[Line 52: St. Peter speaks to Dante.]
[Line 59: The great Head of the Church.]
[Line 66: In the Scholastic Philosophy, the essence of a thing, distinguishing it from all other things, was called its quiddity: an answer to the question, Quid est?]
[Line 93: The Old and New Testaments.]
[Line 115: In the Middle Ages earthly titles were sometimes given to the saints. Thus, Boccaccio speaks of Baron Messer San Antonio.]
[Line 126: St. John, xx. 3-8. St. John was the first to reach the sepulchre, but St. Peter the first to enter it.]
[Line 138: St. Peter and the other Apostles after Pentecost.]
CANTO XXV.
If e'er it happen that the Poem Sacred, [1]
To which both heaven and earth have set their hand
Till it hath made me meagre many a year,
O'ercome the cruelty that bars me out
From the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered,
Obnoxious to the wolves that war upon it,
With other voice henceforth, with other fleece
Will I return as poet, and at my font
Baptismal will I take the laurel-crown; [9]
Because into the Faith that maketh known
All souls to God there entered I, and then
Peter for her sake so my brow encircled.
Thereafterward towards us moved a light
Out of that band whence issued the first-fruits [14]
Which of his vicars Christ behind him left,
And then, my Lady, full of ecstasy,
Said unto me: "Look, look! behold the Baron
For whom below Galicia is frequented." [18]
In the same way as, when a dove alights
Near his companion, both of them pour forth,
Circling about and murmuring, their affection,
So I beheld one by the other grand
Prince glorified to be with welcome greeted,
Lauding the food that there above is eaten.
But when their gratulations were completed,
Silently coram me each one stood still,
So incandescent it o'ercame my sight.
Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice:
"Spirit august, by whom the benefactions
Of our Basilica have been described, [30]
Make Hope reverberate in this altitude;
Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it
As Jesus to the three gave greater light,"— [33]
"Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured; [34]
For what comes hither from the mortal world
Must needs be ripened in our radiance."
This exhortation from the second fire [37]
Came; and mine eyes I lifted to the hills, [38]
Which bent them down before with too great weight,
"Since, through his grace, our Emperor decrees
Thou shouldst confronted be, before thy death,
In the most secret chamber, with his Counts, [42]