The Fourth Heaven, or that of the Sun, where are seen the spirits of theologians and fathers of the Church— St. Thomas Aquinas.
Looking into his Son with all the Love Which each of them eternally breathes forth, The Primal and unutterable Power Whate’er before the mind or eye revolves With so much order made, there can be none Who this beholds without enjoying Him. Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels With me thy vision straight unto that part Where the one motion on the other strikes, And there begin to contemplate with joy That Master’s art, who in himself so loves it That never doth his eye depart therefrom. Behold how from that point goes branching off The oblique circle, which conveys the planets, To satisfy the world that calls upon them; And if their pathway were not thus inflected, Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain, And almost every power below here dead. If from the straight line distant more or less Were the departure, much would wanting be Above and underneath of mundane order. Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench, In thought pursuing that which is foretasted, If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary. I’ve set before thee; henceforth feed thyself, For to itself diverteth all my care That theme whereof I have been made the scribe. The greatest of the ministers of nature, Who with the power of heaven the world imprints And measures with his light the time for us, With that part which above is called to mind Conjoined, along the spirals was revolving, Where each time earlier he presents himself; And I was with him; but of the ascending I was not conscious, saving as a man Of a first thought is conscious ere it come; And Beatrice, she who is seen to pass From good to better, and so suddenly That not by time her action is expressed, How lucent in herself must she have been! And what was in the sun, wherein I entered, Apparent not by color but by light, I, though I call on genius,