The fine Loda LVIII_a_, “Of Holy Poverty, Mistress of all Things,” has evidently suggested much to Catherine. “Waters, rivers, lakes, and ocean, fish within them and their swimming; airs, winds, birds, and all their flying: all these turn to jewels for me,” v. 10. How readily the sense of water, and of rapid movement within it, passes here into that of air, and of swift locomotion within _it_! And both these movements, are felt to represent, in vivid fashion, certain very different experiences of the soul.--“Moon, Sun, Sky, and Stars,--even these are _not_ amongst my treasures; above the very sky those things abide, which are the object of my song,” v. 11. The positive, “analogic” method has here turned suddenly into the negative, “apophatic” one; and yet, even here, we still have the spacial symbolism, for the best is the highest up,--indeed it is this very symbolism which is made to add point to the negative declaration, a declaration which nevertheless clearly implies the mere symbolism of that spacialization. All this is fully absorbed by Catherine.--“Since God has my will, … my wings have such feathers that from earth to heaven there is no distance for me,” v. 12. Here we see how Plato filters through, complete, to Jacopone; but only in his central idea to Catherine. For the _Phaedrus_, 246_b_, _c_, teaches: “The perfect soul then, having become winged, soars upwards, and is the ruler of the universe; whilst the imperfect soul sheds her feathers and is borne downwards, till it settles on the solid ground.” Catherine never mentions wings nor feathers, but often dwells upon flying. The great Loda LVIII_b_, “Of Holy Poverty and its Treble Heaven,” (one passage of which is formally quoted and carefully expounded by Catherine), is a combination of Platonism, Paulinism, and Franciscanism, and has specially influenced her through its Platonist element. Verses 1-9 contain a fine apostrophe to Poverty. “O Love of Poverty, Reign of tranquillity! Poverty, high Wisdom! to be subject to nothing; through despising to possess all things created!” v. 1: all this is echoed by Catherine. But the ex-lawyer’s declaration that such a soul “has neither judge nor notary,” v. 3, did certainly not determine her literally, for we have had before us some fifteen cases in which she had recourse to lawyers. “God makes not His abode in a narrow heart; thou art, oh man, precisely as great as thine affection may be. The spirit of poverty possesses so ample a bosom, that Deity Itself takes up its dwelling there,” v. 8. Catherine’s deepest self seems to breathe from out of this profound saying.