Canto XXVII. Just as the sun is about to set, an angel approaches them, chanting “Blessed are the pure in heart,” and bids them fearlessly pass through the wall of fire which alone stands between them and Paradise.  Seeing Dante hang back timorously, Virgil reminds him he will find Beatrice on the other side, whereupon our poet plunges recklessly into the glowing furnace, where both his companions precede him, and whence all three issue on an upward path.  There they make their couch on separate steps, and Dante gazes up at the stars until he falls asleep and dreams of a lovely lady, culling flowers in a meadow, singing she is Lea (the mediaeval type of active life), and stating that her sister Rachel (the emblem of contemplative life) spends the day gazing at herself in a mirror.

At dawn the pilgrims awake, and Virgil assures Dante before this day ends his hunger for a sight of Beatrice will be appeased.  This prospect so lightens Dante’s heart that he almost soars to the top of the stairway.  There Virgil, who has led him through temporal and eternal fires, bids him follow his pleasure, until he meets the fair lady who bade him undertake this journey.

                 “Till those bright eyes
  With gladness come, which, weeping, made me haste
  To succor thee, thou mayst or seat thee down
  Or wander where thou wilt.  Expect no more
  Sanction of warning voice or sign from me,
  Free of thine own arbitrament to choose. 
  Discreet, judicious.  To distrust thy sense
  Were henceforth error.  I invest thee then
  With crown and mitre, sovereign o’er thyself.”

Canto XXVIII. Through the Garden of Eden Dante now strolls with Statius and Virgil, until he beholds, on the other side of a pellucid stream (whose waters have the “power to take away remembrance of offence"), a beautiful lady (the countess Matilda), who smiles upon him.  Then she informs Dante she has come to “answer every doubt” he cherishes, and, as they wander along on opposite sides of the stream, she expounds for his benefit the creation of man, the fall and its consequences, and informs him how all the plants that grow on earth originate here.  The water at his feet issues from an unquenchable fountain, and divides into two streams, the first of which, Lethe, “chases from the mind the memory of sin,” while the waters of the second, Eunoe, have the power to recall “good deeds to one’s mind.”

Canto XXIX. Suddenly the lady bids Dante pause, look, and hearken.  Then he sees a great light on the opposite shore, hears a wonderful music, and soon beholds a procession of spirits, so bright that they leave behind them a trail of rainbow-colored light.  First among them march the four and twenty elders of the Book of Revelations; they are followed by four beasts (the Evangelists), and a gryphon, drawing a chariot (the Christian Church or Papal chair), far grander than any that ever graced imperial triumph at Rome.  Personifications of the three evangelical virtues (Charity, Faith, and Hope) and of the four moral virtues (Prudence, etc.), together with St. Luke and St. Paul, the four great Doctors of the Church, and the apostle St. John, serve as body-guard for this chariot, which comes to a stop opposite Dante with a noise like thunder.