is but proportion meet,I of brute human, yee of human Gods.So ye shall die perhaps, by putting offHuman, to put on Gods, death to be wisht,Though threat’nd, which no worse then this can bring. [ 715 ]And what are Gods that Man may not becomeAs they, participating God-like food?The Gods are first, and that advantage useOn our belief, that all from them proceeds;I question it, for this fair Earth I see, [ 720 ]Warm’d by the Sun, producing every kind,Them nothing: If they all things, who enclos’dKnowledge of Good and Evil in this Tree,That whoso eats thereof, forthwith attainsWisdom without their leave? and wherein lies [ 725 ]Th’ offence, that Man should thus attain to know?What can your knowledge hurt him, or this TreeImpart against his will if all be his?Or is it envie, and can envie dwellIn Heav’nly brests? these, these and many more [ 730 ]Causes import your need of this fair Fruit.Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste. He ended, and his words replete with guileInto her heart too easie entrance won:Fixt on the Fruit she gaz’d, which to behold [ 735 ]Might tempt alone, and in her ears the soundYet rung of his perswasive words, impregn’dWith Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth;Mean while the hour of Noon drew on, and wak’dAn eager appetite, rais’d by the smell [ 740 ]So savorie of that Fruit, which with desire,Inclinable now grown to touch or taste,Sollicited her longing eye; yet firstPausing a while, thus to her self she mus’d. Great are thy Vertues, doubtless, best of Fruits. [ 745 ]Though kept from Man, and worthy to be admir’d,Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assayGave elocution to the mute, and taughtThe Tongue not made for Speech to speak thy praise:Thy praise hee also who forbids thy use, [ 750 ]Conceales not from us, naming thee the TreeOf Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;Forbids us then to taste, but his forbiddingCommends thee more, while it inferrs the goodBy thee communicated, and our want: [ 755 ]For good unknown, sure is not had, or hadAnd yet unknown, is as not had at all.In plain then, what forbids he but to know,Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise?Such prohibitions binde not. But if Death [ 760 ]Bind us with after-bands, what profits thenOur inward freedom? In the day we eateOf this fair Fruit, our doom is, we shall die.How dies the Serpent? hee hath eat’n and lives,And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, [ 765 ]Irrational till then. For us aloneWas death invented? or to us deni’dThis intellectual food, for beasts reserv’d?For Beasts it seems: yet that one Beast which firstHath tasted, envies not, but brings with joy [ 770 ]The good befall’n him, Author unsuspect,Friendly to man, farr from deceit or guile.What fear I then, rather what know to feareUnder this ignorance of good and Evil,Of God or Death, of Law or Penaltie? [ 775 ]Here grows the Cure of all, this Fruit Divine,Fair to the Eye, inviting to the Taste,Of vertue to make wise: what hinders thenTo reach, and feed at once both Bodie and Mind? So saying, her rash hand in evil hour [ 780 ]Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluck’d, she eat:Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seatSighing through all her Works gave signs of woe,That all was lost. Back to the Thicket slunkThe guiltie Serpent, and well might, for Eve [ 785 ]Intent now wholly on her taste, naught elseRegarded, such delight till then, as seemd,In Fruit she never tasted, whether trueOr fansied so, through expectation highOf knowledg, nor was God-head from her thought. [ 790 ]Greedily she ingorg’d without restraint,And knew not eating Death: Satiate at length,And hight’nd as with Wine, jocond and boon,Thus to her self she pleasingly began. O Sovran, vertuous, precious of all Trees [ 795 ]In Paradise, of operation blestTo Sapience, hitherto obscur’d, infam’d,And thy fair Fruit let hang, as to no endCreated; but henceforth my early care,Not without Song, each Morning, and due praise [ 800 ]Shall tend thee, and the fertil burden easeOf thy full branches offer’d free to all;Till dieted by thee I grow matureIn knowledge, as the Gods who all things know;Though others envie what they cannot give; [ 805 ]For had the gift bin theirs, it had not hereThus grown. Experience, next to thee I owe,Best guide; not following thee, I had remaindIn ignorance, thou op’nst Wisdoms way,And giv’st access, though secret she retire. [ 810 ]And I perhaps am secret; Heav’n is high,High and remote to see from thence distinctEach thing on Earth; and other care perhapsMay have diverted from continual watchOur great Forbidder, safe with all his Spies [ 815 ]About him. But to Adam in what sortShall I appeer? shall I to him make knownAs yet my change, and give him to partakeFull happiness with mee, or rather not,But keep the odds of Knowledge in my power [ 820 ]Without Copartner? so to add what wantsIn Femal Sex, the more to draw his Love,And render me more equal, and perhaps,A thing not undesireable, somtimeSuperior: for inferior who is free? [ 825 ]This may be well: but what if God have seenAnd Death ensue? then I shall be no more,And Adam wedded to another Eve,Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct;A death to think. Confirm’d then I resolve, [ 830 ]Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe:So dear I love him, that with him all deathsI could endure, without him live no life. Syllogistic Reasoning Major Premise: God is just Minor Premise: God cannot punish you and still be just Conclusion: God won’t punish you (if he’s just) If God does punish you, then he’s not just If he’s not just, then he’s not God If he’s not God, no reason to obey him anyway 10