He now saw the moon without those spots in it which made him formerly attribute the variation to dense and rare.  He sustained the brightness of the face of the sun, and discerned all the signs and motions and relative distances of the planets.  Finally, he saw, as he rolled round with the sphere in which he stood, and by virtue of his gifted sight, the petty arena, from hill to harbour, which filled his countrymen with such ferocious ambition; and then he turned his eyes to the sweet eyes beside him.[36]

Beatrice stood wrapt in attention, looking earnestly towards the south, as if she expected some appearance.  She resembled the bird that sits among the dewy leaves in the darkness of night, yearning for the coming of the morning, that she may again behold her young, and have light by which to seek the food, that renders her fatigue for them a joy.  So stood Beatrice, looking; which caused Dante to watch in the same direction, with the feelings of one that is already possessed of some new delight by the assuredness of his expectation.[37]

The quarter on which they were gazing soon became brighter and brighter, and Beatrice exclaimed, “Behold the armies of the triumph of Christ!” Her face appeared all fire, and her eyes so full of love, that the poet could find no words to express them.

As the moon, when the depths of heaven are serene with her fulness, looks abroad smiling among her eternal handmaids the stars, that paint every gulf of the great hollow with beauty;[38] so brightest, above myriads of splendours around it, appeared a sun which gave radiance to them all, even as our earthly sun gives light to the constellations.

“O Beatrice!” exclaimed Dante, overpowered, “sweet and beloved guide!”

“Overwhelming,” said Beatrice, “is the virtue with which nothing can compare.  What thou hast seen is the Wisdom and the Power, by whom the path between heaven and earth has been laid open."[39]

Dante’s soul—­like the fire which falls to earth out of the swollen thunder-cloud, instead of rising according to the wont of fire—­had grown too great for his still mortal nature; and he could afterwards find within him no memory of what it did.

“Open thine eyes,” said Beatrice, “and see me now indeed.  Thou hast beheld things that empower thee to sustain my smiling.”

Dante, while doing as he was desired, felt like one who has suddenly waked up from a dream, and endeavours in vain to recollect it.

“Never,” said he, “can that moment be erased from the book of the past.  If all the tongues were granted me that were fed with the richest milk of Polyhymnia and her sisters, they could not express one thousandth part of the beauty of that divine smile, or of the thorough perfection which it made of the whole of her divine countenance.”

But Beatrice said, “Why dost thou so enamour thee of this face, and lose the sight of the beautiful guide, blossoming beneath the beams of Christ?  Behold the rose, in which the Word was made flesh.[40] Behold the lilies, by whose odour the way of life is tracked.”