doctrine, I say, which above all other reasons makes us certain of it; for it has been given to us by Him who sees and measures our immortality, which we cannot perfectly see whilst our immortal is mingled with the mortal. But we see it by faith perfectly; and by reason we see it with the cloud of obscurity which grows from the mixture of the mortal with the immortal. This ought to be the most powerful argument that both are in us: and I thus believe, thus affirm; and I am equally certain, after this life, to pass to that other and better life--there where that glorious Lady lives, with whom my soul was enamoured when it was struggling, as will be set forth in the next chapter. CHAPTER X. Returning to the proposition, I say that in that verse which begins "A foe so strong I find him that he destroys," I intend to make manifest that which was discoursing in my Soul, the ancient thought against the new; and first briefly I show the cause of its lamentation, when I say: "This opposite now breaks the humble dream Of the crowned angel in the glory-beam." This one is that especial thought of which it is said above that it was wont to be the life of the sorrowing heart. Then when I say, "Still, therefore, my Soul weeps," it is evident that my Soul is still on its side, and speaks with sadness; and I say that it speaks words of lamentation, as if it might wonder at the sudden transformation, saying: "'The tender star,' It says, 'that once was my consoler, flies.'" It can well say consoler, for in the great loss which I sustained in the death of Beatrice this thought, which ascended into Heaven, had given to my Soul much consolation. Then afterwards I say, that all my thought, my Soul, of which I say, "That troubled one," turns in excuse of itself, and speaks against the eyes; and this is made evident there: "That troubled one asked, 'When into thine eyes Looked she?'" And I say that she speaks of them and against them three things: the first is, she blasphemes the hour when this woman saw them. And here you must know, that although many things in one hour can come into the eyes, truly that which comes by a straight line into the point of the pupil, that truly one sees, and that only is sealed in the imaginative part. And this is, because the nerve by which the visible spirit runs is directed to that part, and thereupon truly one eye cannot look on the eye of another so that it is not seen by it; for as that which looks receives the form of the pupil by a right line, so by that same line its form passes into that eye which gazes. And many times in the direction of that line a shaft flies from the bow of Love, with whom each weapon is light. Therefore, when I ask, "When first into mine eyes looked she?" it is as much as to ask, "When did her eyes and mine look into each other?"