The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [all ebook reader txt] 📗

viii. 44. Dante had perhaps heard this text from one of the pulpits in Bologna.

CANTO XXIV

v. 1. In the year's early nonage.] "At the latter part of January, when the sun enters into Aquarius, and the equinox is drawing near, when the hoar-frosts in the morning often wear the appearance of snow but are melted by the rising sun."

v. 51. Vanquish thy weariness.]
               Quin corpus onustum
        Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,
        Atque affigit humi divinae particulam aurae.
               Hor. Sat. ii. l. ii. 78.

v. 82. Of her sands.] Compare Lucan, Phars. l. ix. 703.

v. 92. Heliotrope.] The occult properties of this stone are described by Solinus, c. xl, and by Boccaccio, in his humorous tale of Calandrino. Decam. G. viii. N. 3.

In Chiabrera's Ruggiero, Scaltrimento begs of Sofia, who is
sending him on a perilous errand, to lend him the heliotrope.
               In mia man fida
        L'elitropia, per cui possa involarmi
        Secondo il mio talento agli occhi altrui.
               c. vi.
        Trust to my hand the heliotrope, by which
        I may at will from others' eyes conceal me
Compare Ariosto, II Negromante, a. 3. s. 3. Pulci, Morg. Magg.
c xxv. and Fortiguerra, Ricciardetto, c. x. st. 17.
Gower in his Confessio Amantis, lib. vii, enumerates it among the
jewels in the diadem of the sun.
        Jaspis and helitropius.

v. 104. The Arabian phoenix.] This is translated from Ovid,
Metam. l. xv.
        Una est quae reparat, seque ipsa reseminat ales,
&c.
See also Petrarch, Canzone:

"Qual piu," &c.

v. 120. Vanni Fucci.] He is said to have been an illegitimate offspring of the family of Lazari in Pistoia, and, having robbed the sacristy of the church of St. James in that city, to have charged Vanni della Nona with the sacrilege, in consequence of which accusation the latter suffered death.

v. 142. Pistoia.] "In May 1301, the Bianchi party, of Pistoia, with the assistance and favor of the Bianchi who ruled Florence, drove out the Neri party from the former place, destroying their houses, Palaces and farms." Giov. Villani, Hist. l. viii. e xliv.

v. 144. From Valdimagra.] The commentators explain this prophetical threat to allude to the victory obtained by the Marquis Marcello Malaspina of Valdimagra (a tract of country now called the Lunigiana) who put himself at the head of the Neri and defeated their opponents the Bianchi, in the Campo Piceno near Pistoia, soon after the occurrence related in the preceding note.

Of this engagement I find no mention in Villani. Currado Malaspina is introduced in the eighth Canto of Purgatory; where it appears that, although on the present occaision they espoused contrary sides, some important favours were nevertheless conferred by that family on our poet at a subsequent perid of his exile in 1307.

Canto XXV

v.1. The sinner ] So Trissino
        Poi facea con le man le fiche al cielo
        Dicendo: Togli, Iddio; che puoi piu farmi?
               L'ital. Lib. c. xii

v. 12. Thy seed] Thy ancestry.

v. 15. Not him] Capanaeus. Canto XIV.

v. 18. On Marenna's marsh.] An extensive tract near the sea-shore in Tuscany.

v. 24. Cacus.] Virgil, Aen. l. viii. 193.

v. 31. A hundred blows.] Less than ten blows, out of the hundred Hercules gave him, deprived him of feeling.

v. 39. Cianfa] He is said to have been of the family of Donati at Florence.

v. 57. Thus up the shrinking paper.]
        —All my bowels crumble up to dust.
        I am a scribbled form, drawn up with a pen
        Upon a parchment; and against this fire
        Do I shrink up.
               Shakespeare, K. John, a. v. s. 7.

v. 61. Agnello.] Agnello Brunelleschi

v. 77. In that part.] The navel.

v. 81. As if by sleep or fev'rous fit assail'd.]
               O Rome! thy head
        Is drown'd in sleep, and all thy body fev'ry.
               Ben Jonson's Catiline.

v. 85. Lucan.] Phars. l. ix. 766 and 793.

v. 87. Ovid.] Metam. l. iv. and v.

v. 121. His sharpen'd visage.] Compare Milton, P. L. b. x. 511 &c.

v. 131. Buoso.] He is said to have been of the Donati family.

v. 138. Sciancato.] Puccio Sciancato, a noted robber, whose familly, Venturi says, he has not been able to discover.

v. 140. Gaville.] Francesco Guercio Cavalcante was killed at Gaville, near Florence; and in revenge of his death several inhabitants of that district were put to death.

CANTO XXVI

v. 7. But if our minds.]

        Namque sub Auroram, jam dormitante lucerna,
        Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent.
               Ovid, Epist. xix

The same poetical superstition is alluded to in the Purgatory,
Cant. IX. and XXVII.

v. 9. Shall feel what Prato.] The poet prognosticates the calamities which were soon to befal his native city, and which he says, even her nearest neighbor, Prato, would wish her. The calamities more particularly pointed at, are said to be the fall of a wooden bridge over the Arno, in May, 1304, where a large multitude were assembled to witness a representation of hell nnd the infernal torments, in consequence of which accident many lives were lost; and a conflagration that in the following month destroyed more than seventeen hundred houses, many ofthem sumptuous buildings. See G. Villani, Hist. l. viii. c. 70 and 71.

v. 22. More than I am wont.] "When I reflect on the punishment allotted to those who do not give sincere and upright advice to others I am more anxious than ever not to abuse to so bad a purpose those talents, whatever they may be, which Nature, or rather Providence, has conferred on me." It is probable that this declaration was the result of real feeling Textd have given great weight to any opinion or party he had espoused, and to whom indigence and exile might have offerred strong temptations to deviate from that line of conduct which a strict sense of duty prescribed.

v. 35. as he, whose wrongs.] Kings, b. ii. c. ii.

v. 54. ascending from that funeral pile.] The flame is said to
have divided on the funeral pile which consumed tile bodies of
Eteocles and Polynices, as if conscious of the enmity that
actuated them while living.
        Ecce iterum fratris, &c.
               Statius, Theb. l. xii.
        Ostendens confectas flamma, &c.
               Lucan, Pharsal. l. 1. 145.

v. 60. The ambush of the horse.] "The ambush of the wooden horse, that caused Aeneas to quit the city of Troy and seek his fortune in Italy, where his descendants founded the Roman empire."

v. 91. Caieta.] Virgil, Aeneid. l. vii. 1.

v. 93. Nor fondness for my son] Imitated hp Tasso, G. L. c.
viii.
        Ne timor di fatica o di periglio,
        Ne vaghezza del regno, ne pietade
        Del vecchio genitor, si degno affetto
        Intiepedir nel generoso petto.
This imagined voyage of Ulysses into the Atlantic is alluded to
by Pulci.
        E sopratutto commendava Ulisse,
        Che per veder nell' altro mondo gisse.
               Morg. Magg. c. xxv
And by Tasso, G. L. c. xv. 25.

v. 106. The strait pass.] The straits of Gibraltar.

v. 122. Made our oars wings.l So Chiabrera, Cant. Eroiche. xiii Faro de'remi un volo. And Tasso Ibid. 26.

v. 128. A mountain dim.] The mountain of Purgatorg

CANTO XXVII.

v. 6. The Sicilian Bull.] The engine of torture invented by Perillus, for the tyrant Phalaris.

v. 26. Of the mountains there.] Montefeltro.

v. 38. Polenta's eagle.] Guido Novello da Polenta, who bore an eagle for his coat of arms. The name of Polenta was derived from a castle so called in the neighbourhood of Brittonoro. Cervia is a small maritime city, about fifteen miles to the south of Ravenna. Guido was the son of Ostasio da Polenta, and made himself master of Ravenna, in 1265. In 1322 he was deprived of his sovereignty, and died at Bologna in the year following. This last and most munificent patron of Dante is himself enumerated, by the historian of Italian literature, among the poets of his time. Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. t. v. 1. iii. c. ii. 13. The passnge in the text might have removed the uncertainty wwhich Tiraboschi expressed, respecting the duration of Guido's absence from Ravenna, when he was driven from that city in 1295, by the arms of Pietro, archbishop of Monreale. It must evidently have been very short, since his government is here represented (in 1300) as not having suffered any material disturbance for many years.

v. 41. The land.l The territory of Forli, the inhabitants of which, in 1282, mere enabled, hy the strategem of Guido da Montefeltro, who then governed it, to defeat with great slaughter the French army by which it had been besieged. See G. Villani, l. vii. c. 81. The poet informs Guido, its former ruler, that it is now in the possession of Sinibaldo Ordolaffi, or Ardelaffi, whom he designates by his coat of arms, a lion vert.

v. 43. The old mastiff of Verucchio and the young.] Malatesta and Malatestino his son, lords of Rimini, called, from their ferocity, the mastiffs of Verruchio, which was the name of their castle.

v. 44. Montagna.] Montagna de'Parcitati, a noble knight, and leader of the Ghibelline party at Rimini, murdered by Malatestino.

v. 46. Lamone's city and Santerno's.] Lamone is the river at Faenza, and Santerno at Imola.

v. 47. The lion of the snowy lair.] Machinardo Pagano, whose arms were a lion azure on a field argent; mentioned again in the Purgatory, Canto XIV. 122. See G. Villani passim, where he is called Machinardo da Susinana.

v. 50. Whose flank is wash'd of SSavio's wave.] Cesena, situated at the foot of a mountain, and washed by the river Savio, that often descends with a swoln and rapid stream from the Appenine.

v. 64. A man of arms.] Guido da Montefeltro.

v. 68. The high priest.] Boniface VIII.

v. 72. The nature of the lion than the fox.] Non furon leonine ma di volpe. So Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xix.

        E furon le sua opre e le sue colpe
        Non creder leonine ma di volpe.

v. 81. The chief of the new Pharisee.] Boniface VIII. whose enmity to the family of Colonna prompted him to destroy their houses near the Lateran. Wishing to obtain possession of their other seat, Penestrino, he consulted with Guido da Montefeltro how he might accomplish his purpose, offering him at the same time absolution for his past sins, as well as for that which he was then tempting him to commit. Guido's advice was, that kind words and fair promises nonld put his enemies into his power; and they accordingly soon aftermards fell into the snare laid for them, A.D. 1298. See G. Villani, l. viii. c. 23.

v. 84. Nor against Acre one Had fought.] He alludes to the renegade Christians, by whom the Saracens, in Apri., 1291, were assisted to recover St.John d'Acre, the last possession of the Christians in the Iloly Land. The regret expressed by the Florentine annalist G. Villani, for the loss of this valuable fortress, is well worthy of observation, l. vii. c. 144.

v. 89. As in Soracte Constantine besought.] So in Dante's treatise De Monarchia: "Dicunt quidam adhue, quod Constantinus Imperator, mundatus a lepra intercessione Syvestri, tunc summni pontificis imperii sedem, scilicet Romam, donavit ecclesiae, cum multis allis imperii dignitatibus." Lib.iii.

v. 101. My predecessor.] Celestine V. See Notes to Canto III.

CANTO XXVIII.

v.8. In that long war.] The war of Hannibal in Italy. "When Mago brought news of his victories to Carthage, in order to make his successes more easily credited, he commanded the golden rings to be poured out in the senate house, which made so large a heap, that, as some relate, they filled three modii and a half. A more probable account represents them not to have exceeded one modius." Livy, Hist.

v. 12. Guiscard's Norman steel.] Robert Guiscard, who conquered the kingdom of Naples, and died in 1110. G. Villani, l. iv. c. 18. He is introduced in the Paradise, Canto XVIII.

v. 13. And those the rest.] The army of Manfredi, which, through the treachery of the Apulian troops, wns overcome by Charles of Anjou in 1205, and fell in such numbers that the bones of the slain were still gathered near Ceperano. G. Villani, l. vii. c. 9. See the Purgatory, Canto III.

v. 10. O Tagliocozzo.] He alludes to tile victory which Charles gained over Conradino,