free from this adultery."[4]

[1] "Through envy of the devil came death into the world."--
Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 24.

[2] The lily on its florin.

[3] The books of the Ecclesiastical Law.

[4] By the removal in 1305 of the Papal Court to Avignon.



CANTO X. Ascent to the Sun.--Spirits of the wise, and the learned
in theology.--St. Thomas Aquinas.--He names to Dante those who
surround him.

Looking upon His Son with the Love which the one and the other
eternally breathe forth, the Primal and Ineffable Power made
everything which revolves through the mind or through space with
such order that he who contemplates it cannot be without taste of
Him.[1] Lift then thy sight, Reader, with me to the lofty wheels,
straight to that region where the one motion strikes on the
other;[2] and there begin to gaze with delight on the art of that
Master who within Himself so loves it that His eye never departs
from it. See how from that point the oblique circle which bears
the planets[3] branches off, to satisfy the world which calls on
them;[4] and if their road had not been bent, much virtue in the
heavens would be in vain, and well-nigh every potency dead here
below.[5] And if from the straight line its departure had been