[786] _St. Peter's cone_: The great pine cone of bronze, supposed to have originally crowned the mausoleum of Hadrian, lay in Dante's time in the forecourt of St Peter's. When the new church was built it was removed to the gardens of the Vatican, where it still remains. Its size, it will be seen, is of importance as helping us to a notion of the stature of the giants; and, though the accounts of its height are strangely at variance with one another, I think the measurement made specially for Philalethes may be accepted as substantially correct. According to that, the cone is ten palms long--about six feet. Allowing something for the neck, down to 'where a man clasps his cloak' (line 66), and taking the thirty palms as eighteen feet, we get twenty-six feet or so for half his height. The giants vary in bulk; whether they do so in height is not clear. We cannot be far mistaken if we assume them to stand from fifty to sixty feet high. Virgil and Dante must throw their heads well back to look up into the giant's face; and Virgil must raise his voice as he speaks.--With regard to the height of the cone it may be remarked that Murray's Handbook for Rome makes it eleven feet high; Gsell-Fels two and a half metres, or eight feet and three inches. It is so placed as to be difficult of measurement. [787] _Three Frisians_: Three very tall men, as Dante took Frisians to be, if standing one on the head of the other would not have reached his hair. [788] _Rafel, etc._: These words, like the opening line of the Seventh Canto, have, to no result, greatly exercised the ingenuity of scholars. From what follows it is clear that Dante meant them to be meaningless. Part of Nimrod's punishment is that he who brought about the confusion of tongues is now left with a language all to himself. It seems strange that commentators should have exhausted themselves in searching for a sense in words specially invented to have none.--In his _De Vulg. El._, i. 7, Dante enlarges upon the confusion of tongues, and speaks of the tower of Babel as having been begun by men on the persuasion of a giant. [789] _Ephialtes_: One of the giants who in the war with the gods piled Ossa on Pelion. [790] _Antæus_: Is to be asked to lift them over the wall, because, unlike Nimrod, he can understand what is said to him, and, unlike Ephialtes, is not bound. Antæus is free-handed because he took no part in the war with the gods. [791] _The one thou'dst see_: Briareus. Virgil here gives Dante to know what is the truth about Briareus (see line 97, etc.). He is not, as he was fabled, a monster with a hundred hands, but is like Ephialtes, only fiercer to see. Hearing himself thus made light of Ephialtes trembles with anger, like a tower rocking in an earthquake. [792] _Five ell_: Five ells make about thirty palms, so that Antæus is of the same stature as that assigned to Nimrod at line 65. This supports the view that the 'huger' of line 84 may apply to breadth rather than to height.