Paradise Lost Assignment for Brit-Lit
This assignment was fairly interesting and short, so I thought I'd post it on here.
Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, and was originally published in 1667 in ten separate books. Our assignment was to take a small portion of the text (any part from books 1, 3, 5, or 9) and translate it into modern English, and then write a little about it, ( i.e. analysis time!). This was also a surprise assignment, and mostly for fun, so Grace (my teacher) let us cash in our artistic licence, and have fun withe the translation process. I (of course) decided to make mine rhyme, and below are the results. Listed first is the original version of text, and then below that is my version of the same text, and what I had to say about it. Let it be noted I don't *actually* think that the fruit had a mind of it's own, I just was having some fun with it. Hopefully it's not horribly boring ;).
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Original (Book 9 lines 780-801)
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate;
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost. Back to the thickets slunk
The guilty serpent, and well might; for Eve,
Intent now wholly on her taste, naught else
Regarded, such delight till then, as seem’d
In fruit she never tasted, whether true
Or fancied so, through expectation high
Of knowledge, nor was Godhead from her thought
Greedily she ingorg’d without restraint
And knew, not eating death. Satiate at length
And highten’d as with wine, jocund and boon,
Thus to herself pleasingly began.
Bekah’s Version (Book 9 lines 780-801)
Persuaded, her hand stretched forward, in that dark hour,
Reaching for that deadly fruit, biting, unleashing evil power
This earth felt the wound, as did Nature from her place,
And sighing, Nature through her works, showed her woe,
Knowing that all was lost. Back to the bushes to hide his face
That guilty serpent slid, and so he should, no more the light to know.
And Eve, consumed with the flavor of the fruit in her hand,
Was oblivious to all else, the taste being so grand
She thought she’d never tasted so delicious a fruit before,
This may be true, or just Eve’s imagination due to high expectation.
In her thoughts God was not absent, but she chose to ignore,
As she greedily gorged herself without hint of hesitation,
Not knowing she was eating death itself. Eventually satisfied,
Drunk with the fruit’s juices, and happily gratified,
Eve with herself began to confide.
The fruit in this piece of extracted poetry, holds an extraordinary amount of power. The fruit holds the power of good and evil, one bite from it brought chaos to an otherwise perfect world.
Paradise Lost was written by John Milton, and was originally published in 1667 in ten separate books. Our assignment was to take a small portion of the text (any part from books 1, 3, 5, or 9) and translate it into modern English, and then write a little about it, ( i.e. analysis time!). This was also a surprise assignment, and mostly for fun, so Grace (my teacher) let us cash in our artistic licence, and have fun withe the translation process. I (of course) decided to make mine rhyme, and below are the results. Listed first is the original version of text, and then below that is my version of the same text, and what I had to say about it. Let it be noted I don't *actually* think that the fruit had a mind of it's own, I just was having some fun with it. Hopefully it's not horribly boring ;).
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Original (Book 9 lines 780-801)
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate;
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost. Back to the thickets slunk
The guilty serpent, and well might; for Eve,
Intent now wholly on her taste, naught else
Regarded, such delight till then, as seem’d
In fruit she never tasted, whether true
Or fancied so, through expectation high
Of knowledge, nor was Godhead from her thought
Greedily she ingorg’d without restraint
And knew, not eating death. Satiate at length
And highten’d as with wine, jocund and boon,
Thus to herself pleasingly began.
Bekah’s Version (Book 9 lines 780-801)
Persuaded, her hand stretched forward, in that dark hour,
Reaching for that deadly fruit, biting, unleashing evil power
This earth felt the wound, as did Nature from her place,
And sighing, Nature through her works, showed her woe,
Knowing that all was lost. Back to the bushes to hide his face
That guilty serpent slid, and so he should, no more the light to know.
And Eve, consumed with the flavor of the fruit in her hand,
Was oblivious to all else, the taste being so grand
She thought she’d never tasted so delicious a fruit before,
This may be true, or just Eve’s imagination due to high expectation.
In her thoughts God was not absent, but she chose to ignore,
As she greedily gorged herself without hint of hesitation,
Not knowing she was eating death itself. Eventually satisfied,
Drunk with the fruit’s juices, and happily gratified,
Eve with herself began to confide.
The fruit in this piece of extracted poetry, holds an extraordinary amount of power. The fruit holds the power of good and evil, one bite from it brought chaos to an otherwise perfect world.
“...biting, unleashing evil power,
This earth felt the wound, as did Nature from her place,
And sighing, Nature through her works, showed her woe,” Lines 781-783
Though it would seem Eve was consuming the fruit while she was eating it, if the reader looks more closely, they will realize that rather, the fruit was consuming her. Eve even says herself earlier in this epic that this fruit would feed both her “body and mind”, a clear sign that this fruit’s nature was already penetrating into Eve. Once Eve had began, she couldn't stop eating this enchanting fruit, the fruit was the only thing Eve could focus on, she was obsessed with it. Eve believed she had never tasted anything as wonderful as this fruit, due to the fact that this fruit’s evil nature had already been making it’s way into Eve’s consciousness, and causing her anticipate the taste being more marvelous than any before.
“And Eve, consumed with the flavor of the fruit in her hand,
Was oblivious to all else, the taste being so grand
She thought she’d never tasted so delicious a fruit before,
This may be true, or just Eve’s imagination due to high expectation.” Lines 786-789
As said above, she was oblivious to everything but that which was in her hand at that moment, another sign of the fruit’s power over Eve. Eve was so obsessed with this fruit, that she was immune to the prods of her conscience as she filled herself hastily with the fruit of death, that had consumed her thoughts so wholly.
“In her thoughts God was not absent, but she chose to ignore,
As she greedily gorged herself without hint of hesitation,
Not knowing she was eating death itself...” Lines 790-792
The unholy might of this fruit is hard to explore in such a short passage, but it is clear that this fruit holds an extraordinary amount of power. The fruit had begun to consume Eve before she had even eaten any, causing her to be unmindful of the consequences of her actions might bring. Eve’s conscience was ignored because of the potency of the fruit, and after she had taken the bite that brought on the downfall of humankind, the fruit fully consumed her. 
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