Eternity, as defined by Boëthius, is “the complete and perfect simultaneous possession of unlimited life”; and Dante is one who has come from time to the eternal: _a l’etterno dal tempo era venuto_ (_Par._ xxxi. 38).[41] Beatrice has returned to her throne, her allegorical mission ended; and for this supreme revelation of the Divine beauty in the mystical Rose, where there is no medium to impede the poet’s sight of the Divine light (for his is now that of a separated spirit), but blessed souls and flying Angels are absorbed in love and vision, St. Bernard completes her work, even as that of Virgil had been completed by Matelda in the Earthly Paradise. St. Bernard may represent the glorified contemplative life in our heavenly country, as Matelda may symbolise the glorified active life in the state of restored Eden; or, perhaps better, if Matelda is taken as the love rightly ordered to which the _Purgatorio_ leads, Bernard represents the loving contemplation or contemplative love, attained by the mystic in brief moments here and now, in which the eternal and unchanging life of the soul in the hereafter consists. In an exquisite lyrical inter-breathing Dante addresses Beatrice for the last time, thanking her for having led him from servitude to liberty, praying to her for final perseverance (_Par._ xxxi. 79-90). Under the guidance of Bernard, he prepares himself for the vision of the Divine Essence, by disciplining his spiritual sight in contemplation of the glory of the saints and of the ineffable beauty of Mary, surrounded by her Angels, and clothed, as Bernard himself puts it elsewhere, in the Sun by whose fire the prophet’s lips were cleansed and the Cherubim kindled with love.