Moore delves into questions about the institution—or perhaps enterprise—of marriage, and how people come to fulfill a private obligation through a public promise. She wonders what Adam and Eve would think about it, referencing the wedding ring which reminds people to avoid breaking rules.
Eve is beautiful and writes in three languages. She wants to be alone, but her visitor says that they can be alone together. In the Garden she takes the apple from the serpent and gains her consciousness. Adam was privy to this too, but history has let him off the hook.
Adam is also beautiful, but it is "distressing." He discourses freely and is pleased to consider himself an idol. He does not like the nightingale’s silences, feeling convicted by them.
Hymen, the god of marriage, is obnoxious about this experiment on which he insists. Moore contrasts him with Diana the huntress, who never married; but marriage comes in and forces itself upon one like a “spiked hand,” intent on proving its affection through bare physical power.
Moore notes that married people seem to look and act a certain way. Men in particular like to exercise their power.
Adam and Eve, identified as “He” and “She,” enter into a dialogue. He praises her beauty but says women are poison. She calls men “monopolists” and he compares women to coffins, who “refuse to be buried.” She wonders how she will be married for life and remembers a time of more freedom.
Both Adam and Eve love themselves more than the other and cannot see anything clearly. Why, then, should they suggest that others enter into such a union? A good marriage is rare, as most are comprised of warring opposites.
Moore ends with a quote about sorrow lasting all day, and statesman Daniel Webster’s claim that “liberty and union” are “now and forever.”
