Season 3 Podcast 253 Milton’s Paradise Lost Bk IX, Pt XXVIII, “Temptation of Adam D”

Season 3 Podcast 253 Milton’s Paradise Lost Bk IX, Pt XXVIII, “Temptation of Adam D”  This podcast ends Bk IX of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Having eaten the forbidden fruit, for the first time they felt lust. After their long sleep, the illusion was gone, the eyes of Adam and Eve had been opened, and they awakened to a realization of the full effects of the fall. For the first time they feel shame and guilt.Soon as the force of that fallacious Fruit,That with exhilarating vapor blandAbout their spirits had plaid, and inmost powersMade ere, was now exhaled, and grosser sleepBred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreamsEncumbered, now had left them, up they roseAs from unrest, and each the other viewing,Soon found their Eyes how opened, and their mindsHow darkened; innocence, that as a veilHad shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone,Just confidence, and native righteousness,And honour from about them, naked leftTo guilty shame he covered, but his RobeUncovered more. Shame and self-consciousness were new feelings for the parents of the human race. Aware of their nakedness they felt intense guilt. Milton compares Adam and Eve to Samson and Delilah.So rose the Danite strongHerculean Samson from the Harlot-lapOf Philistean Dalilah, and wakedShorn of his strength, They destitute and bareOf all their virtue: silent, and in faceConfounded long they sat, as struck’n mute,Till Adam, though not less than Eve abasht,At length gave utterance to these words constrained.Thus we have the first quarrel between husband and wife as they fall to blaming each other. First Adam puts all the blame on Eve.O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give careTo that false Worm, of whomsoever taughtTo counterfeit Man’s voice, true in our Fall,False in our promised Rising; since our EyesOp’nd we find indeed, and find we knowBoth Good and Evil, Good lost and Evil got,Bad Fruit of Knowledge, if this be to know,Which leaves us naked thus, of Honour void,Of Innocence, of Faith, of Purity,Our wonted Ornaments now soiled and stained,And in our Faces evident the signsOf foul concupiscence; whence evil store;Even shame, the last of evils; of the firstBe sure then. Now Adam is faced with another dilemma. Everything is a first for the couple. Before Adam walked in the garden and conversed freely with God and with his angels. Now he is horror struck to even think he must face them. In his fallen state, he won’t even be able to look upon them.How shall I behold the faceHenceforth of God or Angel, earst with joyAnd rapture so oft beheld? those heavenly shapesWill dazzle now this earthly, with their blazeInsufferably bright. Before the fall, every part of the Garden had its charm. He could freely walk its paths, freely converse with the angels.  Now Adam wants to hideO might I hereIn solitude live savage, in some gladObscured, where highest Woods impenetrableTo Starr or Sun-light, spread their umbrage broad,And brown as Evening: Cover me ye Pines,Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughsHide me, where I may never see them more.And suddenly he feels shame for his nakedness.But let us now, as in bad plight, deviseWhat best may for the present serve to hideThe Parts of each from other, that seem mostTo shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen,Some Tree whose broad smooth Leaves together sowed,And girded on our loins, may cover roundThose middle parts, that this new commer, Shame,There sit not, and reproach us as unclean.