And on thy breast shalt drag thy footless form
O'er the fair face of Earth; and dust shalt eat

The remnant of thy days, and long as life

And breath remain-just meed of this great crime, 1120 Thy malice hath inspired.

"And there shall burn

Within the Woman's breast, a mortal Hate
And quenchless enmity, and she shall tread
Thy hostile head beneath her feet, while thou
May'st strive, with deep and crafty plans, to snare
The offspring of this new-born race. As long
As this fair World shall stand, a deadly feud
Shall last 'twixt her and thee.

"Now dost thou know 1130

Thy doom, fell Scourge of Man, and canst discern

The future of thy life."

To Eve in anger spake :

The Holy God

"Take thyself hence

Far from these scenes of joy. From this day forth
Obedience shalt thou yield to Adam's will,
And in the fear of him shalt expiate

The error of thy deeds, humbled and vext

By keen remorse, till Death ensue. Meanwhile,
With weeping and with moans and bitter pains
Shalt thou bring forth thy daughters and thy sons
To people Earth's domain."

Then to the Man

1140

The Eternal King, Lord of the Light of Life,

Announced His dire decree :

"Now must thou seek

Another home, a realm more joyless far,

And into exile go, in nakedness

1150 And want, shorn of the bliss which thou hast

known

In Paradise. And since with evil mind

Thou didst commit this crime, I do decree

That Death, at last, shall break the golden bond
Which now unites thy body and thy soul.
Henceforth thy days shall pass in arduous toil
And from the ground shalt thou thyself now seek
Thy sustenance, and eat thy daily bread.

By sweat of brow so long as thou dost live,
And until fell Disease of which, alas,

1160 Thou didst partake in the forbidden fruit
Doth strike thee at the heart.

die."

Then shalt thou

Thus did our writ of Evil take its rise

In righteous wrath, entailing World-wide woe.
The Lord of glory, Guardian of Mankind,

In goodly raiment robed the guilty pair
And bade them hide their nudeness from the gaze
Of mortal eyes. Their sentence once pronounced
They bent their mournful steps from Paradise
To seek a narrower sphere.

Behind them closed

The glistening gates of their once joyous home,
Its comforts and delights forever lost!
And at the Lord's behest, one of His host
Of holy Angels, armed with fiery sword,
Kept constant guard to hinder their return.

Thenceforth no traitorous or crime-guilty man
May enter there; for he who guards that realm
Of blissful life, dear to the pure in heart,
Hath might and strength as Warden of the Lord.

Nor even then, would mighty God, at once
Despoil the guilty pair of all their joys,

E'en though His presence He had now withdrawn ;

But for their comfort, still he let shine forth

The vault of heaven adorned with radiant stars,

And of the treasures of the Earth, He gave

With open hand; and for their use He bade
The denizens of Earth and Sea increase

And multiply, and trees bring forth their fruit.

Sin-stained, they thenceforth sojourned in a land
More sorrowful, a region and a home.

More barren far of every earthly Good

Than were those blissful Seats from which alas
By Sin they were expelled.

1170

1180

1190

NOTES.

NOTE A.

How much valuable literature has been lost to the world by war, by vandalism, by accident, and by ignorance, will, of course, never be known; but we have historical data sufficient to show that treasures almost innumerable have disappeared from the face of the earth beyond reasonable hope of recovery.

It is well known, as shown by Mr. William Shepard in a recent article, that "the dramatic literature of Greece was one of its greatest glories. At the time of Aristophanes it is estimated that fully two thousand dramas had been produced only forty-two have come down to us. From Æschylus we have only seven, out of a total of seventy; seven also of Sophocles, out of a hundred or more; and nineteen of Euripides, out of a possible ninety-two. The comic writers have suffered the most, and of the greatest of them, Menander, hardly a vestige remains. Goethe said that he would gladly have given onehalf of Roman poetry for a single play of that master. In the few lines that have come down to us he recognized the touch of a supreme genius.

"But this is not the worst. The greatest lyric poetess of all times was Sappho. Only two odes and a few fragmentary lines are left to tantalize us with a sense of our loss. From Pindar we have some odes, indeed, but not the hymns and dirges and dithyrambs which the ancient critics considered his real masterpieces.

"Many of these treasures perished in the invasions of the Goths and Vandals, many were destroyed by the ignorant or the superstitious in the Dark Ages.