Observations placeholder

Dante – The Divine Comedy – Paradiso XVIII

So I perceived that I was going round
Together with the heaven in a wider arc,
Seeing this miracle yet more beautiful.

And as the change which happens when a woman
Recovers her paleness, throwing off her embarrassment
Which has tinged her face with blushes,

So was the change then for my eyes, when I turned
Because of the whiteness of the temperate star
The sixth, which had received me into itself.

I saw in the sparkling light of Jupiter
The radiance of the love that was there
Signalling to my eyes in our language.

And as birds, rising from the river bank
As if congratulating on the food they have found
Form themselves now in a round flock, now some other shape

So within the lights the holy creatures
Sang in their flight, and formed themselves  into
Different shapes, now D, now I, now L

First singing, they moved in time with their tune
Then, turning into one of those letters
They would stay like that a moment, in quietness
….........

They showed themselves thirty five times
In vowels and consonants; and I noted
The letters and syllables as they came out

DILIGITE IUSTITIAM were the first
Verb and noun to be so depicted
QUI IUDICATUS TERRAM were the last.