(Over a picture of a graveyard at twilight the following script is found.)

So she, after giving a sigh of pity,
Turned her eyes towards me with the look
A mother casts upon a feverish child,

And began: 'Everything that is created
Is part of a mutual order, and that is the shape
Which makes the universe resemble god.

Here the superior beings see the traces
Of the eternal power, which is the end
For which the rule I have spoken was made.

In this order all natures are arranged
According to their conditions, more of less
In the vicinity of their beginning;

So it is that they move to different harbours
On the great sea of being, and each one of them
By the instinct which is given it to bear it on.

Paradiso: Canto I

Dante Alighieri 1265 - 1321