ives his name, admits he
sang too freely of carnal love, and adds that Dante would surely
recognize many of his fellow-sufferers were he to point them out.
Then, bespeaking Dante's prayers, he plunges back into the fiery
element which is to make him fit for Paradise.

_Canto XXVII._ Just as the sun is about to set, an angel approaches
them, chanting "Blessed are the pure in heart," and bids them
fearlessly pass through the wall of fire which alone stands between
them and Paradise. Seeing Dante hang back timorously, Virgil reminds
him he will find Beatrice on the other side, whereupon our poet
plunges recklessly into the glowing furnace, where both his companions
precede him, and whence all three issue on an upward path. There they
make their couch on separate steps, and Dante gazes up at the stars
until he falls asleep and dreams of a lovely lady, culling flowers in
a meadow, singing she is Lea (the mediaeval type of active life), and
stating that her sister Rachel (the emblem of contemplative life)
spends the day gazing at herself in a mirror.

At dawn the pilgrims awake, and Virgil assures Dante before this day
ends his hunger for a sight of Beatrice will be appeased. This
prospect so lightens Dante's heart that he almost soars to the top of
the stairway. There Virgil, who has led him through temporal and
eternal fires, bids him follow his pleasure, until he meets the fair
lady who bade him undertake this journey.

"Till those bright eyes
With gladness come, which, weeping, made me haste
To succor thee, thou mayst or seat thee down
Or wander where thou wilt. Expect no more
Sanction of warning voice or sign from me,
Free of thine own arbitrament to choose.
Discreet, judicious. To distrust thy sense
Were henceforth error. I invest thee then
With crown and mitre, sovereign o'er thyself."

_Canto XXVIII._ Through the Garden of Eden Dante now strolls with
Statius and Virgil, until he beholds, on the other side of a pellucid
stream (whose waters have the "power to take away remembrance of
offence"), a beautiful lady (the countess Matilda), who smiles upon
him. Then she informs Dante she has come to "answer every doubt" he
cherishes, and, as they wander along on opposite sides of the stream,
she expounds for his benefit the creation of man, the fall and its
consequences, and informs him how all the plants that grow on earth
originate here. The water at his feet issues from an unquencha