only have I proofs
Physical and metaphysical, but gives them
Likewise the truth that from this place rains down
Through Moses, through the Prophets and the Psalms,
Through the Evangel, and through you, who wrote
After the fiery Spirit sanctified you; [138]
In Persons three eterne believe I, and these
One essence I believe, so one and trine,
They bear conjunction both with _sunt_ and _est_.
With the profound conjunction and divine,
Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind
Ofttimes the doctrine evangelical.
This the beginning is, this is the spark
Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame,
And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me."
Even as a lord, who hears what pleases him,
His servant straight embraces, giving thanks
For the good news, as soon as he is silent;
So, giving me its benediction, singing,
Three times encircled me, when I was silent,
The apostolic light, at whose command
I spoken had, in speaking I so pleased him.

[Line 1: Beatrice speaks.]

[Line 7: Hunger and thirst after things divine.]

[Line 9: The grace of God.]

[Line 16: The carol was a dance as well as a song.]

[Line 22: St. Peter thrice encircles Beatrice, as the Angel Gabriel did
the Virgin Mary in the preceding canto.]

[Line 27: Too glaring for painting such delicate draperies of song.]

[Line 28: St. Peter speaks to Beatrice.]

[Line 42: Fixed upon God, in whom all things reflected.]

[Line 52: St. Peter speaks to Dante.]

[Line 59: The great Head of the Church.]

[Line 66: In the Scholastic Philosophy, the essence of a thing,
distinguishing it from all other things, was called its _quiddity_: an
answer to the question, _Quid est?_]

[Line 93: The Old and New Testaments.]

[Line 115: In the Middle Ages earthly titles were sometimes given to the
saints. Thus, Boccaccio speaks of _Baron Messer San Antonio_.]

[Line 126: St. John, xx. 3-8. St. John was the first to reach the
sepulchre, but St. Peter the first to enter it.]

[Line 138: St. Peter and the other Apostles after Pentecost.]

CANTO XXV.

If e'er it happen that the Poem Sacred, [1]
To which both heaven and earth have set their hand
Till it hath made me meagre many a year,
O'ercome the cruelty that bars me out
From the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered,
Obnoxious t