no sooner was his mind created than
it was so full of living force that it,
still in his mother's womb, made her prophetic.

Then, at the sacred font, where Faith and he
brought mutual salvation as their dowry,
the rites of their espousal were complete.

The lady who had given the assent
for him saw, in a dream, astonishing
fruit that would spring from him and from his heirs.

And that his name might echo what he was,
a spirit moved from here to have him called
by the possessive of the One by whom

he was possessed completely.^a Dominic
became his name; I speak of him as one
whom Christ chose as the worker in His garden.

He seemed the fitting messenger and servant
of Christ: the very first love that he showed
was for the first injunction Christ had given.^b

His nurse would often find him on the ground,
alert and silent, in a way that said:
"It is for this that I have come." Truly

his father was Felice and his mother
Giovanna if her name, interpreted,
is in accord with what has been asserted.^c

Not for the world, for which men now travail
along Taddeo's way or Ostian's, ^d
but through his love of the true manna, he

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