_Lucifer_. I tempt none, Save with the truth: was not the Tree, the Tree Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life Still fruitful? Did _I_ bid her pluck them not? Did I plant things prohibited within 200 The reach of beings innocent, and curious By their own innocence? I would have made ye Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye Because "ye should not eat the fruits of life, And become gods as we." Were those his words? _Cain_. They were, as I have heard from those who heard them, In thunder. _Lucifer_. Then who was the Demon? He Who would not let ye live, or he who would Have made ye live for ever, in the joy And power of Knowledge? _Cain_. Would they had snatched both 210 The fruits, or neither! _Lucifer_. One is yours already, The other may be still. _Cain_. How so? _Lucifer_. By being Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself And centre of surrounding things--'tis made To sway. _Cain_. But didst thou tempt my parents? _Lucifer_. I? Poor clay--what should I tempt them for, or how? _Cain_. They say the Serpent was a spirit. _Lucifer_. Who Saith that? It is not written so on high: The proud One will not so far falsify, 220 Though man's vast fears and little vanity Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature His own low failing. The snake _was_ the snake-- No more;[102] and yet not less than those he tempted, In nature being earth also--_more_ in _wisdom_, Since he could overcome them, and foreknew The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys. Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die? _Cain_. But the thing had a demon? _Lucifer_. He but woke one In those he spake to with his forky tongue. 230 I tell thee that the Serpent was no more Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, The seed of the then world may thus array Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all That bows to him, who made things but to bend Before his sullen, sole eternity; But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 240 Fond parents listened to a creeping thing, And fell. For what should spirits tempt them? What Was there to envy in the narrow bounds Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade Space----but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not, With all thy Tree of Knowledge.