[1] According to Giovanni Villani (vi. 90), one Romeo, a pilgrim, came to the court of Raymond Berenger IV., Count of Provence (who died, in 1245), and winning the count's favor, served him with such wisdom and fidelity that by his means his master's revenues were greatly increased, and his four daughters married to four kings,—Margaret, to Louis IX. of France, St. Louis; Eleanor, to Henry III. of England; Sanzia, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall (brother of Henry III.), elected King of the Romans; and Beatrice, to Charles of Anjou (brother of Louis IX.), King of Apulia and Sicily. The Provencal nobles, jealous of Romeo, procured his dismissal, and he departed, with his mule and his pilgrim's staff and scrip, and was never seen more. [2] The making each a queen. CANTO VII. Discourse of Beatrice.—The Fall of Man.—The scheme of his Redemption. “Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth, superillustrans claritate tua felices ignes horum malacoth!”[1]—thus, turning to its own melody, this substance,[2] upon which a double light is twinned,[3] was seen by me to sing. And it and the others moved with their dance, and like swiftest sparks veiled themselves to me with sudden distance. I was in doubt, and was saying to myself, “Tell her, tell her,” I was saying, “tell her, my Lady, who slakes my thirst with her sweet distillings;” but that reverence which lords it altogether over me, only by BE and by ICE,[4] bowed me again like one who drowses. Little did Beatrice endure me thus, and she began, irradiating me with a smile such as would make a man in the fire happy, “According to my infallible advisement, how a just vengeance could be justly avenged has set thee thinking. But I will quickly loose thy mind: and do thou listen, for my words will make thee a present of a great doctrine. [1] “Hosanna! Holy God of Sabaoth, beaming with thy brightness upon the blessed fires of these realms.” [2] Substance, as a scholastic term, signifies a being subsisting by itself with a quality of its own. “Substantiae nomen significat essentiam cui competit sic esse, id est per se esse; quod tamen esse non est ipsa ejus essentia.”—Summa Theol. I. iii. 5. [3] The double light of Emperor and compiler of the Laws. [4] Only by the sound of her name. “By not enduring for his own good a curb upon the power which wills, that man who was not born,—damning himself, damned all his offspring; wherefore the human race lay sick below for many centuries, in great error, till it pleased the Word of God to descend where He, by the sole act of His eternal love, united with Himself in person the nature which had. removed itself from its Maker.