Canto XXXII. Because the dazzled Dante cannot immediately locate her, St. Bernard points her out, with Eve, Rachel, Beatrice, Sarah, Judith, Rebecca, and Ruth sitting at her feet, and John the Baptist, St. Augustine, St. Francis, and St. Benedict standing close behind her.  He also explains that those who believed in “Christ who was to come” are in one part of the rose, while those who “looked to Christ already come” are in another, but that all here are spirits duly assoiled, and adds that, although occupying different ranks, these spirits are perfectly satisfied with the places awarded to them.  Told now to look up at the face most closely resembling Christ’s Dante discovers it is that of St. Gabriel, angel of the annunciation, and he descries further on St. Peter, Moses, and St. Anna, as well as Santa Lucia who induced Beatrice to send for him.

Canto XXXIII. This done, St. Bernard fervently prays the Virgin, who not only “gives succor to him who asketh it, but oftentimes forerunneth of its own accord the asking,” to allow Dante one glimpse of Divine Majesty.  Seeing this prayer is graciously received, St. Bernard bids Dante look up.  Thanks to his recently purified vision, our poet has a glimpse of the Triune Divinity,—­compounded of love,—­which so transcends all human expression that he declares “what he saw was not for words to speak.”

He concludes his grand poem, however, by assuring us that, although dazed by what he had seen, his

          “will roll’d onward, like a wheel
  In even motion, by the love impell’d,
  That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 16:  All the quotations in Divine Comedy are taken from Cary’s translation.]

[Footnote 17:  See the author’s “Story of the Greeks.”]

[Footnote 18:  See the author’s “Story of the Chosen People,” and “Story of the Romans.”]

[Footnote 19:  See the author’s “Legends of the Virgin and Christ.”]

THE ORLANDOS

Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, hero of the Song of Roland and of an endless succession of metrical romances, was as popular a character in Italian literature as in the French.  The Italians felt a proprietary interest in Charlemagne because he had been crowned emperor of the West in Rome in the year 800, and also because he had taken the part of the pope against the Lombards.  Even the names of his twelve great peers were household words in Italy, so tales about Roland—­who is known there as Orlando—­were sure to find ready hearers.

The adventures of Roland, therefore, naturally became the theme of Italian epics, some of which are of considerable length and of great importance, owing principally to their exquisite versification and diction.  Pulci and Boiardo both undertook to depict Roland as a prey to the tender passion in epics entitled Orlando Innamorato, while Ariosto, the most accomplished and musical poet of the three, spent more than ten years of his life composing Orlando Furioso (1516), wherein he depicts this famous hero driven insane by his passion for an Oriental princess.