The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (essential books to read TXT) 📕

v. 92. Ismenus and Asopus.] Rivers near Thebes v. 98. Mary.] Luke, c i. 39, 40

v. 99. Caesar.] See Lucan, Phars. I. iii. and iv, and Caesar de Bello Civiii, I. i. Caesar left Brutus to complete the siege of Marseilles, and hastened on to the attack of Afranius and Petreius, the generals of Pompey, at Ilerda (Lerida) in Spain.

v. 118. abbot.] Alberto, abbot of San Zeno in Verona, when Frederick I was emperor, by whom Milan was besieged and reduced to ashes.

v. 121. There is he.] Alberto della Scala, lord of Verona, who had made his natural son abbot of San Zeno.

v. 133. First they died.] The Israelites, who, on account of their disobedience, died before reaching the promised land.

v. 135. And they.] Virg Aen. 1. v.

CANTO XIX

v. 1. The hour.] Near the dawn.

v. 4. The geomancer.] The geomancers, says Landino, when they divined, drew a figure consisting of sixteen marks, named from so many stars which constitute the end of Aquarius and the beginning of Pisces. One of these they called “the greater fortune.”

v. 7. A woman’s shape.] Worldly happiness. This allegory reminds us of the “Choice of Hercules.”

v. 14. Love’s own hue.]

A smile that glow’d

Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue.

Milton, P. L. b. viii. 619

—facies pulcherrima tune est

Quum porphyriaco variatur candida rubro Quid color hic roseus sibi vult? designat amorem: Quippe amor est igni similis; flammasque rubentes Ignus habere solet.

Palingenii Zodiacus Vitae, 1. xii.

v. 26. A dame.] Philosophy.

v. 49. Who mourn.] Matt. c. v. 4.

v. 72. My soul.] Psalm cxix. 5

v. 97. The successor of Peter Ottobuono, of the family of Fieschi Counts of Lavagna, died thirty-nine days after he became Pope, with the title of Adrian V, in 1276.

v. 98. That stream.] The river Lavagna, in the Genoese territory.

v. 135. nor shall be giv’n in marriage.] Matt. c. xxii. 30.

“Since in this state we neither marry nor are given in marriage, I am no longer the spouse of the church, and therefore no longer retain my former dignity.

v. 140. A kinswoman.] Alagia is said to have been the wife of the Marchese Marcello Malaspina, one of the poet’s protectors during his exile. See Canto VIII. 133.

CANTO XX

v. 3. I drew the sponge.] “I did not persevere in my inquiries from the spirit though still anxious to learn more.”

v. 11. Wolf.] Avarice.

v. 16. Of his appearing.] He is thought to allude to Can Grande della Scala. See Hell, Canto I. 98.

v. 25. Fabricius.] Compare Petrarch, Tr. della Fama, c. 1.

Un Curio ed un Fabricio, &c.

v. 30. Nicholas.] The story of Nicholas is, that an angel having revealed to him that the father of a family was so impoverished as to resolve on exposing the chastity of his three daughters to sale, he threw in at the window of their house three bags of money, containing a sufficient portion for each of them.

v. 42. Root.] Hugh Capet, ancestor of Philip IV.

v. 46. Had Ghent and Douay, Lille and Bruges power.] These cities had lately been seized by Philip IV. The spirit is made to imitate the approaching defeat of the French army by the Flemings, in the battle of Courtrai, which happened in 1302.

v. 51. The slaughter’s trade.] This reflection on the birth of his ancestor induced Francis I to forbid the reading of Dante in his dominions Hugh Capet, who came to the throne of France in 987, was however the grandson of Robert, who was the brother of Eudes, King of France in 888.

v. 52. All save one.] The posterity of Charlemagne, the second race of French monarchs, had failed, with the exception of Charles of Lorraine who is said, on account of the melancholy temper of his mind, to have always clothed himself in black.

Venturi suggest that Dante may have confounded him with Childeric III the last of the Merosvingian, or first, race, who was deposed and made a monk in 751.

v. 57. My son.] Hugh Capet caused his son Robert to be crowned at Orleans.

v. 59. The Great dower of Provence.] Louis IX, and his brother Charles of Anjou, married two of the four daughters of Raymond Berenger Count of Provence. See Par. Canto VI. 135.

v. 63. For amends.] This is ironical v. 64. Poitou it seiz’d, Navarre and Gascony.] I venture to read-Potti e Navarra prese e Guascogna, instead of

Ponti e Normandia prese e Guascogna Seiz’d Ponthieu, Normandy and Gascogny.

Landino has “Potti,” and he is probably right for Poitou was annexed to the French crown by Philip IV. See Henault, Abrege Chron. A.D. l283, &c. Normandy had been united to it long before by Philip Augustus, a circumstance of which it is difficult to imagine that Dante should have been ignorant, but Philip IV, says Henault, ibid., took the title of King of Navarre: and the subjugation of Navarre is also alluded to in the Paradise, Canto XIX. 140. In 1293, Philip IV summoned Edward I.

to do him homage for the duchy of Gascogny, which he had conceived the design of seizing. See G. Villani, l. viii. c. 4.

v. 66. Young Conradine.] Charles of Anjou put Conradine to death in 1268; and became King of Naples. See Hell, Canto XXVIII, 16, and Note.

v. 67. Th’ angelic teacher.] Thomas Aquinas. He was reported to have been poisoned by a physician, who wished to ingratiate himself with Charles of Anjou. G. Villani, I. ix. c. 218. We shall find him in the Paradise, Canto X.

v. 69. Another Charles.] Charles of Valois, brother of Philip IV, was sent by Pope Boniface VIII to settle the disturbed state of Florence. In consequence of the measures he adopted for that purpose, our poet and his friend, were condemned to exile and death.

v. 71. -with that lance

Which the arch-traitor tilted with.]

con la lancia

Con la qual giostro Guida.

If I remember right, in one of the old romances, Judas is represented tilting with our Saviour.

v. 78. The other.] Charles, King of Naples, the eldest son of Charles of Anjou, having, contrary to the directions of his father, engaged with Ruggier de Lauria, the admiral of Peter of Arragon, was made prisoner and carried into Sicily, June, 1284.

He afterwards, in consideration of a large sum of money, married his daughter to Azzo VI11, Marquis of Ferrara.

v. 85. The flower-de-luce.] Boniface VIII was seized at Alagna in Campagna, by order of Philip IV., in the year 1303, and soon after died of grief. G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 63.

v. 94. Into the temple.] It is uncertain whether our Poet alludes still to the event mentioned in the preceding Note, or to the destruction of the order of the Templars in 1310, but the latter appears more probable.

v. 103. Pygmalion.] Virg. Aen. 1. i. 348.

v. 107. Achan.] Joshua, c. vii.

v. 111. Heliodorus.] 2 Maccabees, c. iii. 25. “For there appeared unto them a horse, with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he ran fiercely and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet.”

v. 112. Thracia’s king.] Polymnestor, the murderer of Polydorus. Hell, Canto XXX, 19.

v. 114. Crassus.] Marcus Crassus, who fell miserably in the Parthian war. See Appian, Parthica.

CANTO XXI

v. 26. She.] Lachesis, one of the three fates.

v. 43. —that, which heaven in itself Doth of itself receive.]

Venturi, I think rightly interprets this to be light.

v. 49. Thaumantian.] Figlia di Taumante [GREEK HERE]

Compare Plato, Theaet. v. ii. p. 76. Bip. edit., Virg; Aen.

ix. 5, and Spenser, Faery Queen, b. v. c. 3. st. 25.

v. 85. The name.] The name of Poet.

v. 89. From Tolosa.] Dante, as many others have done, confounds Statius the poet, who was a Neapolitan, with a rhetorician of the same name, who was of Tolosa, or Thoulouse. Thus Chaucer, Temple of Fame, b. iii. The Tholason, that height Stace.

v. 94. Fell.] Statius lived to write only a small part of the Achilleid.

CANTO XXII

v. 5. Blessed.] Matt. v. 6.

v. 14. Aquinum’s bard.] Juvenal had celebrated his contemporary Statius, Sat. vii. 82; though some critics imagine that there is a secret derision couched under his praise.

v. 28. Why.] Quid non mortalia pecaora cogis Anri sacra fames?

Virg. Aen. 1. iii. 57

Venturi supposes that Dante might have mistaken the meaning of the word sacra, and construed it “holy,” instead of “cursed.”

But I see no necessity for having recourse to so improbable a conjecture.

v. 41. The fierce encounter.] See Hell, Canto VII. 26.

v. 46. With shorn locks.] Ibid. 58.

v. 57. The twin sorrow of Jocasta’s womb.] Eteocles and Polynices

v. 71. A renovated world.] Virg. Ecl. iv. 5

v. 100. That Greek.] Homer

v. 107. Of thy train. ] Of those celebrated in thy Poem.”

v. 112. Tiresias’ daughter.] Dante appears to have forgotten that he had placed Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, among the sorcerers. See Hell Canto XX. Vellutello endeavours, rather awkwardly, to reconcile the inconsistency, by observing, that although she was placed there as a sinner, yet, as one of famous memory, she had also a place among the worthies in Limbo.

Lombardi excuses our author better, by observing that Tiresias had a daughter named Daphne. See Diodorus Siculus, 1. iv. 66.

v. 139. Mary took more thought.] “The blessed virgin, who answers for yon now in heaven, when she said to Jesus, at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, ‘they have no wine,’ regarded not the gratification of her own taste, but the honour of the nuptial banquet.”

v. 142 The women of old Rome.] See Valerius Maximus, 1. ii. c.

i.

CANTO XXIII

v. 9. My lips.] Psalm ii. 15.

v. 20. The eyes.] Compare Ovid, Metam. 1. viii. 801

v. 26. When Mary.] Josephus, De Bello Jud. 1. vii. c. xxi. p.

954 Ed Genev. fol. 1611. The shocking story is well told v. 27. Rings.]

In this habit

Met I my father with his bleeding rings Their precious stones new lost.

Shakespeare, Lear, a. 5. s. 3

v. 28. Who reads the name.] “He, who pretends to distinguish the letters which form OMO in the features of the human face, “might easily have traced out the M on their emaciated countenances.” The temples, nose, and forehead are supposed to represent this letter; and the eyes the two O’s placed within each side of it.

v. 44. Forese.] One of the brothers of Piccarda, she who is again spoken of in the next Canto, and introduced in the Paradise, Canto III.

V. 72. If the power.] “If thou didst delay thy repentance to the last, when thou hadst lost the power of sinning, how happens it thou art arrived here so early?”

v. 76. Lower.] In the Ante-Purgatory. See Canto II.

v. 80. My Nella.] The wife of Forese.

v. 87. The tract most barb’rous of Sardinia’s isle.] The Barbagia is part of Sardinia, to which that name was given, on account of the uncivilized state of its inhabitants, who are said to have gone nearly naked.

v. 91. The’ unblushing domes of Florence.] Landino’s note exhibits a curious instance of the changeableness