[1] So lucent, brighter than the sun.

[2] Showing himself in the Holy Spirit and in the Son.


I saw many living and surpassing effulgences make a centre of
us, and make a crown of themselves, more sweet in voice than
shining in aspect. Thus girt we sometimes see the daughter of
Latona, when the air is pregnant so that it holds the thread
which makes the girdle.[1] In the court of Heaven, wherefrom I
return, are found many jewels so precious and beautiful that they
cannot be brought from the kingdom, and of these was the song of
those lights. Who wings not himself so that he may fly up
thither, let him await the tidings thence from the dumb.

[1] When the air is so full of vapor that it forms a halo.


After those burning suns, thus singing, had circled three times
round about us, like stars near fixed poles, they seemed to me as
ladies not loosed from a dance, but who stop silent, listening
till they have caught the new notes. And within one I heard
begin, "Since the ray of grace, whereby true love is kindled, and
which thereafter grows multiplied in loving, so shines on thee
that it conducts thee upward by that stair upon which, without
reascending, no one descends, he who should deny to thee the wine
of his flask for thy thirst, would not be more at liberty than
water which descends not to the sea.[1] Thou wishest to know with
what plants this garland is enflowered, which, round about her,