“Their Maker’s image,” answered Michael, “then Forsook them, when themselves they vilified To serve ungoverned Appetite, and took His image whom they served⁠—a brutish vice, Inductive mainly to the sin of Eve. Therefore so abject is their punishment, Disfiguring not God’s likeness, but their own; Or, if his likeness, by themselves defaced While they pervert pure Nature’s healthful rules To loathsome sickness; worthily, since they God’s image did not reverence in themselves.”

“I yield it just,” said Adam, “and submit. But is there yet no other way, besides These painful passages, how we may come To death, and mix with our connatural dust?”