on earth: _Stella Maris, Stella
Matutina_.]

[Line 98: The Angel Gabriel, or Angelic Love.]

[Line 106: Sapphire is the color in which the old painters arrayed the
Virgin.]

[Line 116: The regal mantle of all the volumes, or rolling orbs, of the
world is the crystalline heaven, or _Primus Mobile_, which infolds all
the others like a mantle.]

[Line 132: Easter hymn to the Virgin.]

[Line 137: Caring not for gold in the Babylonian exile of this life,
they laid up treasures in the other.]

[Line 143: St. Peter, keeper of the keys, with the holy men of the Old
and the New Testament.]

CANTO XXIV.

"O company elect to the great supper [1]
Of the Lamb glorified, who feedeth you
So that forever full is your desire,
If by the grace of God this man foretastes
Of whatsoever falleth from your table,
Or ever death prescribes to him the time,
Direct your mind to his immense desire, [7]
And him somewhat bedew; ye drinking are
Forever from the fount whence comes his thought." [9]
Thus Beatrice; and those enraptured spirits
Made themselves spheres around their steadfast poles,
Flaming intensely in the guise of comets.
And as the wheels in works of horologes
Revolve so that the first to the beholder
Motionless seems, and the last one to fly,
So in like manner did those carols, dancing [16]
In different measure, by their affluence
Make me esteem them either swift or slow.
From that one which I noted of most beauty
Beheld I issue forth a fire so happy
That none it left there of a greater splendor;
And around Beatrice three several times [22]
It whirled itself with so divine a song,
My fantasy repeats it not to me;
Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not,
Since our imagination for such folds,
Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring. [27]
"O holy sister mine, who us implorest [28]
With such devotion, by thine ardent love
Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere!"
Thus, having stopped, the beatific fire
Unto my Lady did direct its breath,
Which spake in fashion as I here have said.
And she: "O light eterne of the great man
To whom our Lord delivered up the keys
He c