Words from a hymn in praise of Christ, say the commentators, but they do not say from what hymn. ↩

The living seals are the celestial spheres, which impress themselves on all beneath them, and increase in power as they are higher. ↩

That is, to the eyes of Beatrice, whose beauty he may seem to postpone, or regard as inferior to the splendors that surround him. He excuses himself by saying that he does not speak of them, well knowing that they have grown more beautiful in ascending. He describes them in line 33 of the next canto:⁠—