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Icon - ResearchSpace@Auckland - The University of Auckland

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CAIN:ADAH:Where?Here, orWhere’er thou wilt: where’er thou art, I feel not<strong>The</strong> want <strong>of</strong> this so much regretted Eden. (3.1.37-40).This is both a parallel and a counter-argument to Lucifer’s advice to “form an innerworld /In your own bosom – where the outward fails” (2.2.463-4). Adah’s versionfollows Michael’s advice in Paradise Lost 12.587. 510 Whereas Lucifer’s pr<strong>of</strong>feredknowledge and ‘reason’ leads to the murder <strong>of</strong> their brother, Adah’s proposedParadise causes no such destruction, as Adah’s version has the crucial element whichLucifer’s lacks: love. Adah tells Cain that love is the very quality which canovercome the perpetuation <strong>of</strong> sorrow which Lucifer has represented as being the fate<strong>of</strong> humanity:Love us, then, my Cain!And love thyself for our sakes, for we love thee.Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,To hail his father; while his little formFlutters as wing’d with joy. Talk not <strong>of</strong> pain! (3.1.147-52).It is unsurprising that Lucifer’s advice leads only to misery, as he himself is alreadymiserable, but Adah is not (1.1.463), in part because, unlike Cain, she does not fearwhat she does not know (1.1.469): her version is evidently the more efficacious.Further, Adah’s viewpoint encompasses also the usefulness <strong>of</strong> knowledge:I had hoped<strong>The</strong> promised wonders which thou hast beheld,Visions, thou say’st, <strong>of</strong> past and present worlds,Would have composed thy mind into the calmOf a contented knowledge; but I see510 Thorslev erroneously parallels Michael’s with Lucifer’s (p.179), whereas the archangel’s version isbased in love.322

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