No envy bends him, and no terror shakes;
The captive’s chains its mighty virtue breaks;
The gates fly open, fetters fall away,
And send their prisoner to the light of day.
E’en Heaven is moved by its force divine
To list to vows presented at its shrine.”
Sapphire is the color in which the old painters arrayed the Virgin, “its hue,” says Mr. King, “being the exact shade of the air or atmosphere in the climate of Rome.” This is Dante’s
“Dolce color d’ oriental zaffiro,”
in Purgatorio I 13. ↩
Haggai 2:7:—
“The desire of all nations shall come.”
The Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven, which infolds all the other volumes or rolling orbs of the universe like a mantle. ↩
Cowley, “Hymn to Light”:—
“Thou Scythian-like dost round thy lands above
The sun’s gilt tent forever move;
And still as thou in pomp dost go,
The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.”
The Virgin ascending to her son. Fray Luis Ponce de Leon, “Assumption of the Virgin”:—
“Lady! thine upward flight
The opening heavens receive with joyful song;
Blest who thy mantle bright
May seize amid the throng,
And to the sacred mount float peacefully along!“Bright angels are around thee,
They that have served thee from thy birth are there;
Their hands with stars have crowned thee;
Thou, peerless Queen of air,
As sandals to thy feet the silver moon dost wear!”
An Easter Hymn to the Virgin:—
“Regina coeli, laetare! Alleluia.
Quja quem meruisti portare, Alleluia.
Resurrexit, sicut dixit. Alleluia.”
This hymn, according to Collin de Plancy, Légendes des Commandements de l’Église, p. 14, Pope Gregory the Great heard the angels singing, in the pestilence of Rome in 890, and on hearing it added another line:—
“Ora pro nobis Deum! Alleluia.”
Caring not for gold and silver in the Babylonian exile of this life, they laid up treasures in the other. ↩
St. Peter, keeper of the keys, with the saints of the Old and New Testament.
Milton, “Lycidas,” 108:—
“Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).”
And Fletcher, “Purple Island,” VII 62:—
“Not in his lips, but hands, two keys he bore,
Heaven’s doors and Hell’s to shut and open wide.”
The Heaven of the Fixed Stars continued. St. Peter examines Dante on Faith.
Revelation 19:9:—
“And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb.”
The carol was a dance as well as a song; or, to speak more exactly, a dance accompanied by a song.
Gower, Confessio Amantis, VI:—
“And if it nedes so betide,
That I in company abide,
Where as I must daunce and singe
The hove daunce and carolinge.”
It is from the old French karole. See passage from the “Roman de la Rose,” in Note 1864. See also Roquefort, Glossaire: “Karole, dance, concert, divertissement; de chorea, chorus”; and “Karoler, sauter, danser, se divertir.
Et li borjéois y furent en present
Karolent main à main, et chantent hautement.
Vie de Du Guesdin.”
Milton, Paradise Lost, V 618:—
“That day, as other solemn days, they spent
In song and dance about the sacred hill,
Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets and of fixed in all her wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular
Then most when most irregular they seem;
And in their motions harmony divine
So smooths her charming tones, that God’s own ear
Listens delighted.”
“That is,” says Buti, “of the abundance of their beatitude … And this swiftness and slowness signified the fervor of love which was in them.”
From the brightest of these carols or dances. ↩
St. Peter. ↩
Three times, in sign of the Trinity. ↩
Tints too coarse and glaring to paint such delicate draperies of song. ↩
St. Peter speaks to Beatrice. ↩
Fixed upon God, in whom all things are reflected. ↩
The captain of the first cohort of the Church Militant. ↩
St. Paul. Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I 159, says:—
“The early Christian Church was always considered under two great divisions: the church of the converted Jews, and the church of the Gentiles. The first was represented by St. Peter, the second by St. Paul. Standing together in this mutual relation, they represent the universal church of Christ; hence in works of art they are seldom separated, and are indispensable in all ecclesiastical decoration. Their proper place is on each side of the Saviour, or of the Virgin throned; or on each side of the altar; or on each side of the arch over the choir. In any case, where they stand together, not merely as Apostles, but Founders, their place is next after the Evangelists and the Prophets.”
Hebrews 11:1:—
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
In Scholastic language the essence of a thing, distinguishing it from all other things, is called its quiddity; in answer to the question, Quid est? ↩
Jeremy Taylor says:—
“Faith is a certain image of eternity; all things are present to it; things past and things to come are all so before the eyes of faith, that he in whose eye that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as present, and sees how blessed a thing it is to die in God’s favor, and to be chimed to our grave with the music of a good conscience. Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory; every man that hath this grace is as certain that there are glories for him, if he perseveres in duty, as if he had
