And the help of the ever-present sight increased each day, which memory could not do, in opposing that which to a certain degree prevented me from turning the face towards the past.

Wherefore it seemed to me so wonderful, and also so hard to endure, that I could not support it, and with a loud cry (to excuse myself from the struggle, in which it seemed to me that I had failed in courage) I lifted up my voice towards that part whence came the victory of the new thought, which was full of virtuous power, even the power of celestial virtue; and I began to say: "You! who the third Heaven move, intent of thought." For the intelligent understanding of which Song, one must first know its divisions well, so that it will then be easy to perceive its meaning.
In order that it may no longer be necessary to preface the explanations of the others, I say that the order which will be taken in this Treatise I intend to keep through all the others.

I say, then, that the proposed Song is contained within three principal parts.

The first is the first verse of that, in which certain Intelligences are induced to listen to what I intend to say, or rather by a more usual form of speech we should call them Angels, who are in the revolution of the Heaven of Venus, as the movers thereof.

The second is in the lines which follow after the first, in which is made manifest that which I felt spiritually amidst various thoughts.