Garden of Eden

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Title:	Garden of Eden
Original Title:	Jardin (d'Eden)
Volume and Page:	Vol. 8 (1765), p. 460
Author:	Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt (biography)
Translator:	Ann-Marie Thornton [Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey]
Subject terms:	Sacred geography
Original Version (ARTFL):	Link
Source:	Russell, Terence M. and Anne Marie Thornton. Gardens and landscapes in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert : the letterpress articles and selected engravings. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Used with permission.
Rights/Permissions:	This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction.
URL:	http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.087
Citation (MLA):	Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Garden of Eden." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Ann-Marie Thornton. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.087>. Trans. of "Jardin (d'Eden)," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 8. Paris, 1765.
Citation (Chicago):	Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Garden of Eden." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Ann-Marie Thornton. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0002.087 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Jardin (d'Eden)," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 8:460 (Paris, 1765).

Garden of Eden, the name of a garden which in the beginning of time God planted in Eden, or in a pleasant place, which is what the Hebrew word signifies. [1] While scholars try in vain to locate this country (see Eden and Earthly paradise), let us enjoy Milton’s enchanting description of the garden itself. [2]

A blisfull field, circled with groves of myrrh,
And flowing odours, cassia, nard, and balm,
A wilderness of sweets! for nature here
Wantonn’d as in prime, and play’d at will
Her virgin fancies, pouring forth more sweet
Wild, above rule or art, enormous bliss!
Out of this fertile ground, God caused to grow
All trees of noblest Kind for sight, smell, taste,
And all amidst them, stood the Tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by.
A happy rural seat, of various view!
Groves, whose rich trees wept odorous gums, and balm;
Others whose fruit, burnish’d with golden rind,
Hung amiable; Hesperian fable true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste!
Betwixt them lawns, or level-downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interpos’d;
Or palmy hillock, or the flowry lap,
Of some irrignous valley, spread her store;
Flow’rs of all hew, and without thorn, the rose:
Another side, umbrageous grots, and caves
Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grapes, and gently creeps
Luxuriant. Mean while murm’ring water fall
Down the slope hills, dispers’d, or in a lake
That to the fringed bank, wiht [ sic ] myrtle crown’d,
Her crystal, mirrour holds, unite their streams.
The birds their choir apply: Airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leafs, while universal Pan,
Knit with the graces, and the Hours in dance,
Led on th’ eternal spring …

Thus was this place.

Notes

1. See article Garden.

2. Jaucourt gives the text of John Milton’s Paradise Lost (books v, lines 292-7; IV, lines 216-68, and line 246) in the original English. It is reprinted here without modification.