Epic poetry, Italian -- Translations into English; Italian poetry -- To 1400 -- Translations into English
Queste misere carni, e tu le spoglia.
Imitated by Filicaja, Canz. iii.
Di questa imperial caduca spoglia
Tu, Signor, me vestisti e tu mi spoglia:
Ben puoi’l Regno me tor tu che me’l desti.
And by Maffei, in the Merope:
Tu disciogleste
Queste misere membra e tu le annodi.
v. 79. In that fair region.] Del bel paese la, dove’l si suona. Italy
as explained by Dante himself, in his treatise De Vulg. Eloq. l. i. c.
8. “Qui autem Si dicunt a praedictis finibus. (Januensiem) Oreintalem
(Meridionalis Europae partem) tenent; videlicet usque ad promontorium
illud Italiae, qua sinus Adriatici maris incipit et Siciliam.”
v. 82. Capraia and Gorgona.] Small islands near the mouth of the Arno.
v. 94. There very weeping suffers not to weep,] Lo pianto stesso li
pianger non lascia. So Giusto de’Conti, Bella Mano. Son. “Quanto il
ciel.” Che il troppo pianto a me pianger non lassa. v. 116. The friar
Albigero.] Alberigo de’Manfredi, of Faenza, one of the Frati Godenti,
Joyons Friars who having quarrelled with some of his brotherhood, under
pretence of wishing to be reconciled, invited them to a banquet, at the
conclusion of which he called for the fruit, a signal for the assassins
to rush in and dispatch those whom he had marked for destruction.
Hence, adds Landino, it is said proverbially of one who has been
stabbed, that he has had some of the friar Alberigo’s fruit. Thus
Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxv. Le frutte amare di frate Alberico.
v. 123. Ptolomea.] This circle is named Ptolomea from Ptolemy, the son
of Abubus, by whom Simon and his sons were murdered, at a great banquet
he had made for them. See Maccabees, ch xvi.
v. 126. The glazed tear-drops.]
-sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears. Shakspeare, Rich. II. a. 2.
s. 2.
v. 136. Branca Doria.] The family of Doria was possessed of great
influence in Genoa. Branca is said to have murdered his father-in-law,
Michel Zanche, introduced in Canto XXII.
v. 162 Romagna’s darkest spirit.] The friar Alberigo.
Canto XXXIV.
v. 6. A wind-mill.] The author of the Caliph Vathek, in the notes to
that tale, justly observes, that it is more than probable that Don
Quixote’s mistake of the wind-mills for giants was suggested to
Cervantes by this simile.
v. 37. Three faces.] It can scarcely be doubted but that Milton derived
his description of Satan in those lines,
Each passion dimm’d his face
Thrice chang’d with pale, ire, envy, and despair.
P. L. b. iv. 114.
from this passage, coupled with the remark of Vellutello upon it:
“The first of these sins is anger which he signifies by the red face;
the second, represented by that between pale and yellow is envy and
not, as others have said, avarice; and the third, denoted by the black,
is a melancholy humour that causes a man’s thoughts to be dark and
evil, and averse from all joy and tranquillity.”
v. 44. Sails.]
—His sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight.
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