Let him the Wain imagine unto which
Our vault of heaven sufficeth night and day,
So that in turning of its pole it fails not;
Let him the mouth imagine of the horn
That in the point beginneth of the axis
Round about which the primal wheel revolves,—
To have fashioned of themselves two signs in heaven,
Like unto that which Minos’ daughter made,
The moment when she felt the frost of death;
And one to have its rays within the other,
And both to whirl themselves in such a manner
That one should forward go, the other backward;
And he will have some shadowing forth of that
True constellation and the double dance
That circled round the point at which I was;
Because it is as much beyond our wont,
As swifter than the motion of the Chiana
Moveth the heaven that all the rest outspeeds.
There sang they neither Bacchus, nor Apollo,
But in the divine nature Persons three,
And in one person the divine and human.
The singing and the dance fulfilled their measure,
And unto us those holy lights gave need,
Growing in happiness from care to care.
Then broke the silence of those saints concordant
The light in which the admirable life
Of God’s own mendicant was told to me,
And said: “Now that one straw is trodden out
Now that its seed is garnered up already,
Sweet love invites me to thresh out the other.