Book+7+and+8

We're combining selections from Books 7and 8 here. In [|Book 7], read ONLY the Invocation from lines 1 - 39. and the summary of the rest of Book 7 on the top of the linked page.

In [|Book 8], we're skipping the first 250 lines. What happens in that section? Raphael continues his visit with Adam and Eve. Adam asks Raphael why the stars, which seem so superior to earth, would "serve" the less noble earth (remember, the Scientific Revolution was going on at this time, so Copernicus and Galileo were causing religious doubts about old "truths," now so clearly untrue to any who believed the evidence of their eyes and logical minds). Eve leaves the scene at this point, while "the men" discuss astronomy. Raphael suggest some possible answers to Adam's questions, but ends by advising him to be more concerned with life on earth than with questions about the stars.

Then Raphael asks Adam to tell //him// a story: the story of the creation of Adam and Eve - from Adam's own "eye-witness" account. That's what you will read here, in lines 249 - 653.

[|Lines 249-368 by Faye and Catherine]