TIME IN PARADISE.--The action of the _Paradiso_ begins at noon, immediately after Dante’s return from Eunoë; that is, noon on Wednesday in Easter week in the Earthly Paradise and (the following) midnight at Jerusalem (_Par._ i. 37-45). The time-references in this third Cantica are rather doubtful (_Par._ xxii. 151-153, xxvii. 77-87), but it seems probable that Dante takes twenty-four hours to ascend through the nine material heavens to the Empyrean, which is beyond time and space, where “the natural law in nought is relevant” (_Par._ xxx. 123). When Dante woke from his “mighty trance” to the “sound of the importunate earth,” it was perhaps about dawn on the morning of Friday in Easter week in our world, thus completing the seven days of his ecstatic pilgrimage, which had begun at about the same hour on Good Friday. CANTO I.--In a lyrical prologue of stately music (_Par._ i. 1-36), the poet sings of the glory of the First Mover, and prays for light and inspiration to complete this third most arduous portion of his divine poem. Then, in the noblest season of the year and noblest hour of the day, as Beatrice gazes upon the sun and Dante upon her, his mind becomes godlike, and he ascends to Heaven swifter than lightning. To explain his ascent, Beatrice discourses upon the form and order of God’s visible image, the Universe; and on His Eternal Law, the sovereign plan of government existing in the Divine Mind, to which all movements and actions of nature are subject (_ibid._ 103-141). To all created things God has given an instinct, or principle of inclination, by which, in different ways according to their nature, He draws them all back to Himself over the great sea of being. Rational beings alone can resist the order of the Universe and defeat the Eternal Law by sin, which is expiated by temporary or eternal suffering, as Dante has seen in the lower realms; but the purified soul, in accordance with this order and law, inevitably mounts up to find its rest in union with the First Cause. It is the doctrine of spiritual gravitation (derived from St. Augustine), according to which the soul is moved by love as bodies are by their weight, and all things find their rest in order.