to things which the poet had experienced, or seen, or
fancied, when awake, thus appearing to be dependent
on previous waking excitements, the vision related in
this sonnet seems, on the contrary, to have had its
origin in no external circumstance, but to be the
result of a purely internal condition of feeling. It
was a new Intelligence that led his sigh upwards,--
a new Intelligence which prepared him for his vision
at Easter in 1300.

If a reason be inquired for that might lead Dante
thus symmetrically to arrange the poems of this little
book in a triple series of ten around a central unit,
or in a triple series of ten followed by a single poem
in which he is guided to Heaven by a new Intelli-
gence, it may perhaps be found in the value which he
set upon ten as the perfect number; while in the three
times repeated series, culminating in a single central
or final poem, he may have pleased himself with some
fanciful analogy to that three and one on which he
dwells in the passage in which he treats of the friendli-
ness of the number nine to Beatrice. At any rate, as
he there says, "This is the reason which I see for it,
and which best pleases me; though perchance a more
subtile reason might be seen therein by a more subtile
person." ¹

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