more or less distant, much of the order of the world, both below
and above, would be defective. Now do thou remain, Reader, upon
thy bench,[6] following in thought that which is fore. tasted, if
thou wouldst be glad far sooner than weary. I have set before
thee; henceforth feed thee by thyself, for that theme whereof I
have been made scribe wrests all my care unto itself.

[1] All things, as well the spiritual and invisible objects of
the intelligence as the corporal and visible objects of sense,
were made by God the Father, operating through the Son, with the
love of the Holy Spirit, and made in such order that he who
contemplates the creation beholds the partial image of the
Creator.

[2] At the equinox, the season of Dante's journey, the sun in
Aries is at the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator of
the celestial sphere, and his apparent motion in his annual
revolution cuts the apparent diurnal motion of the fixed stars,
which is performed in circles parallel to the equator.

[3] The ecliptic.

[4] Which invokes their influence.

[5] Because on the obliquity of their path depends the variety of
their influence.

[6] As a scholar.