From the
Chariot arise, as will arise the dead from their graves, a hundred
angels scattering flowers over and around the Chariot and also raising
their voices in the call for the Heavenly Bride. They first sing the
words of the Canticle of Palm Sunday. _Benedictus qui venis_ (Blessed
art thou who comest) and then the beautiful line from the Aeneid:
_Manibus o date lilia plenis_ (Oh! give lilies with full hands). Then
comes from the clouds through the midst of the flowers showering down
again within and without the Chariot, arrayed in the colors of the three
theological virtues, the object of the invocation.
"Crowned with olive over a white veil a Lady appeared to me, vestured in
hue of living flame under a green mantle." It is Beatrice, Dante's
beloved, now apotheosized in the personification of Revelation. What
other poet ever dreamed of so glorifying his beloved that for her coming
the natural virtues prepare the way, the supernatural virtues, as
handmaids accompany her to assist us to the understanding of her
doctrine, the angels sing her laudation and she herself in the role both
of unveiler of the Scriptures of the Prophets and the Apostles and the
mystical Bride of the Canticles is worthy to be called "O Light, O Glory
of the human race?"
Dante before seeing her face, recognizes her by some mysterious instinct
of love, recognizes her after a lapse according to fiction of ten years,
but in reality of twenty-four years since her death.
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