In form then of a pure white rose the holy host was shown to me, which, in His own blood, Christ made His bride. But the other,[1] which, flying, sees and sings the glory of Him who enamours it, and the goodness which made it so great, like a swarm of bees which one while are among the flowers and anon return to the place where their work gets its savor, were descending into the great flower which is adorned with so many leaves, and thence rising up again to where their love always abides. Their faces all were of living flame, and their wings of gold, and the rest so white that no snow reaches that extreme. When they descended into the flower, from bench to bench, they imparted somewhat of the peace and of the ardor which they acquired as they fanned their sides. Nor did the interposing of such a flying plenitude between what was above and the flower impede the sight and the splendor; for the divine light penetrates through the universe, according as it is worthy, so that naught can be an obstacle to it. This secure and joyous realm, thronged with aneient and with modern folk, had all its look and love upon one mark. [1] The angelic host. O Trinal Light, which in a single star, scintillating on their sight, so satisfies them, look down here upon our tempest! If the Barbarians, coming from a region such that every day it is covered by Helice,[1] revolving with her son of whom she is fond, when they beheld Rome and her arduous work, were wonderstruck, what time Lateran rose above mortal things,[2] I, who to the divine from the human, to the eternal from the temporal, had come, and from Florence to a people just and sane, with what amazement must I have been full! Surely what with it and the joy I was well pleased not to hear, and to stand mute. And as a pilgrim who is refreshed in the temple of his vow in looking round, and hopes now to report how it was, so, journeying through the living light, I carried my eyes over the ranks, now up, now down, and now circling about. I saw faces persuasive to love, beautified by the light of Another and by their own smile, and actions ornate with every dignity. [1] The nymph Callisto or Helice bore to Zeus a son, Arcas; she was metamorphosed by Hera into a bear, and then transferred to Heaven by Jupiter as the constellation of the Great Bear, while her son was changed into the constellation of Aretophylax or Bootes. In the far north these constellations remain always above the horizon. [2] When Rome was mistress of the world, and the Lateran the seat of imperial or papal power.