The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The InfernoDante Alighieri
ReligionJewish
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno
Dante Alighieri
Epic poetry, Italian -- Translations into English; Hell; Italian poetry -- To 1400 -- Translations into English
[762] _Trojan fury, etc._: It was by the agency of a Fury that Athamas
was put out of his mind; but the Trojan and Theban furies here meant are
the frenzies of Athamas and Hecuba, wild with which one of them slew his
son, and the other scratched out the eyes of the Thracian king.
[763] _Capocchio_: See close of the preceding Canto. Here as elsewhere
sinners are made ministers of vengeance on one another.
[764] _The Aretine_: Griffolino, who boasted he could fly; already
represented as trembling (_Inf._ xxix. 97).
[765] _Gianni Schicchi_: Giovanni Schicchi, one of the Cavalcanti of
Florence.
[766] _Myrrha_: This is a striking example of Dante's detestation of
what may be called heartless sins. It is covered by the classification
of Canto xi. Yet it is almost with a shock that we find Myrrha here for
personation, and not rather condemned to some other circle for another
sin.
[767] _Buoso Donati_: Introduced as a thief in the Seventh Bolgia
(_Inf._ xxv. 140). Buoso was possessed of a peerless mare, known as the
Lady of the herd. To make some amends for his unscrupulous acquisition
of wealth, he made a will bequeathing legacies to various religious
communities. When he died his nephew Simon kept the fact concealed long
enough to procure a personation of him as if on his death-bed by Gianni
Schicchi, who had great powers of mimicry. Acting in the character of
Buoso, the rogue professed his wish to make a new disposition of his
means, and after specifying some trifling charitable bequests the better
to maintain his assumed character, named Simon as general legatee, and
bequeathed Buoso's mare to himself.
[768] _O ye, etc._: The speaker has heard and noted Virgil's words of
explanation given in the previous Canto, line 94.
[769] _Master Adam_: Adam of Brescia, an accomplished worker in metals,
was induced by the Counts Guidi of Romena in the Casentino, the upland
district of the upper Arno, to counterfeit the gold coin of Florence.
This false coin is mentioned in a Chronicle as having been in
circulation in 1281. It must therefore have been somewhat later that
Master Adam was burned, as he was by sentence of the Republic, upon the
road which led from Romena to Florence. A cairn still existing near the
ruined castle bears the name of the 'dead man's cairn.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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