[3] The Sun in Aries was separated by Taurus from Gemini; hence not all of the hemisphere of the earth seen from Gemini was illuminated by the sun, which was some three hours in advance.
My enamoured mind, that ever dallies with my Lady, was more than ever burning to bring back my eyes to her. And if nature has made bait in human flesh, or art in its paintings, to catch the eyes in order to possess the mind, all united would seem naught compared to the divine pleasure which shone upon me when I turned me to her smiling face. And the virtue with which the look indulged me, tore me from the fair nest of Leda,[1] and impelled me to the swiftest heaven.[2]
[1] From Gemini, the constellation of Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Leda.
[2] The Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven.
Its parts, most living and lofty, are so uniform that I cannot tell which of them Beatrice chose for a place for me. But she, who saw my desire, began, smiling so glad that God seemed to rejoice in her countenance, “The nature of the world[1] which quiets the centre, and moves all the rest around it, begins here as from its, starting-point. And this heaven has no other Where than the Divine Mind, in which the love that revolves it is kindled, and the virtue which it rains down. Light and love enclose it with one circle, even as this does the others, and of that cincture He who girds it is the sole Intelligence.[2] The motion of this heaven is not marked out by another, but the others are measured by this, even as ten by a half and by a fifth.[3] And how time can hold its roots in such a flower-pot, and in the others its leaves, may now be manifest to thee.
[1] The world of the revolving Heavens.
[2] The Angelic Intelligences move the lower Heavens, but of the Empyrean God himself is the immediate governor.
[3] The reversal of magnitudes makes this image obscure. The motion of the Crystalline Heaven, the swiftest of all, determines the slower motions of the Heavens below it, and divides them; as five and two divide ten. The fixed unit of time is the day which is established by the revolution of the Primum Mobile.
“O covetousness,[1] which whelms mortals beneath thee, so that no one has power to withdraw his eyes from out thy waves! Well. blossoms the will in men, but the continual rain converts the true plums into wildings. Faith and innocence are found only in children; then both fly away ere yet the cheeks are covered. One, so long as he stammers, fasts, who afterward, when his tongue is loosed, devours whatever food under whatever moon; and one, while stammering, loves his mother and listens to her, who, when speech is perfect, desires then to see her buried. So the skin of the fair daughter of him who brings morning and leaves evening, white in its first aspect, becomes black.[2] Do thou, in order that thou make not marvel, reflect that on earth there is no one who governs; wherefore the human family is gone astray. But ere January be all un-wintered by that hundredth part which is down there neglected,[3] these supernal circles shall so roar that the storm which is so long awaited shall turn the sterns round to where the prows are, so that the fleet shall run straight, and true fruit shall come after the flower.”
[1] The connection of the ideas presented in what precedes with this denunciation of covetousness, or selfishness, is not at first apparent. But the transition is not unnatural, from the consideration of the Heaven which pours down Divine influence, to the thought of the engrossment of men in the pursuit of their selfish and transitory ends, in which they are blinded to heavenly and eternal good.