Note 56 — Chapter XII
Reading edition
"Perfected life and high desert enheaveneth a lady more aloft," she said, "by whose rule down in your world there are who clothe and veil themselves,
That they, even till death, may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepteth every vow that love hath made conform with his good pleasure.
From the world, to follow her, I fled while yet a girl, and in her habit I enclosed myself, and promised the way of her company.
Thereafter men more used to ill than good tore me away from the sweet cloister; and God doth know what my life then became." –Paradiso iii. Wicksteed's translation.