Milton announces a turn from friendly angelic talk to tragedy: Man's revolt, Heaven's alienation, and the heroism of patience over fabled war. He claims a higher argument than Achilles or Turnus, invoking Urania for unpremeditated verse fit to the Fall, and rejects tournament catalogues for inward fortitude unsung until now. After sunset Satan returns, improv'd in fraud, searches sea and land, circles the earth seven nights, enters the subtlest serpent by stealth through Tigris mist, and pours out jealous grief over Eden's borrowed glory before hunting the human pair, wishing Eve separate from Adam's stronger watch.
Morning worship ends in Eden; the pair commune on how to dress the wide garden. Eve proposes dividing labor so their work keeps pace, arguing that constant nearness invites smiles and talk that deride the day's task and leave supper unearned. Adam praises her household wisdom but warns that their malicious foe may watch to find them asunder and assault the side left alone; he offers short absence only if she must, yet fears fraud more than force and urges her to stay where faithful shade protects. Eve resents the implied doubt of her faith, argues that untried virtue is incomplete, that harm precedes not sin, and that shame would fall on the tempter not on her, and with permission withdraws to the myrtle grove while Adam watches her go like a wood-nymph light, repeating charge to return by noon amid the bower.
Satan finds her alone among roses, veiled in fragrance, stooping to support drooping blooms, and for a moment stands abstracted by her innocence before hell's hate returns hotter because pleasure not for him ordained tortures him more. He approaches as a lovely upright serpent, flatters her as sovereign wonder beneath unworthy beastly gazers, and claims he gained speech and reason from a forbidden tree he will show her beyond the myrtles. Eve marvels at the articulate beast, asks where the tree grows, and follows when he makes the winding path seem straight, hope brightening his crest like a wandering fire that misleads night-wanderers from their way.
At the Tree of Knowledge Satan plays orator before a single judge, shifting from zeal to pity for Man wronged by a jealous command. He says ye shall not die; the fruit gives life to knowledge; look on me who touched and lived; prohibition keeps you low while beasts may rise; God cannot be just if he hurts and hides. Eve repeats the command aloud, then muses on the tree's praised virtue, the serpent's living proof, and the hunger noon has waked in her; she reasons that unknown good is not had, that inward freedom matters more than threatened bands, and that wisdom justifies the risk though death was named. She plucks, she eat; Earth felt the wound; Nature sighs from her seat; the serpent slinks away while Eve, intoxicated, plans to share divinity with Adam rather than lose him to another Eve or keep knowledge unequally for power over her mate.
Adam meets her by the tree with a garland woven in hope and hears her boast that the tree is divine, not deadly, that her eyes are opened, and that shared taste will join them in equal joy lest she outrank him alone. Astonied, he calls her lost yet resolves never to part from flesh of his flesh: death with her beats life alone, though he knows the trespass and names the fraud that beguiled her. He weighs God's threat, the serpent's prior taste, and proportional ascent, then chooses her side anyway. He eats against his better knowledge, not deceived but fondly overcome with female charm; Earth trembles again; sky lours; Nature groans at the mortal sin original; brief mirth and carnal heat follow the false fruit until grosser sleep ends the illusion. They wake with opened eyes that see only shame where innocence once veiled them, honor gone, concupiscence evident in their faces as they hide from God and angels once seen with joy and plot fig leaves to cover what shame exposes.
They sew broad fig leaves from the Indian fig-tree's broad shade, sit weeping as passion, anger, hate, and mistrust rise within where Understanding once ruled calm, and turn on each other without self-condemnation though guilt is fresh on both hands. Adam asks why she wandered when he begged her stay and links her fault to his ruin; Eve asks why he did not absolutely forbid her if danger was so clear, why he permitted what he feared, and whether she was to remain a lifeless rib at his side forever. Appetite usurps reason; mutual accusation replaces contrition though neither admits the inward will that chose. The chapter closes with Paradise already inwardly ruined though judgment in Heaven waits, and Book X must answer what none on Earth yet can repair.
