[1] The Virgin,—Rosa mistica,—the brightest of all the host that remained.
The royal mantle[1] of all the volumes[2] of the world, which is most fervid and most quickened in the breath of God and in His ways, had its inner shore so distant above us that sight of it, there where I was, did not yet appear to me. Therefore my eyes had not the power to follow the incoronate flame, which mounted upward following her own seed. And as a little child which, when it has taken the milk, stretches its arms toward its mother, through the spirit that flames up outwardly, each of these white splendors stretched upward with its summit, so that the deep aflection which they had for Mary was manifest to me. Then they remained there in ray sight, singing “Regina coeli “ so sweetly that never has the delight departed from me. Oh how great is the plenty that is heaped up in those most rich chests which were good laborers in sowing here below! Here they live and enjoy the treasure that was acquired while weeping in the exile of Babylon, where the gold was left aside.[3] Here triumphs, under the high Son of God and of Mary, in his victory, both with the ancient and with the new council, he who holds the keys of such glory.[4]
[l] The Primum Mobile, the ninth Heaven, which revolves around all the others.
[2] The revolving spheres.
[3] Despising the treasures of the world, in the Babylonish exile of this life, they laid up for themselves treasures in Heaven.
[4] St. Peter.
CANTO XXIV.
St. Peter examines Dante concerning Faith, and approves his answer.
“O company elect to the great supper of the blessed Lamb, who feeds you so that your desire is always full, since by grace of God this man foretastes of that which falls from your table, before death prescribes the time for him, give heed to his immense longing, and bedew him a little; ye drink ever of the fount whence comes that which he ponders.” Thus Beatrice; and those glad souls made themselves spheres upon fixed poles, flaming brightly in manner of comets. And as wheels within the fittings of clocks revolve, so that to him who gives heed the first seems quiet, and the last to fly, so these carols,[1] differently dancing, swift and slow, enabled me to estimate their riches.
[1] A carol was a dance with song; here used for the souls who composed the carols, the difference in whose speed gave to Dante the gauge of their respective blessedness.