Scene third is occupied by Lucifer, in the form of a serpent, Vainglory, a gigantic figure, magnificently attired, and his attendant spirits. The arch-demon exults over his expected success, the ruin of so smiling a scene:
"Serpent. How lovely smile these flowers,
These young fair buds! and ah! how soon my hand
These pathways shall despoil of herbs and flowers.
Lo! where my feet have pressed their fragrant tops,
So graceful, they have drooped; and at my touch,
Blasting and burning, the moist spirit is fled
From the scorched petal. How do I rejoice
Among these bowers with blighting step to pass,
To poison with my breath their buds and leaves,
And turn to bitterness their purple fruits!"
Volano acquaints Satan with the decision of the infernal council, and Vainglory and the serpent hide themselves under the tree of knowledge. Eve enters; the wondrous beauty of the tempter, gorgeously described, fascinates her admiring gaze. He is half-hid in the clustering foliage. Unconscious of evil, she approaches nearer, surprised at his aspect; for the fiend exhibits a form like the fabled inhabitants of the sea, human to his breast, the rest of his body enveloped in scaly folds. Vainglory is invisible, but is supposed to be secretly exerting his influence. The serpent, accosting Eve in the accents of flattery, enters into conversation with her, informing her that he was placed in Eden to take charge of its fruits and flowers, and gifted with superiority over the brute creation. He boasts of his knowledge, which he vaunts as superior even to hers and Adam's, notwithstanding that he occupies a lower rank in the scale of the creation. He intimates that her knowledge and Adam's is far from corresponding to their superior excellence of form and high capabilities. Eve inquires how he can regard Adam's knowledge as trifling. "Doth he not know," she cries, "the hidden virtue of each herb and mineral, each beast and bird, the elements, the heavens, the stars, the sun?" The serpent replies:
"Ah! how much worthier to know good and evil!
This is the highest knowledge; this doth hold
Those mighty secrets dread, sublime, which could
Make you, on earth, like God."[187]
"Doth not this ignorance," he says, "outraging your liberty with unworthy yoke, make you inferior even to the savage beasts, who would not submit to such a law?[188] Or is it that God fears you will equal him in knowledge? in the essence of divinity? No! if you become like him by such means, there would still be difference," etc.[189]
The Serpent then enters upon the immediate object of his design, employing his subtle and persuasive eloquence to overcome Eve's scruples and induce her to eat of the forbidden fruit, whose taste is to impart to her heavenly wisdom. The whole scene of the temptation is admirably managed. The advances of the arch deceiver—now cautiously sounding her, now eagerly urging her to disobedience—the unsuspecting credulity, the increasing curiosity of Eve, are drawn with the pencil of a master.
The Serpent's arguments become still more specious and pressing:
"Thus I live
Feeding on this celestial fruit;
Thus to mine eyes all paradise is open—
Mine eyes, enlightened by the knowledge stored
In this most wondrous food."[190]
The Serpent speciously insinuates that man is degraded by being compelled to seek his food from the same source with the inferior creation: