I could endure, without him live no life."

This decision reached, Eve hastens to Adam, and volubly explains that
the tree is not what God depicted, for the serpent, having tasted of
its fruit, has been endowed with eloquence so persuasive that he has
induced her to taste it too. Horror-stricken, Adam wails his wife is
lost; then he wonders how he will be able to exist without her, and is
amazed to think she should have yielded to the very first onslaught of
their foe. But, after this first outburst of grief, he vows he will
share her doom and die with her. Having made a decision so flattering
to Eve, he accepts the fruit which she tenders, and nature again
shudders, for Adam, although not deceived, yields to temptation
because of his love for Eve. No sooner have both fed upon the tree
than its effects become patent, for it kindles within them the
never-before-experienced sense of lust. The couple therefore emerge on
the morrow from their bower, their innocence lost, and overwhelmed,
for the first time in their lives, by a crushing sense of shame. Good
and evil being equally well known to him, Adam reproaches his wife,
wailing that never more shall they behold the face of God and suggests
that they weave leaf-garments to hide their nakedness. So the first
couple steal into the thicket to fashion fig-leaf girdles, which they
bind about them, reviling each other for having forfeited their former
happy estate.

_Book X._ Meantime, Eve's fall has been duly reported in heaven by the
angelic guards, whom the Almighty reassures, saying he knew the Evil
Spirit would succeed and man would fall. Then the same voice decrees
that, as man has transgressed, his sentence shall be pronounced, and
that the one best fitted for such a task is the Son, man's mediator
Ready to do his Father's will in heaven as upon earth, the Son