To him then God at once replied: 

“Tell me this, my son:  why do you seek the shadows, in shame?  You certainly received no disgrace at my 875 hands, but on the contrary delight in all things!  How come you to know evil and hide shame and behold sor-row and cover your body with leaves and, saddened and crushed by the woes of life, say that you need clothing, unless you have tasted of an apple from the tree which 880 I forbade to you by express command?”

Adam then answered him again: 

“The woman, my Lord, the fair woman gave into my hand this fruit, which I accepted in sin against thee. 885 Now I bear this manifest sign in myself:  I know so much the more of sorrow!”

Then Almighty God asked Eve about this: 

“Why did you forfeit these plenteous delights, daughter, the new creations of paradise, abundant blessings, when 890 in your cupidity you seized on the trunk and took the fruit from the branch of the tree and ate the accursed thing in defiance of me, and gave of the apple to Adam, when you both by my prohibition were so strictly for- 895 bidden to do so?”

Then the fair maiden, the woman overcome by shame, answered him: 

“The serpent tempted me and urgently prompted me to sin; through fair words the worm goaded me into accursed frowardness, until I basely performed the 900 deadly act, committed the crime, and robbed the tree in the grove, as it was not lawful to do, and ate the fruit.”

Then our Saviour, the Lord Almighty, ordained wide wanderings for the serpent, the venomous worm, and 905 spoke further in these words: 

“To far distant times shalt thou, an outcast, crawl over the broad earth on thy breast, thy belly; without feet shalt thou move about, so long as life and breath remain in thee.  Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy 910 life, since thou hast accomplished so evil a deed here.  Thee the woman shall war against, and hate thee [worse than anything else] under heaven, and shall tread upon thine accursed head with her feet; thou shalt lie in wait at her heels, in ever-new conflict:  for there shall be war between thy offspring and her offspring 915 always, as long as the earth exists under the cloudy skies.  Now dost thou understand and know, baleful destroyer of mankind, how thou shalt live!”

XI.

Then God wrathfully spoke to Eve: 

“Depart now from bliss!  Thou shalt be ever under the sway of men; with fear of men cruelly oppressed, 920 thou shalt sorrowfully endure the heinousness of thine offence and wait for death, and with weeping and wailing and great anguish bring into the world thy sons and daughters!”

Likewise to Adam did the Eternal Lord, Source of 925 Light and Life, declare a cruel edict: