Older versions of the CPAN module will do that. Fetch a fresh CPAN.pm tarball and install it manually, then you'll be able to use the CPAN shell from there on without it pigheadedly insisting on upgrading your Perl.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^2: To install a module... by Aristotle
in thread To install a module... by tye 

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