The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri (bts book recommendations txt) 📗

but of a lofty scornful spirit, much addicted to solitude and study." Muratori. Rer. Ital. Script t. 9 l. 1. p. 481. He died, either in exile at Serrazana, or soon after his return to Florence, December 1300, during the spring of which year the action of this poem is supposed to be passing. v. 62. Guido thy son Had in contempt.] Guido Cavalcanti, being more given to philosophy than poetry, was perhaps no great admirer of Virgil. Some poetical compositions by Guido are, however, still extant; and his reputation for skill in the art was such as to eclipse that of his predecessor and namesake Guido Guinicelli, as we shall see in the Purgatory, Canto XI. His "Canzone sopra il Terreno Amore" was thought worthy of being illustrated by numerous and ample commentaries. Crescimbeni Ist. della Volg. Poes. l. v. For a playful sonnet which Dante addressed to him, and a spirited translation of it, see Hayley's Essay on Epic Poetry, Notes to Ep. iii.

v. 66. Saidst thou he had?] In Aeschylus, the shade of Darius is represented as inquiring with similar anxiety after the fate of his son Xerxes.

[GREEK HERE]

Atossa: Xerxes astonish'd, desolate, alone—
Ghost of Dar: How will this end? Nay, pause not. Is he safe?
               The Persians. Potter's Translation.

v. 77. Not yet fifty times.] "Not fifty months shall be passed, before thou shalt learn, by woeful experience, the difficulty of returning from banishment to thy native city"

v.83. The slaughter.] "By means of Farinata degli Uberti, the Guelfi were conquered by the army of King Manfredi, near the river Arbia, with so great a slaughter, that those who escaped from that defeat took refuge not in Florence, which city they considered as lost to them, but in Lucca." Macchiavelli. Hist. of Flor. b 2.

v. 86. Such orisons.] This appears to allude to certain prayers which were offered up in the churches of Florence, for deliverance from the hostile attempts of the Uberti.

v. 90. Singly there I stood.] Guido Novello assembled a council of the Ghibellini at Empoli where it was agreed by all, that, in order to maintain the ascendancy of the Ghibelline party in Tuscany, it was necessary to destroy Florence, which could serve only (the people of that city beingvGuelfi) to enable the party attached to the church to recover its strength. This cruel sentence, passed upon so noble a city, met with no opposition from any of its citizens or friends, except Farinata degli Uberti, who openly and without reserve forbade the measure, affirming that he had endured so many hardships, and encountered so many dangers, with no other view than that of being able to pass his days in his own country. Macchiavelli. Hist. of Flor. b. 2.

v. 103. My fault.] Dante felt remorse for not having returned an immediate answer to the inquiry of Cavalcante, from which delay he was led to believe that his son Guido was no longer living.

v. 120. Frederick.] The Emperor Frederick the Second, who died in 1250. See Notes to Canto XIII.

v. 121. The Lord Cardinal.] Ottaviano Ubaldini, a Florentine, made Cardinal in 1245, and deceased about 1273. On account of his great influence, he was generally known by the appellation of "the Cardinal." It is reported of him that he declared, if there were any such thing as a human soul, he had lost his for the Ghibellini.

v. 132. Her gracious beam.] Beatrice.

CANTO XI

v. 9. Pope Anastasius.] The commentators are not agreed concerning the identity of the person, who is here mentioned as a follower of the heretical Photinus. By some he is supposed to have been Anastasius the Second, by others, the Fourth of that name; while a third set, jealous of the integrity of the papal faith, contend that our poet has confounded him with Anastasius 1. Emperor of the East.

v. 17. My son.] The remainder of the present Canto may be considered as a syllabus of the whole of this part of the poem.

v. 48. And sorrows.] This fine moral, that not to enjoy our being is to be ungrateful to the Author of it, is well expressed in Spenser, F. Q. b. iv. c. viii. st. 15. For he whose daies in wilful woe are worne The grace of his Creator doth despise, That will not use his gifts for thankless nigardise.

v. 53. Cahors.] A city in Guienne, much frequented by usurers

v. 83. Thy ethic page.] He refers to Aristotle's Ethics.

[GREEK HERE]

"In the next place, entering, on another division of the subject, let it be defined. that respecting morals there are three sorts of things to be avoided, malice, incontinence, and brutishness."

v. 104. Her laws.] Aristotle's Physics. [GREEK HERE] "Art imitates nature." —See the Coltivazione of Alamanni, l. i.

-I'arte umana, &c.

v. 111. Creation's holy book.] Genesis, c. iii. v. 19. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."

v. 119. The wain.] The constellation Bootes, or Charles's wain.

CANTO XII

v. 17. The king of Athens.] Theseus, who was enabled, by the instructions of Ariadne, the sister of the Minotaur, to destroy that monster.

v. 21. Like to a bull.] [GREEK HERE] Homer Il. xvii 522
        As when some vig'rous youth with sharpen'd axe
        A pastur'd bullock smites behind the horns
        And hews the muscle through; he, at the stroke
        Springs forth and falls.
               Cowper's Translation.

v. 36. He arriv'd.] Our Saviour, who, according to Dante, when he ascended from hell, carried with him the souls of the patriarchs, and other just men, out of the first circle. See Canto IV.

v. 96. Nessus.] Our poet was probably induced, by the following
line in Ovid, to assign to Nessus the task of conducting them
over the ford:
        Nessus edit membrisque valens scitusque vadorum.
        Metam, l. ix.
And Ovid's authority was Sophocles, who says of this Centaur—
[GREEK HERE] Trach.570
        He in his arms, Evenus' stream
        Deep flowing, bore the passenger for hire
        Without or sail or billow cleaving oar.

v. 110. Ezzolino.] Ezzolino, or Azzolino di Romano, a most cruel tyrant in the Marca Trivigiana, Lord of Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia, who died in 1260. His atrocities form the subject of a Latin tragedy, called Eccerinis, by Albertino Mussato, of Padua, the contemporary of Dante, and the most elegant writer of Latin verse of that age. See also the Paradise, Canto IX. Berni Orl. Inn. l ii c. xxv. st. 50. Ariosto. Orl. Fur. c. iii. st. 33. and Tassoni Secchia Rapita, c. viii. st 11.

v. 111. Obizzo' of Este.] Marquis of Ferrara and of the Marca d'Ancona, was murdered by his own son (whom, for the most unnatural act Dante calls his step-son), for the sake of the treasures which his rapacity had amassed. See Ariosto. Orl. Fur. c. iii. st 32. He died in 1293 according to Gibbon. Ant. of the House of Brunswick. Posth. Works, v. ii. 4to.

v. 119. He.] "Henrie, the brother of this Edmund, and son to the foresaid king of Almaine (Richard, brother of Henry III. of England) as he returned from Affrike, where he had been with Prince Edward, was slain at Viterbo in Italy (whither he was come about business which he had to do with the Pope) by the hand of Guy de Montfort, the son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in revenge of the same Simon's death. The murther was committed afore the high altar, as the same Henrie kneeled there to hear divine service." A.D. 1272, Holinshed's chronicles p 275. See also Giov. Villani Hist. I. vii. c. 40.

v. 135. On Sextus and on Pyrrhus.] Sextus either the son of Tarquin the Proud, or of Pompey the Great: or as Vellutelli conjectures, Sextus Claudius Nero, and Pyrrhus king of Epirus.

v. 137.
               The Rinieri, of Corneto this,
        Pazzo the other named.]
Two noted marauders, by whose depredations the public ways in
Italy were infested. The latter was of the noble family of Pazzi
in Florence.

CANTO XIII

v. 10. Betwixt Corneto and Cecina's stream.] A wild and woody tract of country, abounding in deer, goats, and wild boars. Cecina is a river not far to the south of Leghorn, Corneto, a small city on the same coast in the patrimony of the church.

v. 12. The Strophades.] See Virg. Aen. l. iii. 210.

v. 14. Broad are their pennons.] From Virg. Aen. l. iii. 216.

v. 48. In my verse described.] The commentators explain this, "If he could have believed, in consequence of my assurances alone, that of which he hath now had ocular proof, he would not have stretched forth his hand against thee." But I am of opinion that Dante makes Virgil allude to his own story of Polydorus in the third book of the Aeneid.

v. 56. That pleasant word of thine.] "Since you have inveigled me to speak my holding forth so gratifying an expectation, let it not displease you if I am as it were detained in the snare you have spread for me, so as to be somewhat prolix in my answer."

v. 60. I it was.] Pietro delle Vigne, a native of Capua, who, from a low condition, raised himself by his eloquence and legal knowledge to the office of Chancellor to the Emperor Frederick II. whose confidence in him was such, that his influence in the empire became unbounded. The courtiers, envious of his exalted situation, contrived, by means of forged letters, to make Frederick believe that he held a secret and traitorous intercourse with the Pope, who was then at enmity with the Emperor. In consequence of this supposed crime he was cruelly condemned by his too credulous sovereign to lose his eyes, and, being driven to despair by his unmerited calamity and disgrace, he put an end to his life by dashing out his brains against the walls of a church, in the year 1245. Both Frederick and Pietro delle Vigne composed verses in the Sicilian dialect which are yet extant.

v. 67. The harlot.] Envy. Chaucer alludes to this in the
Prologue to the Legende of Good women.
        Envie is lavender to the court alway,
        For she ne parteth neither night ne day
        Out of the house of Cesar; thus saith Dant.

v. 119. Each fan o' th' wood.] Hence perhaps Milton:
        Leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan.
               P. L. b. v. 6.

v. 122. Lano.] Lano, a Siennese, who, being reduced by prodigality to a state of extreme want, found his existence no longer supportable; and, having been sent by his countrymen on a military expedition, to assist the Florentine against the Aretini, took that opportunity of exposing himself to certain death, in the engagement which took place at Toppo near Arezzo. See G. Villani, Hist. l. 7. c. cxix.

v. 133. O Giocomo Of Sant' Andrea!] Jacopo da Sant' Andrea, a Paduan, who, having wasted his property in the most wanton acts of profusion, killed himself in despair. v. 144. In that City.] "I was an inhabitant of Florence, that city which changed her first patron Mars for St. John the Baptist, for which reason the vengeance of the deity thus slighted will never be appeased: and, if some remains of his status were not still visible on the bridge over the Arno, she would have been already leveled to the ground; and thus the citizens, who raised her again from the ashes to which Attila had reduced her, would have laboured in vain." See Paradise, Canto XVI. 44. The relic of antiquity to which the superstition of Florence attached so high an importance, was carried away by a flood, that destroyed the bridge on which it stood, in the year 1337, but without the ill effects that were apprehended from the loss of their fancied Palladium.

v. 152. I slung the fatal noose.] We are not informed who this suicide was.

CANTO XIV

v. 15. By Cato's foot.] See Lucan, Phars, l. 9.

v. 26. Dilated flakes of fire.] Compare Tasso. G. L. c. x. st. 61.

v. 28. As, in the torrid Indian clime.] Landino refers to Albertus Magnus for the circumstance here alluded to.

v. 53. In Mongibello.]
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