. Not otherwise, should Moral Philosophy cease to be,
would the other Sciences be hidden for some time, and there would be
no generation nor life of happiness, and all books would be in vain,
and all discoveries of old. Therefore it is sufficiently evident that
there is a comparison between this Heaven and Moral Philosophy.

Again, the Empyrean Heaven, because of its Peace, bears a similitude
to the Divine Science, which is full of all Peace; which endures no
conflict of opinion or of sophistical arguments, on account of the
most excellent certainty of its subject, which is God. And of this He
Himself speaks to His disciples: "My peace I give to you: My peace I
leave unto you," giving and leaving to them His doctrine, which is
this Science whereof I speak.

Solomon says of this Science: "Sixty are the queens, and eighty the
friendly concubines; and youthful virgins without number; but one is
my dove and my perfect one." All the Sciences he terms queens, and
friends, and virgins; and he calls this one dove, because it is
without blemish of strife; and he calls this one perfect, because it
causes us to see perfectly the Truth in which our Soul finds Peace.

And therefore the comparison of the Heavens to the Sciences having
been thus reasoned out, it is easy to see that by the Third Heaven I
mean Rhetoric, which has been likened unto the Third Heaven, as
appears above.

CHAPTER XVI.

By the similitudes spoken of it is possible to see who these Movers
are to whom I speak; what are the Movers of that Heaven; even as
Boethius and Tullius, who by the sweetness of their speech sent me, as
has before been stated, to the Love, which is the study of that most
gentle Lady, Philosophy, by the rays of their star, which is the
written word of that fair one. Therefore in each Science the written
word is a star full of light, which that Science reveals And, this
being made manifest, it is easy to see the true meaning of the first
verse of the purposed Poem by means of the exposition, Figurative and
Literal. And by means of this self-same exposition one can
sufficiently understand the second verse, even to that part where it
says, This Spirit made me look on a fair Lady: where it should be
known that this Lady is Philosophy; which truly is a Lady full of
sweetness, adorned with modesty, wonderful for wisdom, the glory of
freedom, as in the Third Treatise, where her Nobility will be
described, it is made manifest. And then w