“She with those other spirits gently smiled;
  Then answer’d with such gladness, that she seem’d
  With love’s first flame to glow:  ’Brother! our will
  Is, in composure, settled by the power
  Of charity, who makes us will alone
  What we possess, and nought beyond desire.’”

All her companions also wished to be brides of Christ, but patiently did their duty, and, knowing that “in His will is our tranquillity,” they now spend all their time singing “Ave Maria.”  When these nun-like forms vanish, Dante gazes at Beatrice in hopes of learning more.

Canto IV. In reply to Dante’s inquiring glance, Beatrice explains that those compelled to sin against their desire are ever held blameless in Heaven.  Then, stating: 

  “Not seldom, brother, it hath, chanced for men
  To do what they had gladly left undone;”

she adds that “the will that wills not, still survives unquenched,” and that by will power only St. Lawrence and Mucius Scevola were enabled to brave fire.  Then she makes him see how truth alone can satisfy a mind athirst for knowledge.

Canto V. Beatrice asserts that the most precious gift bestowed upon mankind was freedom of will, and that “knowledge comes of learning well retain’d.”  She concludes that when man makes a vow he offers his will in sacrifice to God, and that for that reason no vow should be thoughtlessly made, but all should be rigidly kept.  Still, she admits it is better to break a promise than, like Jephthah and Agamemnon, to subscribe to a heinous crime, and states that either Testament can serve as guide for Jews or Christians.  Again drawing Dante upward by the very intensity of her gaze, she conveys him to the second circle, the heaven of Mercury (revolved by Archangels).  Here, in an atmosphere as pellucid as water, Dante perceives thousands of angels, coming toward him, singing “Lo! one arrived to multiply our loves!” These spirits assure Dante he was born in a happy hour, since he is allowed, ere the “close of fleshly warfare,” to view the glories of heaven,—­and express a desire to share their lights with him.  So Dante questions the spirit nearest him, which immediately glows with loving eagerness to serve him, until it becomes a dazzling point of light.

Canto VI. This spirit announces he is Justinian, chosen to clear “from vain excess the encumbered laws,” five hundred years after the Christian era began, and that it was in order to devote all his time to this task that he consigned the military power to Belisarius.  He proceeds to give Dante a resume of Roman history, from the kidnapping of the Sabines to his own day, laying stress on the triumphs won by great generals.  He also specially mentions the hour “When Heaven was minded that o’er all the world his own deep calm should brood,” the troublous days of the empire, and the feud of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the two principal political factions of Dante’s time.  Next he explains that Mercury is inhabited by “good spirits whose mortal lives were busied to that end that honor and renown might wait on them,” and quotes in particular Raymond Berenger, whose four daughters became queens.