PARADISE LOST
Book 8, Adam and Eve
Lines 437 - 653
The angel Raphael's account of heavenly matters at an end, Adam seeks to retain his heavenly visitor by recounting his memory of the events in Eden, and the curiosity of the angel, too, is aroused to seek knowledge of God:
Nor less think we in Heaven of thee on Earth/Than of our fellow-servant, and inquire/Gladly into the ways of God with Man:/For God, we see, hath honored thee, and set/On man his equal love: Say therefore on... for I attend,/Pleased with thy...
PARADISE LOST
Book 8, Adam and Eve
Lines 437 - 653
The angel Raphael's account of heavenly matters at an end, Adam seeks to retain his heavenly visitor by recounting his memory of the events in Eden, and the curiosity of the angel, too, is aroused to seek knowledge of God:
Nor less think we in Heaven of thee on Earth/Than of our fellow-servant, and inquire/Gladly into the ways of God with Man:/For God, we see, hath honored thee, and set/On man his equal love: Say therefore on... for I attend,/Pleased with thy words no less than thou with mine.
Adam's story of God's immediate presence to him in the first theophany, sets the stage:
Presence Divine. Rejoicing, but with awe,/In adoration at his feet I fell/Submiss: He reared me, and 'Whom thou soughtest I am,'/Said mildly, 'Author of all this thou seest/Above, or round about thee, or beneath.'
We prefigure here the name of God, the Great "I am" of Moses, the eternal Word.
'This Paradise I give thee, count it thine/To till and keep, and of the fruit to eat:/Of every tree that in the garden grows/Eat freely with glad heart;/fear here no dearth:/But of the tree whose operation brings/Knowledge of good and ill, which I have set/The pledge of thy obedience and thy faith.
After naming the animals, Adam expresses to God desire for his own complement.
Of fellowship I speak/Such as I seek, fit to participate/All rational delight: wherein the brute/Cannot be human consort: They rejoice/Each with their kind, lion with lioness;/So fitly them in pairs thou hast combined.
The Maker's reply is beautiful, and fit:
I, ere thou spakest,/Knew it not good for man to be alone;/... What next I bring shall please thee, be assured,/Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,/Thy wish exactly to thy heart's desire.
Adam awakes to Eve:
Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye,/In every gesture dignity and love.
His words of praise to God for this sweetest of all divine gifts:
Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,/Giver of all things fair, but fairest this/Of all thy gifts .... I now see/Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself/Before me: Woman is her name; of man/Extracted: for this cause he shall forego/Father and mother, and to his wife adhere;/And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul.
Adam is so smitten, that he finds himself nearly undone in Eve's presence, an experience since familiar to all men in love, both sublime and dangerous:
when I approach/Her loveliness, so absolute she seems/And in herself complete, so well to know/Her own, that what she wills to do or say,Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best:/All higher knowledge in her presence falls/Degraded; Wisdom in discourse with her/Loses discountenanced, and like Folly shows;/Authority and Reason on her wait ... /and, to consummate all,/Greatness of mind and Nobleness their seat/Build in her loveliest, and create an awe/About her, as a guard angelic placed.
Warned by Raphael to not allow love to overwhelm reason, Adam replies that it is not just Eve's beauty that draws his love, but:
those graceful acts,/Those thousand decencies, that daily flow/From all her words and actions mixed with love/And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned/Union of mind, or in us both one soul;/Harmony to behold in wedded pair/More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear..../To love, thou blamest me not; for Love, thou sayest,/Leads up to Heaven, is both the way and guide
As the apostle John will later say, God is love. It is God who ordained the completion of man in woman, two as one.
The story complete Raphael returns to heaven with these words of parting from Adam:
Go, heavenly guest, ethereal Messenger,/Sent from whose sovereign goodness I adore./Gentle to me and affable hath been/Thy condescension, and shall be honored ever/With grateful memory: Thou to mankind/Be good and friendly still, and oft return.
Paradise Lost Book 8 Summary & Analysis | LitCharts
This is an excellent summary and commentary on each of the books in PARADISE LOST. I strongly recommend reading these commentaries over as you listen to our readings of this great poem!
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