the contrary, have striven to be virtuous so as to rejoin her. When
she finally forgives him and bids him gaze into her face once more, he
sees she surpasses her former self in loveliness as greatly as on
earth she outshone all other women. Dante is so overcome by a sense of
his utter unworthiness that he falls down unconscious, and on
recovering his senses finds himself in the stream, upheld by the hand
of a nymph (Matilda), who sweeps him along, "swift as a shuttle
bounding o'er the wave," while angels chant "Thou shalt wash me" and
"I shall be whiter than snow."

Freed from all haunting memories of past sins by Lethe's waters, Dante
finally lands on the "blessed shore." There Beatrice's hand-maidens
welcome him, and beseech her to complete her work by revealing her
inner beauty to this mortal, so he can portray it for mankind. But,
although Dante gazes at her in breathless admiration, words fail him
to render what he sees.

"O splendor!
O sacred light eternal! who is he,
So pale with musing in Pierian shades,
Or with that fount so lavishly imbued,
Whose spirit should not fail him in the essay
To represent thee such as thou didst seem,
When under cope of the still-chiming heaven
Thou gavest to open air thy charms reveal'd?"

_Canto XXXII._ Dante is still quenching a "ten-years thirst" by
staring at his beloved, when her attendants admonish him to desist.
But, although he obediently turns aside his eyes, like a man who has
gazed too long at the sun, he sees her image stamped on all he looks