Looked round, and saw the morning sunlight throw Across the world the many-colored bow ; And trembling knew that the high gods indeed Had sent the messenger unto their need.” William Morris, ‘‘ Jason,” xi., 190-200.
In classical Greek the word is used of any bright halo sur- rounding another body; of the circle round the eyes of a pea- cock’s tail, and of the iris of the eye.
‘* And I beheld the fiamelets onward go, Leaving behind themselves the air depicted, And they of trailing pennons had the semblance, So that it overhead remained distinct With sevenfold lists, all of them of the colors Whence the sun’s bow is made, and Delia’s girdle.” * Dante, ‘‘ Purgatorio,” xxix., 73-78.
s¢ Within the deep and luminous subsistence Of the High Light appeared to me three circles, Of threefold color and of one dimension, And by the second seemed the first reflected As Tris is by Iris, and the third Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed.” ‘¢ Paradiso,” xxxiii., 115-120.
On this passage, which belongs to the description of Dante’s vision of the Eternal Trinity, Dean Plumptre remarks: “One notes, not without satisfaction, that Dante shrinks from the anthropomorphism of Byzantine and early Western art, in which the Ancient of Days was represented in the form of venerable age. For him, as for the more primitive artists, the rainbow reflecting rainbow is the only adequate symbol of the “God of God, Light of Light” of the Nicene Creed, while the fire of love that breathes from both is that of the Holy Spirit, “proceeding from the Father and the Son.”
Round about the throne. Compare Ezek. i. 26, 28.
Emerald (cuapaySivm). The stone is first mentioned by Herodotus, who describes a temple of Hercules which he visited
* I.e¢,, the halo round the moon.