" (X, 76.)
Again in song they proclaim the mystery of the Holy Trinity:
"The One and Two and Three who ever liveth
And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One
Not circumscribed and all circumscribing
Three several times was chanted by each one
Among those spirits, with such melody
That for all merit it were just reward."
(XIV, 27.)
In this Heaven we hear the eulogy of St. Francis of Assisi pronounced
by a Dominican and the praises of St. Dominic sung by a
Franciscan--consummate art that is an indirect invitation to the
two orders of monks upon earth to avoid jealousy and to practice mutual
respect. It has been said that these narratives give us the essence of
what constitutes true biography, viz., a picture of the spiritual
element in man drawn in such words as ever to command the understanding
and elicit the respect of the reader of every period. The first speaker
is St. Thomas Aquinas, and his reference to the mystical marriage of St.
Francis and Lady Poverty will be the better understood if we have before
the mind's eye Giotto's painting which hangs over the tomb of the
founder of the Franciscans. The figures in the pictures are described
by Gardiner (Ten Heavens, p. 113): Christ, standing upon a rock, unites
St.
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