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

herself at a window not far from the field of battle, waiting the issue with anxiety, and desiring the rout and ruin of her own people. Her desires being verified by the entire discomfiture of the Sienese, and the death of their captain,” (Provenzan Salvani, see Note 731,) “exultant and almost beside herself, she lifted her bold face to heaven, and cried, ‘Now, O God, do with me what thou wilt, do me all the harm thou canst; now my prayers are answered, and I die content.’ ”

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Gower, Confessio Amantis, II:⁠—

“Whan I have sene another blithe
Of love and hadde a goodly chere,
Ethna, which brenneth yere by yere,
Was thanne nought so hote as I
Of thilk e sore which prively
Mine hertes thought withinne brenneth.”

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Convito, IV 23:⁠—

“Every effect, in so far as it is effect, receiveth the likeness of its cause, as far as it can retain it. Therefore, inasmuch as our life, as has been said, and likewise that of every living creature here below, is caused by the heavens, and the heavens reveal themselves to all these effects, not in complete circle, but in part thereof, so must its movement needs be above; and as an arch retains all lives nearly, (and, I say, retains those of men as well as of other living creatures,) ascending and curving, they must be in the similitude of an arch. Returning then to our life, of which it is now question, I say that it proceeds in the image of this arch, ascending and descending.”

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The warm days near the end of January are still called in Lombardy I giorni della merla, the days of the blackbird; from an old legend, that once in the sunny weather a blackbird sang, “I fear thee no more, O Lord, for the winter is over.” ↩

Peter Pettignano, or Pettinajo, was a holy hermit, who saw visions and wrought miracles at Siena. Forsyth, Italy, 149, describing the festival of the Assumption in that city in 1802, says:⁠—

“The Pope had reserved for this great festival the Beatification of Peter, a Sienese comb-maker, whom the Church had neglected to canonize till now. Poor Peter was honored with all the solemnity of music, high-mass, an officiating cardinal, a florid panegyric, pictured angels bearing his tools to heaven, and combing their own hair as they soared; but he received five hundred years ago a greater honor than all, a verse of praise from Dante.”

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Dante’s besetting sin was not envy, but pride. ↩

On the other side of the world. ↩

The vanity of the Sienese is also spoken of Inferno XXIX 123. ↩

Talamone is a seaport in the Maremma, “many times abandoned by its inhabitants,” says the Ottimo, “on account of the malaria. The town is utterly in ruins; but as the harbor is deep, and would be of great utility if the place were inhabited, the Sienese have spent much money in repairing it many times, and bringing in inhabitants; it is of little use, for the malaria prevents the increase of population.”

Talamone is the ancient Telamon, where Marius landed on his return from Africa. ↩

The Diana is a subterranean river, which the Sienese were in search of for many years to supply the city with water. “They never have been able to find it,” says the Ottimo, “and yet they still hope.” In Dante’s time it was evidently looked upon as an idle dream. To the credit of the Sienese be it said, they persevered, and finally succeeded in obtaining the water so patiently sought for. The Pozzo Diana, or Diana’s Well, is still to be seen at the Convent of the Carmen. ↩

The admirals who go to Talamone to superintend the works will lose there more than their hope, namely, their lives. ↩

The subject of the preceding canto is here continued. Compare the introductory lines with those of Canto V. ↩

These two spirits prove to be Guido del Duca and Rinieri da Calboli. ↩

A mountain in the Apennines, northeast of Florence, from which the Arno takes its rise. Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 246, thus describes this region of the Val d’ Arno:⁠—

“Farther on is another tower, the tower of Porciano, which is said to have been inhabited by Dante. From there I had still to climb the summits of the Falterona. I started towards midnight in order to arrive before sunrise. I said to myself. How many times the poet, whose footprints I am following, has wandered in these mountains! It was by these little alpine paths that he came and went, on his way to friends in Romagna or friends in Urbino, his heart agitated with a hope that was never to be fulfilled. I figured to myself Dante walking with a guide under the light of the stars, receiving all the impressions produced by wild and weather-beaten regions, steep roads, deep valleys, and the accidents of a long and difficult route, impressions which he would transfer to his poem. It is enough to have read this poem to be certain that its author has travelled much, has wandered much. Dante really walks with Virgil. He fatigues himself with climbing, he stops to take breath, he uses his hands when feet are insufficient. He gets lost, and asks the way. He observes the height of the sun and stars. In a word, one finds the habits and souvenirs of the traveller in every verse, or rather at every step of his poetic pilgrimage.

“Dante has certainly climbed the top of the Falterona. It is upon this summit, from which all the Valley of the Arno is embraced, that one should read the singular imprecation