On the second day God created the firmament, on the third separated water from dry land, and on the fourth covered the earth with plants and trees, each bearing seed to propagate its kind. Then came the creation of the sun, moon, and stars to rule day and night and divide light from darkness, and on the fifth day the creation of the birds and fishes, whom God bade multiply until they filled the earth. Only on the sixth and last day did God call into life cattle and creeping things, which crawled out of the earth full grown and perfect limbed. Then, as there still lacked a creature endowed with reason to rule the rest, God created man in his own image, fashioning him from clay by breathing life into his nostrils. After thus creating Adam and his consort Eve, God blessed both, bidding them be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, and hold dominion over every living thing upon it. Having placed creatures so richly endowed in Paradise, God left them free to enjoy all it contained, save the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in regard to which he warned them "in the day thou eatest thereof, thou diest." Then, his work finished, the Creator returned to heaven, where he and the angels spent the seventh day resting from their work. _Book VIII._ Not daring to intrude upon the conversation of Adam and Raphael, Eve waits at a distance, knowing her husband will tell her all she need learn. Meanwhile, further to satisfy his curiosity, Adam inquires how the sun and stars move so quietly in their orbit? Raphael rejoins that, although the heavens are the book of God, wherein man can read his wondrous works, it is difficult to make any one understand the distances separating the various orbs. To give Adam a slight idea of them, Raphael declares that he--whose motions are not slow--set out from heaven at early morn and arrived at Eden only at midday. Then he describes the three rotations to which our earth is subject, names the six planets, and assures Adam God holds them all in his hand and prescribes their paths and speed.