that of other voices rising and falling in subordination to the
principal melody:

"And as within a flame a spark is seen,
And as within a voice discerned,
When one is steadfast, and one comes and goes,
Within that light beheld I other lamps
Move in a circle, speeding more and less,
Methinks in a measure of their inward vision.
From a cold cloud descended never winds,
Or visible or not, so rapidly
They would not laggard and impeded seem
To any one who had those lights divine
Seen come towards us, leaving the gyration
Begun at first in the high Seraphim.
And behind those that most in front appeared
Sounded 'Osanna!' so that never since
To hear again was I without desire.
Then unto us more nearly one approached,
And it alone began: 'We all are ready
Unto thy pleasure, that thou joy in us.

We turn around with the celestial Princes,
One gyre and one gyration and one thirst,
To whom thou in the world didst say,
"Ye who, intelligent, the third heaven are moving;"
And are so full of love, to pleasure thee
A little quiet will not be less sweet.'"
(VIII, 16.)

The speaker discloses himself to be Charles Martel, once titular King of
Hungary, who on the occasion of a nineteen days' visit to Florence,
formed an intimate friendship with the poet. For the latter's
edification the spirit expounds the problem: Why from the same parents,
children grow up different in disposition, talent and career, a problem
just as interesting to the twentieth as the thirteenth century. We
account for the difference according to the principles of variation,
heredity and environment, but to stellar influence intent upon securing
the fulfillment of the law of individuality, was the difference
attributed by the medieval mind, which regarded the stars and planets
not as soulless spheres, but as orbs palpitating with the life of
angelic intelligences and radiating their influence upon the people of
the earth.

Hence it was held that the Heavens affected the diversity of the
characters of children who otherwise would be cut out the exact pattern
of their parents. "The begotten nature would ever take a course like its
begetters, did not divine provision overrule." (VIII, 136.) The
necessity for diversity in man's life is deduced from the fact that in
society men are providentially destined for different vocations.
"Wherefore is one born Solon (a legislator), another Xerxes (a soldier),
a