🦋 El libro de Eva: Adam preaches Genesis
A lot is going on in Book 5 of Eve's writings. The two have found themselves an oasis to the east of Eden (is what I get from a reference to the sun setting behind Monte Divino). They try and fail repeatedly to conceive a child, eventually understanding that they have to do it like animals do; brothers Cain and Abel are born, followed by Ara and her two twin sisters whose names are not given, one light-complexioned, the other dark like her mother. Cain is born without pain, occasioning suspicion on the part of his father; Eve conspires with an angel and a giant to create menstruation and the pain of childbearing, as a means of winning Adam's sympathy -- "Qué trama tan estúpida, y tan eficaz. V§50 [Such a stupid connivance, and so effective.]"
Throughout this book Adam is growing more distant and hostile toward his wife and his firstborn son. This culminates with Adam dreaming the story of their creation from mud by "His" hand -- the first reference to "Him" -- and making further elaborations on the story. Eve summarizes his preaching in V§51:
Y encima de eso, contaba Adán, no sólo él era el primero y el origen de mi persona, sino que yo, cuando comí la fruta, porque ésta era prohibida (?) por Yahvé (?), pequé (?), y traje a nosotros la expulsión (?) del Edén que era paradisiaco (fabulosa mentira); que por mí se nos impuso el trabajo como un castigo (barbaridad), y el dolor en el parto (ya saben la verdad).
[And on top of all this, Adam went on -- not only was he the first, the origin of my being, but furthermore I, when I ate the fruit, since that was forbidden (?) by Yahweh (?), had sinned (?), bringing on us expulsion (?) from Eden, a paradise (fabulous lie); because of me we were condemned (barbarity) to labor, and to suffer pain in childbirth (and you already know the real story).]
The parenthetical question mark after "forbidden" is making my head spin a little. In I§3, when Eve took leaves from the fig tree, it told her "Thou hast disobeyed!" So the idea of a prohibition should not be as incomprehensible as she is making it out to be. I am still puzzled about where the prohibition came from. Adam is inventing Yahweh as a source for the prohibition (which note, he is saying the violation was taking the apple rather than taking the leaves); this is an interesting spin on the idea that God is necessary as a "first cause" -- here He is invoked as the first cause not of existence but of law.
posted morning of Sunday, January third, 2021
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