Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree…
The prosody of the opening of Milton’s Paradise Lost is notoriously complex, what with all those consecutive stressed syllables fired at you. However, it has been brought to my attention that if we were to drop that short opening word (“of”), or if we were to treat that word as a short up-beat, then the rest of it fits perfectly with the tune and the rhythm of the Flintstones’ theme song:
Flintstones, meet the Flintstones,
They’re a modern stone-age family…
It really works. Try it!
(Of) MAN’S first
DIS-o-BE-dience
And the fruit-of-that for-BID-DEN TREE…
Just thought I’d draw it to your attention…
The Argumentative Old Git 