[231] _Poet_: Throughout the _Comedy_, with the exception of _Parad._ i. 29, and xxv. 8, the term 'poet' is confined to those who wrote in Greek and Latin. In _Purg._ xxi. 85 the name of poet is said to be that 'which is most enduring and honourable.' [232] _A sword_: Because Homer sings of battles. Dante's acquaintance with his works can have been but slight, as they were not then translated into Latin, and Dante knew little or no Greek. [233] _To their honour_: 'And in that they do well:' perhaps as showing themselves free from jealousy. But the remark of Benvenuto of Imola is: 'Poets love and honour one another, and are never envious and quarrelsome like those who cultivate the other arts and sciences.'--I quote with misgiving from Tamburini's untrustworthy Italian translation. Benvenuto lectured on the _Comedy_ in Bologna for some years about 1370. It is greatly to be wished that his commentary, lively and full of side-lights as it is, should be printed in full from the original Latin. [234] _The lords, etc._: Not the company of him--Homer or Virgil--who is lord of the great song, and soars above all others; but the company of the great masters, whose verse, etc. [235] _Did my Master smile_: To see Dante made free of the guild of great poets; or, it may be, to think they are about to discover in him a fellow poet. [236] _A noble castle_: Where the light burns, and in which, as their peculiar seat, the shades of the heathen distinguished for virtue and genius reside. The seven walls are in their number symbolical of the perfect strength of the castle; or, to take it more pedantically, may mean the four moral virtues and the three speculative. The gates will then stand for the seven liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, etc. The moat may be eloquence, set outside the castle to signify that only as reflected in the eloquent words of inspired men can the outside world get to know wisdom. Over the stream Dante passes easily, as being an adept in learned speech. The castle encloses a spacious mead enamelled with eternal green. [237] _Cæsar in arms, etc._: Suetonius says of Cæsar that he was of fair complexion, but had black and piercing eyes. Brunetto Latini, Dante's teacher, says in his _Tesoro_ (v. 11), of the hawk here mentioned--the _grifagno_--that its eyes 'flame like fire.' [238] _Brutus_: Introduced here that he may not be confounded with the later Brutus, for whom is reserved the lowest place of all in Inferno. [239] _Marcia_: Wife of Cato; mentioned also in _Purg._ i. _Julia_: daughter of Cæsar and wife of Pompey. [240] _Saladin_: Died 1193. To the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries he supplied the ideal of a just Mohammedan ruler. Here are no other such. 'He sits apart, because not of gentle birth,' says Boccaccio; which shows what even a man of genius risks when he becomes a commentator.