Commentary Par XII 26-30

These similetic elements of this passage ([Par XII 22-30]), two eyes opening or closing as one and Dante ineluctably being drawn to the voice of a new spirit (it will turn out to be Bonaventure), speak to the sense of the overpowering quality of the love and beauty that affects both the performers and their observer.  Torraca (DDP Torraca.Par.XII.28-30) points out that the compass, invented only a short while before, had already become a familiar image in thirteenth-century Italian poetry, e.g., in poems by Guido Guinizzelli and in Ristoro d'Arezzo.