John Milton – “Paradise Lost” Book 8

wThe Helpful Footnote explains why Book 7 seemed shorter than the previous ones – it IS shorter, because when Milton re-edited Paradise Lost for its second edition, he wanted to have twelve books instead of the original ten (to be more in keeping with the classical tradition, I guess), he split Book 7 in two, adding a few lines at the beginning of the new Book 8 about how Adam is so amazed after Raphael finished speaking that for a moment he still is like half-asleep. After that, he thanks Raphael profusely and says “But I have just one more question”. (He is really like Columbo.) “It really doesn’t make sense that all the shining, wonderful heavenly bodies turn around this little speck of earth. Can you explain that?” Eve, when she hears Adam getting philosophical, gets up and goes to tend her garden, not because the subject is boring for her, nor because – as Milton emphasizes – she is too stupid to comprehend it, but because, as the ideal Protestant wife, she prefers to be taught about these profound subjects by Adam, who is going to mix his lecture with “grateful digressions” and “conjugal caresses”. Still, BARF, and no amount of Milton’s raptures about how pretty she is can diminish the barf factor for me. “O, when meet now/Such pairs, in mutual love and honour joined?” When indeed. Raphael explains that it really doesn’t matter which one moves, stars or earth, if you reason right. As for the rest, maybe God deliberately left it obscure to have fun at how people try to figure it out (he mentions eccentric orbs and epicycles, by which Ptolemean astronomers tried to explain the discrepancies between their calculations and what actually went on in the sky. Copernicus relied on them, too, and I think it was not until Kepler figured out that the orbits of planets are elliptical when the heliocentric system started making sense without cheating at maths. Kepler published his findings way before Paradise Lost but I guess Milton’s astronomical knowledge was not up to scratch?) Besides, Raphael says, all is not gold that shines and for instance the Sun cannot produce by itself nothing unless it shines on the fecund earth.