Geometrician, searching eagerly

To square the circle, seeks and seeks in vain A principle that may his wants supply ;Such with regard to that new sight was I: How they agreed I wish'd to ascertain

The Circle and the human Effigy :

But vainly my own wings to this aspired;

When struck my mind such splendour from above,

It straight accomplish'd all I had desired.

133

139

The glorious Vision here my powers o'ercame ;—
But now my will and wish were sway'd by Love-
(As turns a wheel on every side the same)
Love-at whose word the sun and planets move.

NOTES.

Page 309. (Line 1.) This beautiful supplication to the Virgin is addressed to her by St. Bernard. "From this short prayer," says Biagioli," has Petrarch drawn all the beauties which sparkle in his most beautiful canzone beginning, 'Vergine bella.'” And yet Petrarch pretended to despise Dante. Chaucer too has copied it : "Thou maide and aged mother, daughter of thy Son, thou wel of mercy, &c."-Second Nonne's Tale.

Page 310. (Line 19.) Apply these lines to our Saviour, as God and man, and a portrait of Him more just and beautiful cannot be furnished by mortal pencil. (22.) i.e. Dante,—who ascending from the abyss of Hell, had beheld the spirits in Purgatory, and Paradise.

Page 311. Line 40.) St. Bernard having finished his supplication to the Virgin, she, by a look, returns a favourable

answer.

Page 312. (Line 66.) See Virgil, Æn. iii. 145. (78.) Contrasting the different effects of the material and immaterial Sun, the author of the Ottimo Commento says, "that the one dazzles and overpowers, while the other strengthens and assimilates to itself." "Herein is the excellency of this Sun, that He illuminates not only the object, but the faculty;-doth not only reveal the mysteries, but opens blind eyes to behold them.”—Archbishop Leighton. (82) Dante attributes all his privileges to Divine Grace.

Page 313. (Line 88.) Substance, that which subsists of itself—accident, that which subsists in dependence on another. (91.) i.e. "One moment, elapsed after the vision, occasioned a greater forgetfulness of what he had seen, than the five and twenty centuries elapsed since the Argonautic expedition, had occasioned of that event."-Lombardi.

Page 314. (Line 109.) Before he proceeds with the description, beginning line 115, "Within that Essence," he anticipates an objection that might be made, "Not that the Living Light, &c.; i.e. "Let it not be thought that in God was any change of aspect, since He is immutable; but know, that owing to the strength my eyes acquired by contemplation, I saw him more clearly revealed; and distinguished three circles, representing the three Persons of the Trinity."

Page 315. (Line 136.) i.e. “Such was my anxiety to comprehend how the Divine and human nature of Christ were united. This mystery, which his "own wings," viz. his own powers, were unable to attain, is revealed to him by a flash of splendour; i.e. by an extraordinary infusion of Divine Grace. (142.) i.e." Here faileth the power of imprinting on my memory the image of the lofty objects I had seen."-Lombardi. Allusion is made to the opening of the poem, where he declared he had seen things not lawful for man to relate, and above the strength of the memory to bear. See note, i. 7. "When we converse with a light greater than the Sun, and taste a sweetness more delicious than the dew of heaven, and in our thoughts entertain the nourishments and harmony of that atonement, which reconciles God to man, and man to felicity, it will be more easily pardoned, if we should be like persons that admire much, and say little and indeed we can but confess the glories of the Lord by dazzled eyes, and a stammering tongue, and a heart overcharged with the miracles of His Infinity."Jeremy Taylor. The Miracles of the Divine Mercy. (143.) Having attained a sight of our Saviour, all Dante's desires are satisfied, and both his will and affections identified with the will of God.

:

END OF PARADISO.

INDEX.

Acheron, Inf. iii. 78; xiv. 116. Æthiop, Purg. xxvi. 21. Par.