"How much wisdom and
how great a persistence in virtue (_abito virtuoso_) are hidden for want
of this lustre!"[125] When Dante reaches the Terrestrial Paradise[126]
which is the highest felicity of this world, and therefore the
consummation of the Active Life, he is welcomed by a Lady who is its
symbol,
"Who went along
Singing and culling floweret after floweret."
and warming herself in the rays of Love, or "actual speculation," that
is, "where love makes its peace felt."[127] That she was the symbol of
this is evident from the previous dream of Dante,[128] in which he sees
Leah, the universally accepted type of it,
"Walking in a meadow,
Gathering flowers; and singing she was saying,
'Know whosoever may my name demand
That I am Leah, who go moving round
My beauteous hands to make myself a garland,'"
that is to say, of good works. She, having "washed him thoroughly from
sin,"[129]
"All dripping brought
Into the dance of the four beautiful,"[130]
who are the intellectual virtues Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and
Fortitude, the four stars, guides of the Practical Life, which he had
seen when he came out of the Hell where he had beheld the results of sin,
and arrived at the foot of the Mount of Purification.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86