Numerous; and every star perhaps a world And worship him; and in reward to rule So sung they, and the empyrean rung Inform'd by thee, might know: if else thou seek'st THE ARGUMENT. Adam inquires concerning celestial notions: is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowl edge. Adam assents: and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation; his placing in Paradise; his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society; his first meeting and nuptuals with Eve; his discourse with the Angel thereupon: who, after admonitions repeated, departs. PARADISE LOST. BOOK VIII. THE Angel ended, and in Adam's ear Equal, have I to render thee, divine The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed Things, else by me unsearchable; now heard Their distance argues, and their swift return Round this opacious Earth, this punctual spot, So many nobler bodies to create, Greater so manifold, to this one use, For aught appears, and on their orbs impose Repeated; while the sedentary Earth, That better might with far less compass move, So spake our sire, and by his countenance seem'd And grace that won who saw to wish her stay, Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved, Her husband the relater she preferr'd Before the Angel, and of him to ask Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now |