The Messiah, returning home in triumph in his chariot, was welcomed by the
bright orders into the home of his Father.
Delighted by the recital of Raphael, Adam asked him to relate the story of
the Creation, and explain to him the motion of the celestial bodies. He
then told Raphael of his own creation; how he awoke as from a sleep and
found the Sun above him and around him the pleasant groves of Paradise;
how he named the animals as they passed before him, according to the will
of God, and how he had pleaded with his Maker for a companion and equal,
until the Creator, casting him into a sound sleep, took from his side a
rib and formed from it his beauteous Eve. As Adam concluded, the setting
sun warned Raphael to depart.
Satan, after fleeing from Gabriel, had hidden in the dark parts of the
earth, so that he could creep in at night unseen of Uriel. After the
eighth night, he crept in past the watchful Cherubim, and stealing into
Paradise, wrapped in the mist rising over the river that, shooting
underground, rose up as a fountain near the Tree of Life, he crept, though
not without loathing, into the serpent, in which form he could best evade
the watchful eyes of the heavenly guards and accomplish his purpose.
When morning dawned, Eve asked Adam for once to permit her to work alone,
so that they might accomplish more.
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