The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees, because of the steepness of the place,”

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More than forty-five degrees. ↩

If the sun were in Gemini, or if we were in the month of May, you would see the sun still farther to the north. ↩

Rubecchio is generally rendered red or ruddy. But Jacopo dalla Lana says: “Rubecchio in the Tuscan tongue signifies an indented mill-wheel.” This interpretation certainly renders the image more distinct. The several signs of the Zodiac are so many cogs in the great wheel; and the wheel is an image which Dante more than once applies to the celestial bodies. ↩

The Ecliptic. See Note 247. ↩

This, the Mountain of Purgatory; and that, Mount Zion. ↩

The Seven Stars of Ursa Major, the North Star. ↩

Compare Thomson’s description of the “pleasing land of drowsy-head,” in the Castle of Indolence:⁠—

“And there a season atween June and May,
Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.”

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“He loved also in life,” says Arrivabene, Commento Storico, 584, “a certain Belacqua, an excellent maker of musical instruments.”

Benvenuto da Imola says of him: “He was a Florentine who made guitars and other musical instruments. He carved and ornamented the necks and heads of the guitars with great care, and sometimes also played. Hence Dante, who delighted in music, knew him intimately.” This seems to be all that is known of Belacqua. ↩

Measure for Measure, II 2:⁠—

“True prayers
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there
Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.”

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There is an air of reality about this passage, like some personal reminiscence of street gossip, which gives perhaps a little credibility to the otherwise incredible anecdotes of Dante told by Sacchetti and others;⁠—such as those of the ass-driver whom he beat, and the blacksmith whose tools he threw into the street for singing his verses amiss, and the woman who pointed him out to her companions as the man who had been in Hell and brought back tidings of it. ↩

Some editions read in this line mezza notte, midnight, instead of prima notte, early nightfall.

Of meteors Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I pt. 3, ch. 107, writes:⁠—

“Likewise it often comes to pass that a dry vapor, when it has mounted so high that it takes fire from the heat which is above, falls, when thus kindled, towards the earth, until it is spent and extinguished, whence some people think it is a dragon or a star which falls.”

Milton, Paradise Lost, IV 556, describing the flight of Uriel, says:⁠—

“Swift as a shooting star
In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapors fired
Impress the air, and show the mariner
From what point of his compass to beware
Impetuous winds.”

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Shakespeare’s “war ’twixt will and will not,” and “letting I dare not wait upon I would.” ↩

This is Jacopo del Cassero of Fano, in the region between Romagna and the kingdom of Naples, then ruled by Charles de Valois (Charles Lackland). He was waylaid and murdered at Oriago, between Venice and Padua, by Azzone the Third of Este. ↩

Leviticus 17:2:⁠—

“The life of the flesh is in the blood.”

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Among the Paduans, who are called Antenori, because their city was founded by Antenor of Troy. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I ch. 39, says:⁠—

“Then Antenor and Priam departed thence, with a great company of people, and went to the Marca Trevisana, not far from Venice, and there they built another city which is called Padua, where lies the body of Antenor, and his sepulchre is still there.”

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La Mira is on the Brenta, or one of its canals, in the fen-lands between Padua and Venice. ↩

Buonconte was a son of Guido di Montefeltro, and lost his life in the battle of Campaldino in the Val d’Arno. His body was never found; Dante imagines its fate.

Ruskin, Modern Painters, III 252, remarks:⁠—

“Observe, Buonconte, as he dies, crosses his arms over his breast, pressing them together, partly in his pain, partly in prayer. His body thus lies by the river shore, as on a sepulchral monument, the arms folded into a cross. The rage of the river, under the influence of the evil demon, unlooses this cross, dashing the body supinely away, and rolling it over and over by bank and bottom. Nothing can be truer to the action of a stream in fury than these lines. And how desolate is it all! The lonely flight⁠—the grisly wound, ‘pierced in the throat,’⁠—the death, without help or pity⁠—only the name of Mary on the lips⁠—and the cross folded over the heart. Then the rage of the demon and the river⁠—the noteless grave⁠—and, at last, even she who had been most trusted forgetting him⁠—

‘Giovanna nor none else have care for me.’

“There is, I feel assured, nothing else like it in all the range of poetry; a faint and harsh echo of it, only, exists in one Scottish ballad, ‘The Twa Corbies.’ ”

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The wife of Buonconte. ↩

Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 241, thus speaks of the battle of Campaldino:⁠—

“In this plain of Campaldino, now so pleasant and covered with vineyards, took place, on the 11th of June, 1289, a rude combat between the Guelphs of Florence and the fuorusciti Ghibellines, aided by the Aretines. Dante fought in the front rank of the Florentine cavalry; for it must needs be that this man, whose life was so