Here “stelle” has the wider meaning of the French “astres,” for which we have no equivalent in English except the clumsy “heavenly bodies;” but most of Dante’s hundred references are to stars in the more special sense, and often to particular stars or constellations. Over eighty occur in the _Divine Comedy_. Stars are jewels, torches, flames, immortal nymphs adorning every region of the sky.[249] Heaven is made beautiful by their light, and the joy of the angels is expressed in their shining, as mortal joy shines forth in human eyes.[250] If the spirits in the fourth heaven are described as glowing suns,[251] the “splendours” that descend upon the golden ladder in the seventh, make Dante think that all the stars in the sky are gathered together there.[252] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [249] _Purg._ ix. 4; _Purg._ viii. 89; _Purg._ i. 25; _Par._ xxiii. 26. [250] _Par._ ii. 130, 142-144. [251] _Par._ x. 76. [252] _Par._ xxi. 28-33. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The eyes of Beatrice shone brighter than stars;[253] light comes as from many stars in reading the sacred books;[254] faith gleams like a star in the sky;[255] and truth appears in a mind cleared of falsehood and error like the radiance of stars in a sky which has been wholly swept of cloud and mist by a north wind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [253] _Inf._ ii. 55. [254] _Par._ xxv. 70. See also _Conv._ II. xvi. 4-12, where the writings of Boëthius and Cicero, and all instructive books, are called stars full of light. [255] _Par._ xxiv. 147. “Come rimane splendido e sereno L’emisperio dell’ aer, quando soffia Borea da quella guancia ond’ è più leno, Perchè si purga e risolve la roffia Che pria turbava, sì che il ciel ne ride Con le bellezze d’ogni sua paroffia: Così fec’ io, poi che mi provvide La Donna mia del suo risponder chiaro, E come stella in cielo il ver si vide.”[256] [256] “Even as remaineth splendid and serene The hemisphere of air, when Boreas Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest, Because is purified and resolved the wrack That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs With all the beauties of its pageantry: Thus did I likewise, after that my Lady Had me provided with her clear response, And like a star in heaven the truth was seen.” _Par._ xxviii. 79-87. (_Longfellow_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stars, as well as the sun, are used as symbols for the objects of Dante’s deepest reverence; for the Blessed Virgin is called “la viva stella,”[257] and the Final Vision in which the redeemed find their ultimate bliss is a Trinal Light seen as a single star:—