Salutation / Introduction

And hidden by the wave, and God immense

O’er the vast watery plains was hovering,

5  While chaos and black darkness shrouded all:

Which darkness, when God bade be from the pole

Disjoined, He speaks, “Let there be light;” and all

In the clear world was bright.  Then, when the Lord

The first day’s work had finished, He formed

10  Heaven’s axis white with nascent clouds:  the deep

Immense receives its wandering shores, and draws

The rivers manifold with mighty trains.

The third dun light unveiled earth’s face, and soon

(Its name assigned) the dry land’s story ’gins:

15  Together on the windy champaigns rise

The flowery seeds, and simultaneously

Fruit-bearing boughs put forth procurvant arms.

The fourth day, with the sun’s lamp generates

The moon, and moulds the stars with tremulous light

20  Radiant:  these elements it gave as signs

To th’ underlying world, to teach the times

Which, through their rise and setting, were to change.

Then, on the fifth, the liquid streams receive

Their fish, and birds poise in the lower air

25  Their pinions many-hued.  The sixth, again,

Supples the ice-cold snakes into their coils,

And over the whole fields diffuses herds

Of quadrupeds; and mandate gave that all

Should grow with multiplying seed, and roam

30  And feed in earth’s immensity.

All these

When power divine by mere command arranged,

Observing that things mundane still would lack

A ruler, thus It speaks:  “With utmost care,

Assimilated to our own aspect,

35  Make We a man to reign in the whole orb.”

And him, although He with a single word

Could have compounded, yet Himself did deign

To shape him with His sacred own right hand,

Inspiring his dull breast from breast divine.

40  Whom when He saw formed in a likeness such

As is His own, He measures how he broods

Alone on gnawing cares.  Straight way his eyes

With sleep irriguous He doth perfuse;

That from his left rib woman softlier

45  May formed be, and that by mixture twin

His substance may add firmness to her limbs.

To her the name of “Life”—which is called “Eve”—

Is given:  wherefore sons, as custom is,

Their parents leave, and, with a settled home,

50  Cleave to their wives.

The seventh came, when God

At His works’ end did rest, decreeing it

Sacred unto the coming ages’ joys.

Straightway—the crowds of living things deployed

Before him—Adam’s cunning skill (the gift

55  Of the good Lord) gives severally to all

The name which still is permanent.  Himself,

And, joined with him, his Eve, God deigns address

“Grow, for the times to come, with manifold

Increase, that with your seed the pole and earth

60  Be filled; and, as Mine heirs, the varied fruits

Pluck ye, which groves and champaigns render you,

From their rich turf.”  Thus after He discoursed,

In gladsome court a paradise is strewn,

And looks towards the rays of th’ early sun.

65  These joys among, a tree with deadly fruits,

Breeding, conjoined, the taste of life and death,

Arises.  In the midst of the demesne

Flows with pure tide a stream, which irrigates

Fair offsprings from its liquid waves, and cuts

70  Quadrified paths from out its bubbling fount

Here wealthy Phison, with auriferous waves,

Swells, and with hoarse tide wears conspicuous gems,

This prasinus, that glowing carbuncle,

By name; and raves, transparent in its shoals,

75  The margin of the land of Havilath.

Next Gihon, gliding by the Æthiops,

Enriches them.  The Tigris is the third,

Adjoined to fair Euphrates, furrowing

Disjunctively with rapid flood the land

80  Of Asshur.  Adam, with his faithful wife,

Placed here as guard and workman, is informed

By such the Thunderer’s speech:  “Tremble ye not

To pluck together the permitted fruits

Which, with its leafy bough, the unshorn grove

85  Hath furnished; anxious only lest perchance

Ye cull the hurtful apple, which is green

With a twin juice for functions several.”

And, no less blind meantime than Night herself,

Deep night ’gan hold them, nor had e’en a robe

90  Covered their new-formed limbs.

Amid these haunts,

And on mild berries reared, a foamy snake,

Surpassing living things in sense astute,

Was creeping silently with chilly coils.

He, brooding over envious lies instinct

95  With gnawing sense, tempts the soft heart beneath