The greatest minister of nature, which imprints the world with
the power of the heavens, and with its light measures the time
for us, in conjunction with that region called to mind above, was
circling through the spirals in which from day to day he earlier
presents himself.[1] And I was with him; but of the ascent I was
not aware, otherwise than as a man is aware, before his first
thought, of its coming. Beatrice is she who thus conducts from
good to better so swiftly that her act extends not through time.

[1] In that spiral course in which, according to the Ptolemaic
system, the sun passes from the equator to the tropic of Cancer,
rising earlier every day.


How lucent of itself must that have been which, within the sun
where I entered, was appareiit not by color but by light! Though
I should call on genius, art, and use, I could not tell it so
that it could ever be imagined; but it may be believed, and sight
of it longed for. And if our fancies are low for such loftiness,
it is no marvel, for beyond the sun was never eye could go.
Such[1] was here the fourth family of the High Father, who always
satisfies it, showing how He breathes forth, and how He
begets.[2] And Beatrice began, "Thank, thank thou the Sun of
the Angels, who to this visible one has raised thee by His
grace." Heart of mortal was never so disposed to devotion, and so
ready, with its own entire pleasure, to give itself to God, as I
became at those words; and all my love was so set on Him that
Beatrice was eclipsed in oblivion. It displeased her not; but she
so smiled thereat that the splendor of her smiling eyes divided
upon many things my singly intent mind.