uture you do not know that
it will not be happier than the past. That is hope.

ADAM. It does not console me. Fear is stronger in me than hope. I must
have certainty. [_He rises threateningly_]. Give it to me; or I will
kill you when next I catch you asleep.

EVE [_throwing her arms round the serpent_] My beautiful snake. Oh no.
How can you even think such a horror?

ADAM. Fear will drive me to anything. The serpent gave me fear. Let it
now give me certainty or go in fear of me.

THE SERPENT. Bind the future by your will. Make a vow.

ADAM. What is a vow?

THE SERPENT. Choose a day for your death; and resolve to die on that
day. Then death is no longer uncertain but certain. Let Eve vow to love
you until your death. Then love will be no longer uncertain.

ADAM. Yes: that is splendid: that will bind the future.

EVE [_displeased, turning away from the serpent_] But it will destroy
hope.

ADAM [_angrily_] Be silent, woman. Hope is wicked. Happiness is wicked.
Certainty is blessed.

THE SERPENT. What is wicked? You have invented a word.

ADAM. Whatever I fear to do is wicked. Listen to me, Eve; and you,
snake, listen too, that your memory may hold my vow. I will live a
thousand sets of the four seasons--

THE SERPENT. Years. Years.

ADAM. I will live a thousand years; and then I will endure no more: I
will die and take my rest. And I will love Eve all that time and no
other woman.

EVE. And if Adam keeps his vow I will love no other man until he dies.

THE SERPENT. You have both invented marriage. And what he will be to you
and not to any other woman is husband; and what you will be to him and
not to any other man is wife.

ADAM [_instinctively moving his hand towards her_] Husband and wife.

EVE [_slipping her hand into his_] Wife and husband.

THE SERPENT [_laughs_]!!!

EVE [_snatching herself loose from Adam_] Do not make that odious noise,
I tell you.

ADAM. Do not listen to her: the noise is good: it lightens my heart.
You are a jolly snake. But you have not made a vow yet. What vow do you
make?

THE SERPENT. I make no vows. I take my chance.

ADAM. Chance? What does that mean?

THE SERPENT. It means that I fear certainty as you fear uncertainty. It
means that nothing is certain but uncertainty. If I bind the future I
bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.

EVE. Creation must not be strangled. I tell you I will create, though I
tear myself to pieces in the act.

ADAM. Be