Paradise Lost Eve Quotes

How can I live without thee, how forego Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined, To live again in these wild woods forlorn? Should God create another Eve, and I Another rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

How can I live without thee, how forego Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined, To live again in these wild woods forlorn? Should God create another Eve, and I Another rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. However, I with thee have fixed my lot, Certain to undergo like doom; if death Consort with thee, death is to me as life; So forcible within my heart I feel The bond of nature draw me to my own, My own in thee, for what thou art is mine; Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

As for those who state that it is thanks to a woman, the lady Eve, that man was expelled from paradise, my answer to them would be that man has gained far more through Mary than he ever lost through Eve.

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair that ever since in love's embraces met -- Adam, the goodliest man of men since born his sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.

And I, the for­mer mys­tic, was think­ing: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve de­ceived You, You chased them from par­adise. When You were dis­pleased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your fa­vour, You caused the heav­ens to rain down fire and damna­tion. But look at these men whom You have be­trayed, al­low­ing them to be tortured, slaugh­tered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray be­fore You! They praise Your name!

Thus it shall befall Him, who to worth in women over-trusting, Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook; And left to herself, if evil thence ensue She first his weak indulgence will accuse.

How can I live without thee, how forgoe Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly joyn'd, To live again in these wilde Woods forlorn? Should God create another Eve, and I Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no no, I feel The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

With thee conversing I forget all time, All seasons and their change, all please alike. Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth After soft showers; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild, then silent night With this her solemn bird and this fair moon, And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train: But neither breath of morn when she ascends With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower, Glistring with dew, nor fragrance after showers, Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon, Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet.

Richard III's monologue is not unlike Adolf Hitler's speech to his General Staff on 23 August 1939, in its utter lack of self-deception. The lack of self-deception is striking because most of us invent plausible reasons for doing something we know is wrong. Milton describes such rationalization in Paradise Lost in Eve, both before she eats the fruit of the forbidden tree and afterwards, when she justifies inducing Adam to eat: So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life. (Pl, IX. 832-33) Eve makes this profession of love for Adam at the moment when she is, in effect, planning to kill him.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve Addressed his way: not with indented wave, Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear, Circular base of rising folds, that towered Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape And lovely; never since of serpent-kind Lovelier…

Think of this – that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other. True, the writer may have been alone also with Spenser's golden apples in the Faerie Queene, Proserpina's garden, glistening bright among the place's ashes and cinders, may have seen in his mind's eye, apple of his eye, the golden fruit of the Primavera, may have seen Paradise Lost, in the garden where Eve recalled Pomona and Proserpina. He was alone when he wrote and he was not alone then, all these voices sang, the same words, golden apples, different words in different places, an Irish castle, un unseen cottage, elastic-walled and grey round blind eyes.

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, That all was lost.

The moment you know, you destroy all poetry. The moment you know, and think that you know, you have created a barrier between yourself and that which is. Then everything is distorted. Then you don’t hear with your ears, you translate. Then you don’t see with your eyes, you interpret. Then you don’t experience with your heart, you think that you experience. Then all possibility of meeting with existence in immediacy, in intimacy, is lost. You have fallen apart. This is the original sin. And this is the whole story, the biblical story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Once they have eaten the fruit of knowledge they are driven out of paradise. Not that somebody drove them out, not that God ordered them to get out of paradise, they themselves fell. Knowing they were no more innocent, knowing they were separate from existence, knowing they were egos…knowing created such a barrier, an iron barrier. You ask me, “What is innocence?” Vomit knowledge! The fruit of the tree of knowledge has to be vomited. That’s what meditation is all about. Throw it out of your system: it is poison, pure poison. Live without knowledge, knowing that “I don’t know.” Function out of this state of not knowing and you will know what beauty is. Socrates

Nor was his name unheard or unador'd In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land Men call'd him Mulciber; and how he fell From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o're the Chrystal Battlements: from Morn To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve, A Summers day; and with the setting Sun Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star, On Lemnos th' Ægean Ile: thus they relate, Erring...

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair that ever since in love’s embraces met –Adam, the goodliest man of men since born his sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.” ― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name! “All

Man is in a fallen state. In fact, that is the meaning of the Christian parable of the fall of Adam, his expulsion. Why were Adam and Eve expelled from paradise? They were expelled because they had eaten the fruit of knowledge. They were expelled because they had become minds, and they had lost their consciousness. If you become a mind, you lose consciousness—mind means sleep, mind means noise, mind means mechanicalness. If you become a mind, you lose consciousness.

Eve took the bite. But instead of the promised benefits, she found herself with a mouthful of distasteful consequences—guilt, fear, and alienation. The fellowship she had enjoyed with God and her husband was broken. Paradise had been lost.

I never ceased to believe that they corresponded to a reality independent of myself, and they made me conscious of as glorious a hope as could have been cherished by a Christian in the primitive age of faith, on the eve of his entry into Paradise.

So having said, he thus to Eve in few: Say Woman, what is this which thou hast done? To whom sad Eve with shame nigh overwhelm'd, Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge Bold or loquacious, thus abasht repli'd. The Serpent me beguil'd and I did eate.

Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep Was aerie-light, from pure digestion bred, And temperate vapors bland, which the only sound Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song Of birds on every bough; so much the more His wonder was to find unwakened Eve With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, As through unquiet rest: He, on his side Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love Hung over her enamored, and beheld Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake, My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, How nature paints her colors, how the bee Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.

Eve, wrapped in perfect beauty, answered: “My Lord and master, what you order I will obey without question; this is how God orders it, You follow God’s orders and I follow yours: to be aware of that Is a woman’s happiest privilege. When talking with you I lose track of the time,

In either hand the hastning Angel caught Our lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate Led them direct, and down the Cliff as fast To the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd. They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat, Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes: Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon; The World was all before them, where to choose Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide: They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow, Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

but what if God have seen, And 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. Confirmed then I resolve, Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe: So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.

    Lead then, said EVE. Hee leading swiftly rowld   In tangles, and make intricate seem strait,   To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy   Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wandring Fire   Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night   Condenses, and the cold invirons round,   Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame,   Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends,   Hovering and blazing with delusive Light,   Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way   To Boggs and Mires, & oft through Pond or Poole,   There swallow'd up and lost, from succour farr.

So spake our mother Eve, and Adam heard Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh Th' Archangel stood, and from the other hill To their fixed station, all in bright array The Cherubim descended; on the ground Gliding meteorous, as ev'ning mist Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel Homeward returning. High in front advanced, The brandished sword of God before them blazed Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat, And vapour as the Libyan air adust, Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat In either and the hast'ning angel caught Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast To the subjected plain; then disappeared. They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

    So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd   In Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward EVE   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'd   Fould above fould a surging Maze, his Head   Crested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes;   With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erect   Amidst his circling Spires, that on the grass   Floted redundant: pleasing was his shape,   And lovely, never since of Serpent kind   Lovelier, not those that in ILLYRIA chang'd   HERMIONE and CADMUS, or the God   In EPIDAURUS; nor

Milton argued, in 1649, after the execution of Charles I, that a people 'free by nature' had a right to overthrow a tyrant; a subject that recalls vividly the questions examined by Shakespeare in his major tragedies about fifty years before. Milton continued to defend his ideals of freedom and republicanism. But at the Restoration, by which time he was blind, he was arrested. Various powerful contacts allowed him to be released after paying a fine, and his remaining years were devoted to the composition - orally, in the form of dictation to his third wife - of his epic poem on the fall of humanity, Paradise Lost, which was published in 1667. It is interesting that - like Spenser and Malory before him, and like Tennyson two centuries later - Milton was attracted to the Arthurian legends as the subject for his great epic. But the theme of the Fall goes far beyond a national epic, and gave the poet scope to analyse the whole question of freedom, free will, and individual choice. He wished, he said, to 'assert eternal providence,/And justify the ways of God to men'. This has been seen as confirmation of Milton's arrogance, but it also signals the last great attempt to rationalise the spirit of the Renaissance: mankind would not exist outside Paradise if Satan had not engineered the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. For many critics, including the poets Blake and Shelley, Satan, the figure of the Devil, is the hero of the poem.

  Such Pleasure took the Serpent to behold   This Flourie Plat, the sweet recess of EVE   Thus earlie, thus alone; her Heav'nly forme   Angelic, but more soft, and Feminine,   Her graceful Innocence, her every Aire   Of gesture or lest action overawd   His Malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd   His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:   That space the Evil one abstracted stood   From his own evil, and for the time remaind   Stupidly good, of enmitie disarm'd,   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 sees   Of pleasure not for him ordain'd: then soon   Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts   Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites.

  But whether thus these things, or whether not,   Whether the Sun predominant in Heav'n   Rise on the Earth, or Earth rise on the Sun,   Hee from the East his flaming rode begin,   Or Shee from West her silent course advance   With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps   On her soft Axle, while she paces Eev'n,   And bears thee soft with the smooth Air along,   Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid,   Leave them to God above, him serve and feare;   Of other Creatures, as him pleases best,   Wherever plac't, let him dispose: joy thou   In what he gives to thee, this Paradise   And thy faire EVE; Heav'n is for thee too high   To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:   Think onely what concernes thee and thy being;   Dream not of other Worlds, what Creatures there   Live, in what state, condition or degree,   Contented that thus farr hath been reveal'd   Not of Earth onely but of highest Heav'n.

God hath pronounc’t it death to taste that Tree, The only sign of our obedience left Among so many signes of power and rule Conferrd upon us, and Dominion giv’n Over all other Creatures that possesse Earth, Aire, and Sea. Then let us not think hard One easie prohibition, who enjoy Free leave so large to all things else, and choice Unlimited of manifold delights: But let us ever praise him, and extoll His bountie, following our delightful task To prune these growing Plants, & tend these Flours, Which were it toilsom, yet with thee were sweet. To whom thus Eve repli’d. O thou for whom And from whom I was formd flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my Guide And Head, what thou hast said is just and right. For wee to him indeed all praises owe, And daily thanks, I chiefly who enjoy So farr the happier Lot, enjoying thee Preeminent by so much odds, while thou Like consort to thy self canst no where find. That day I oft remember, when from sleep I first awak’t, and found my self repos’d Under a shade on flours, much wondring where And

His Sons, the fairest of her Daughters Eve. Under a tuft of shade that on a green Stood whispering soft, by a fresh Fountain side They sat them down, and after no more toil Of thir sweet Gardning labour then suffic’d To recommend coole Zephyr, and made ease More easie, wholsom thirst and appetite More grateful, to thir Supper Fruits they fell, Nectarine Fruits which the compliant boughes Yeilded them, side-long as they sat recline On the soft downie Bank damaskt with flours: The savourie pulp they chew, and in the rinde Still as they thirsted scoop the brimming stream; Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles Wanted, nor youthful dalliance as beseems Fair couple, linkt in happie nuptial League, Alone as they. About them frisking playd All Beasts of th’ Earth, since wilde, and of all chase In Wood or Wilderness, Forrest or Den; Sporting the Lion rampd, and in his paw Dandl’d the Kid; Bears, Tygers, Ounces, Pards Gambold before them, th’ unwieldy Elephant To make them mirth us’d all his might, & wreathd His Lithe Proboscis; close the Serpent sly Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine His breaded train, and of his fatal guile Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass Coucht, and now fild with pasture gazing sat, Or Bedward ruminating: for the Sun Declin’d was hasting now with prone carreer To th’ Ocean Iles, and in th’ ascending Scale Of Heav’n the Starrs that usher Evening rose: When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood, Scarce thus at length faild speech recoverd sad. O Hell! what doe mine eyes with grief behold, Into our room of bliss thus high advanc’t Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps, Not

The rise of consciousness, synaptic pruning, hormonal shifts, and transitions in brainwave patterns, all expel the child from Eden and push it into the normal world. Adam and Eve always have to leave paradise to grow up.

Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name!

I felt you might lose something precious by making and telling a story, because then all its parts stretched out, beads strung one by one onto a string in time, tangling along from beginning to end; whereas while the unspoken words remained inside you all of them connected one to the other in a mad circling dance which was indescribably beautiful, wholly present in just one second, an eternal now. When you smoothed and flattened and straightened the story out, made it exist word by word in speech, you lost that heavenly possession of everything at once. You bumped down to earth and told one moment at a time. Speaking and telling, you threw joy away and had to mourn the loss of paradise, the shimmering eternal moment which was outside time… Perhaps Eve’s punishment, thrust forth from paradise, was to become a storyteller." Michele Roberts - 'The Looking Glass

I experienced the joy of living alone for the first time while also falling deeply in love with Eve. Genesis Eve. Mother of all the Living Eve. Paradise Lost Eve. Lover Eve. Sister Eve. My Eve. She, too, had made a decision that was both painful and liberating. I was thankful for her willingness to defy a rule for experience, for story, for possibility. --Kitty Taylor

In Genesis, the trees are understood best in the context of sacred space rather than as isolated trees that happen to be in a garden. Whether interpreters consider them real, physical, floral specimens with the ability to bestow benefits to those who partake, figurative symbols of divine gifts, mythological motifs, or anything else, we must not miss the theological and textual significance that they have. Whether they confer or represent, they provide what is only God’s to give. He is the source of life, which is given by him and found in his presence (Deut 30:11-20). He is the center of order, and wisdom is the ability to discern order. Relationship with God is the beginning of wisdom (Job 28:28; Prov 1:7). Consequently, we make a mistake to think that this is simply about magical trees in a garden paradise. It is about the presence of God on earth and what relationship with him makes available.38

After being expelled from Paradise, Adam and Eve got married.

As for those who state that it is thanks to a woman, the Lady Eve, that man was expelled from paradise, my answer to them would be that man has gained far more through Mary than he ever lost through Eve.’ 

The good times, and the heroic people, are all gone. Everyone knows this. Everyone always has. Formerly, there were giants in the earth. The Adam and Eve of legend had every reason to think that they lost innocence, botched paradise, and erred their way into a time of suffering and evil. The men of the fifth century B.C.E. who wrote out the stories of Moses, of Abraham, and even of Noah, depicted them already pleading with God to save their visibly corrupt generations. Kali Yuga is Sanskrit for our own degenerate and unfortunate times: “the end of the end.” The Hindus first used the term between 300 B.C.E. and 300 C.E.