Our fleshly eyes are all unlokyn, _unlocked._
Naked for sin ourself we see;
That sorry apple that we have sokyn _sucked._
To death hath brought my spouse and me.

When the voice of God is heard, saying,

Adam, that with my hands I made,
Where art thou now? what hast thou wrought?

Adam replies, in two lines, containing the whole truth of man's spiritual
condition ever since:

Ah, Lord! for sin our flowers do fade:
I hear thy voice, but I see thee nought.

The vision had vanished, but the voice remained; for they that hear shall
live, and to the pure in heart one day the vision shall be restored, for
"they shall see God." There is something wonderfully touching in the
quaint simplicity of the following words of God to the woman:

Unwise woman, say me why
That thou hast done this foul folly,
And I made thee a great lady,
In Paradise for to play?

As they leave the gates, the angel with the flaming sword ends his speech
thus:

This bliss I spere from you right fast; _bar._
Herein come ye no more,
Till a child of a maid be born,
And upon the rood rent and torn,
To save all that ye have forlorn, _lost._
Your wealth for to restore.

Eve laments bitterly, and at length offers her throat to her husband,
praying him to strangle her:

Now stumble we on stalk and stone;
My wit away from me is gone;
Writhe on to my neck-bone
With hardness of thine hand.

Adam replies--not over politely--

Wife, thy wit is not worth a rush;

and goes on to make what excuse for themselves he can in a very simple
and touching manner:

Our hap was hard, our wit was nesche, _soft, weak,_ still in use in
To Paradise when we were brought: [some provinces.
My weeping shall be long fresh;
Short liking shall be long bought. _pleasure._

The scene ends with these words from Eve:

Alas, that ever we wrought this sin!
Our bodily sustenance for to win,
Ye must delve and I shall spin,
In care to lead our life.

_Cain and Abel_ follows; then _Noah's Flood_, in which God says,

They shall not dread the flood's flow;

then _Abraham's Sacrifice_; then _Moses and the Two Tables_; then _The
Prophets_, each of whom prophesies of the coming Saviour; after which we
find ourselves in the Apocryphal Gospels, in the midst of much nonsense
about Anna and Joachim, the parents of Mary, abo