Equally swiftly and unconsciously, Dante ascends to the successive heavens of Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, finding himself always in the planet which occupies each sphere. Mounting the mysterious golden ladder which is set up in Saturn, with a rapidity inconceivable on earth, the poet finds himself in the Heaven of Stars, in the constellation of Gemini. Now that he is so near the final blessedness his eyes are clear and keen, and that his heart may be filled with joy Beatrice bids him look down and see how much of the universe is already beneath his feet. There lie the seven spheres, and there is the little globe of Earth, so small that, like Scipio, he smiles at its paltry appearance; there is the moon, showing him the face turned away from Earth, which has no dark markings: there is the sun, at which for once he is able to gaze; and near it circle Mercury and Venus; the temperate Jupiter moves between his father Saturn and his son Mars; with a new power of vision Dante can grasp all their sizes and distances and the various speeds of their movements; and the poor little disc of the earth, small and round as a threshing floor,[499] about which we quarrel so fiercely, is all visible to him at a glance, its highest hills and its lowest river-valleys running down to the sea. He turns away his eyes to look into the beautiful eyes of his guide. She is standing, erect, intent, watching eagerly for that glorious Procession, whose coming is making a growing brightness in the sky. [499] Longfellow says:—“Looking down from the terrace of Monte Cassino upon the circular threshing-floor of stone in a farm lying below, I first felt the aptness of Dante’s phrase. This very scene may have suggested it to him.” “La donna mia si stava eretta Ed attenta, rivolta inver la plaga Sotto la quale il sol mostra men fretta.”[500] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [500] “So my lady stood, erect and intent, turned towards that place under which the sun shows least haste.” _Par._ xxiii. 10-12. ------------------------------------------------------------------------