"look on me!
Me who have touched and tasted yet both live
And life more perfect have attained than fate
Meant me, by vent'ring higher than my Lot" (9.687-90).
Pride is associated with a sense of superiority, and Satan – here disguised as the serpent – deceives Eve with the ridiculous idea that one can have a "more perfect" life. How can there be something beyond perfection? The very fact that "more perfect" occurs alongside the idea of attaining more than "fate/ Meant" suggests quite clearly both Satan's illogic and the dangers of pride.
"ye shall be as Gods
Knowing both good and evil as they know.
That ye should be as Gods, since I as Man,
Internal Man, is but proportion meet" (9.708-11)
Satan here appeals to Eve's pride, suggesting that she deserves to know good and evil; it's only natural ("proportion meet"). One should note the irony of using a phrase like "proportion meet." The world is already perfect, yet somehow Satan's rhetoric – maybe because of its own neat "proportions" – convinces Eve that things aren't fair, right, or in "proportion."
Quote 6
"And should I at your harmless innocence
Melt, as I do" (4.388-9)
Even the hard-hearted Satan cannot help "melting" at the sight of pure, "harmless innocence." It seems that Satan is almost a figure for the reader, at least in the fact that he has a strong, emotional reaction to the sight of "harmless innocence." But he's still Satan; does that mean we shouldn't "melt" at the sight and that we should respond in some other way that is different from Satan's?