Milton never uses the word picnic or any synonym but knows the concept and uses it freely for satiating Adam and Eve in Paradise before the Fall in Paradise Lost. Because they had no means of cooking, Milton supposes that Adam and Eve were inadvertent Vegans picnicking at every meal with available vegetation and that they ate reclining on “damskt grass . . . under a tuft of shade.” The fatal apple, a russet fruit, according to Milton, came later. As with some picnics, the picnickers become amorous, and after their meal, the primal couple couple-up (pun intended):
. . . by a fresh fountain side
They sat them down, and after no more toil
f thir sweet Gardning labour then suffic’d
To recommend coole Zephyr, and make ease
More easie, wholsom thirst and appitite
Moregratefu, to thir Supper Fruits they fell, Yeilded them, side-long as they sat recline
On th soft downie Bank damasket with flours:
The savourie pulp they chew, and the rinde
Still as they thirted scoop the brimming stream;
Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
Wanted, no youthful dalliance as beseems
Fair couple, linkt in happy nuptial League,
Alone as they. (Book IV)
After the Fall, life is not a picnic. The unhappy pair wanders out of Paradise through the Eastern Gate into the world.
Featured Image: Gustave Doré. Adam and Eve (1866). According to European tradition, Adam and Eve are recognizably white Europeans.
See John Milton. Paradise Lost. 1998 ed., edited by Roy Flannagan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998; Milton’s Paradise Lost, illustrated by Gustave Doré; edited with notes and a life of Milton by Robert Vaughan’ (London & New York, Cassell, Petter, and Galpin) n.d. [1866]