To the great office from the cross elected." [114] My Lady thus; but therefore none the more Removed her sight from its fixed contemplation, Before or afterward, these words of hers. Even as a man who gazes, and endeavors To see the eclipsing of the sun a little, And who, by seeing, sightless doth become, So I became before that latest fire, [122] While it was said, "Why dost thou daze thyself To see a thing which here has no existence? [124] Earth upon earth my body is, and shall be With all the others there, until our number With the eternal proposition tallies; [127] With the two garments in the blessed cloister [128] Are the two lights alone that have ascended: [129] And this shalt thou take back into your world." [130] And at this utterance the flaming circle Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling Of sound that by the trinal breath was made, [133] As to escape from danger or fatigue The oars that erst were in the water beaten Are all suspended at a whistle's sound. Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed, When I turned round to look on Beatrice, At not beholding her, although I was Close at her side and in the Happy World! [Line 1: This "Divina Commedia," in which human science or Philosophy is symbolized in Virgil, and divine science or Theology in Beatrice. "_Fiorenza la Bella_," Florence the Fair. In one of his Canzoni, Dante says,-- "O mountain-song of mine, thou goest thy way; Florence my town thou shalt perchance behold, Which bars me from itself, Devoid of love and naked of compassion."] [Line 9: This allusion to the Church of San Giovanni, "_il mio bel San Giovanni_," as Dante calls it elsewhere, (Inf. xix. 17,) is a fitting prelude to the Canto in which St. John is to appear. Like the "laughing of the grass" in Canto xxx. 77, it is a "foreshadowing preface," _ombrifero prefazio_, of what follows. See Canto xxiv. 150; "So, giving me its benediction, singing, Three times encircled me, when I was silent, The apostolic light."] [Line 14: St. Peter. "That we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." Epistle of St. James, i. 18.] [Line 18: St. James. Pilgrimages are made to his tomb at Compostella in Galicia.] [Line 30: The General Epistle of St. James, called the _Epistola Cattolica_, i. 17. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." Our Basilica: Paradise: the Church Triumphant.] [Line 33: Peter, James, and John, representing the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, and distinguished above the other apostles by clearer manifestations of their Master's favor.] [Line 34: St. James speaks.]