Keep us from further evil:—Hail! All Hail!
Adam. Son Cain! my first-born—wherefore art thou silent ?
Cain.Why should I speak?
Adam.To pray.
Cain.Have ye not prayed?
Adam.We have, most fervently.
Cain. And loudly: I
Have heard you.
Adam.So will God, I trust.
Abel.Amen!
Adam.But thou my eldest born? art silent still?
Cain.’Tis better I should be so.
Adam.Wherefore so?
Cain.I have nought to ask.
Adam.Nor aught to thank for?
Cain.No.
Adam.Dost thou not live?
Cain.Must I not die?
Eve.Alas!
The fruit of our forbidden tree begins30
To fall.
Adam.And we must gather it again.
Oh God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?
Cain.And wherefore plucked ye not the tree of life?
Ye might have then defied him.
Adam.Oh! my son,
Blaspheme not: these are Serpent’s words.
Cain.Why not?
The snake spoke truth; it was the Tree of Knowledge;
It was the Tree of Life: knowledge is good,
And Life is good; and how can both be evil?
Eve.My boy! thou speakest as I spoke in sin,
Before thy birth: let me not see renewed 40
My misery in thine. I have repented.
Let me not see my offspring fall into
The snares beyond the walls of Paradise,
Which even in Paradise destroyed his parents.
Content thee with what is. Had we been so,
Thou now hadst been contented.—Oh, my son!
Adam.Our orisons completed, let us hence,
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