speak
Achieved before, and after should achieve
Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath,
Becometh in appearance mean and dim
If in the hand of the third Caesar seen
With an eye unclouded and affection pure
Because the living Justice that inspires me
Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of
The glory of doing vengence for its wrath."
(VI, 82.)

Shining among the splendors of Mercury is a spirit who, though he was
not a lawmaker like Justinian, attained earthly renown by arranging the
marriages of four Kings. Known by the name of Romeo, a word meaning a
pilgrim of Rome, this man came a stranger to the Court of Raymond
Berenger, Court of Provence, multiplied the income without lessening the
grandeur of his master and brought about the marriages to royalty of the
four daughters of the household--Margaret to St. Louis of France,
Eleanor to Henry III of England, Sanzia to Richard, Earl of Cornwall
(brother of Henry III), elected King of the Romans, Beatrice to Charles
of Anjou, later by Papal investiture, King of Naples. Charged by jealous
barons with having wasted his master's goods, Romeo established his
innocence and then departed as he came, on a mule and with a pilgrim's
staff. From affluence he goes a-begging and this is so much like Dante's
own case that the poet's sympathy goes out to the calumniated man, and
he says with touching simplicity:

"If the world could know the heart he had
In begging bit by bit his livelihood,
Though much it laud him, it would laud him more."
(VI, 140.)

Justinian's words as to the crucifixion of Christ suggest to Dante this
question: Why was man's redemption effected by the death of Christ upon
the Cross rather than by some other mode? Investing the argumentative
propositions of St. Thomas with poetic beauty, Dante shows that while
God might have freely pardoned man without exacting any satisfaction,
on the hypothesis that He had chosen to restore mankind to His favor and
at the same time to require full satisfaction as a condition of pardon
and deliverance, there was only one way for the accomplishment of this
reconciliation and that was by the atonement of One who was both God and
Man. For sin, inasmuch as it is an act against the Infinite Being,
requires a satisfaction of infinite value. Man being finite is incapable
of adequately making such satisfaction. But the Word was made flesh that
by His atonement on the Cross Mercy would