swered all the carols. [99]
Thereafterward among them gleamed a light, [100]
So that, if Cancer such a crystal had,
Winter would have a month of one sole day. [102]
And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance
A joyous maiden, only to do honor
To the new bride, and not from any failing, [105]
So saw I the illuminated splendor
Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved, [107]
As was beseeming to their ardent love.
It joined itself there in the song and music;
And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,
Even as a bride, silent and motionless.
"This is the one who lay upon the breast
Of him our Pelican; and this is he
To the great office from the cross elected." [114]
My Lady thus; but therefore none the more
Removed her sight from its fixed contemplation,
Before or afterward, these words of hers.
Even as a man who gazes, and endeavors
To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,
And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,
So I became before that latest fire, [122]
While it was said, "Why dost thou daze thyself
To see a thing which here has no existence? [124]
Earth upon earth my body is, and shall be
With all the others there, until our number
With the eternal proposition tallies; [127]
With the two garments in the blessed cloister [128]
Are the two lights alone that have ascended: [129]
And this shalt thou take back into your world." [130]
And at this utterance the flaming circle
Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling
Of sound that by the trinal breath was made, [133]
As to escape from danger or fatigue
The oars that erst were in the water beaten
Are all suspended at a whistle's sound.
Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,
When I turned round to look on Beatrice,
At not beholding her, although I was
Close at her side and in the Happy World!

[Line 1: This "Divina Commedia," in which human science or Philosophy is
symbolized in Virgil, and divine science or Theology in Beatrice.

"_Fiorenza la Bella_," Florence the Fair. In one of his Canzoni, Dante
says,--

"O mountain-song of mine, thou goest thy way;
F