[Line 1:  Beatrice speaks.]

[Line 7:  Hunger and thirst after things divine.]

[Line 9:  The grace of God.]

[Line 16:  The carol was a dance as well as a song.]

[Line 22:  St. Peter thrice encircles Beatrice, as the Angel Gabriel did the Virgin Mary in the preceding canto.]

[Line 27:  Too glaring for painting such delicate draperies of song.]

[Line 28:  St. Peter speaks to Beatrice.]

[Line 42:  Fixed upon God, in whom all things reflected.]

[Line 52:  St. Peter speaks to Dante.]

[Line 59:  The great Head of the Church.]

[Line 66:  In the Scholastic Philosophy, the essence of a thing, distinguishing it from all other things, was called its quiddity:  an answer to the question, Quid est?]

[Line 93:  The Old and New Testaments.]

[Line 115:  In the Middle Ages earthly titles were sometimes given to the saints.  Thus, Boccaccio speaks of Baron Messer San Antonio.]

[Line 126:  St. John, xx. 3-8.  St. John was the first to reach the sepulchre, but St. Peter the first to enter it.]

[Line 138:  St. Peter and the other Apostles after Pentecost.]

CANTO XXV.

    If e’er it happen that the Poem Sacred, [1]
      To which both heaven and earth have set their hand
      Till it hath made me meagre many a year,
    O’ercome the cruelty that bars me out
      From the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered,
      Obnoxious to the wolves that war upon it,
    With other voice henceforth, with other fleece
      Will I return as poet, and at my font
      Baptismal will I take the laurel-crown; [9]
    Because into the Faith that maketh known
      All souls to God there entered I, and then
      Peter for her sake so my brow encircled. 
    Thereafterward towards us moved a light
    Out of that band whence issued the first-fruits [14]
      Which of his vicars Christ behind him left,
    And then, my Lady, full of ecstasy,
      Said unto me:  “Look, look! behold the Baron
      For whom below Galicia is frequented.” [18]
    In the same way as, when a dove alights
      Near his companion, both of them pour forth,
      Circling about and murmuring, their affection,
    So I beheld one by the other grand
      Prince glorified to be with welcome greeted,
      Lauding the food that there above is eaten. 
    But when their gratulations were completed,
      Silently coram me each one stood still,
      So incandescent it o’ercame my sight. 
    Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice: 
      “Spirit august, by whom the benefactions
      Of our Basilica have been described, [30]
    Make Hope reverberate in this