v. 47. Spirit.] The human soul, which differs from that of brutes,
inasmuch as, though united with the body, it has a separate existence
of its own. v. 65. Three men.] The great moral philosophers among the
heathens.
v. 78. A crag.] I have preferred the reading of Landino, scheggion,
“crag,” conceiving it to be more poetical than secchion, “bucket,”
which is the common reading. The same cause, the vapours, which the
commentators say might give the appearance of increased magnitude to
the moon, might also make her seem broken at her rise.
v. 78. Up the vault.] The moon passed with a motion opposite to that of
the heavens, through the constellation of the scorpion, in which the
sun is, when to those who are in Rome he appears to set between the
isles of Corsica and Sardinia.
v. 84. Andes.] Andes, now Pietola, made more famous than Mantua near
which it is situated, by having been the birthplace of Virgil.
v. 92. Ismenus and Asopus.] Rivers near Thebes
v. 98. Mary.] Luke, c i. 39, 40
v. 99. Caesar.] See Lucan, Phars. I. iii. and iv, and Caesar de Bello
Civiii, I. i. Caesar left Brutus to complete the siege of Marseilles,
and hastened on to the attack of Afranius and Petreius, the generals of
Pompey, at Ilerda (Lerida) in Spain.
v. 118. abbot.] Alberto, abbot of San Zeno in Verona, when Frederick I
was emperor, by whom Milan was besieged and reduced to ashes.
v. 121. There is he.] Alberto della Scala, lord of Verona, who had made
his natural son abbot of San Zeno.
v. 133. First they died.] The Israelites, who, on account of their
disobedience, died before reaching the promised land.
v. 135. And they.] Virg Aen. 1. v.
CANTO XIX
v. 1. The hour.] Near the dawn.
v. 4. The geomancer.] The geomancers, says Landino, when they divined,
drew a figure consisting of sixteen marks, named from so many stars
which constitute the end of Aquarius and the beginning of Pisces. One
of these they called “the greater fortune.”
v. 7. A woman’s shape.] Worldly happiness. This allegory reminds us of
the “Choice of Hercules.”
v. 14. Love’s own hue.]
A smile that glow’d
Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue.
Milton, P. L. b. viii. 619
—facies pulcherrima tune est
Quum porphyriaco variatur candida rubro
Quid color hic roseus sibi vult? designat amorem:
Quippe amor est igni similis; flammasque rubentes
Ignus habere solet.
Palingenii Zodiacus Vitae, 1. xii.
v. 26. A dame.] Philosophy.
v. 49. Who mourn.] Matt. c. v. 4.
v. 72. My soul.] Psalm cxix. 5
v. 97. The successor of Peter Ottobuono, of the family of Fieschi
Counts of Lavagna, died thirty-nine days after he became Pope, with the
title of Adrian V, in 1276.
v. 98. That stream.] The river Lavagna, in the Genoese territory.
v. 135. nor shall be giv’n in marriage.] Matt. c. xxii. 30. “Since in
this state we neither marry nor are given in marriage, I am no longer
the spouse of the church, and therefore no longer retain my former
dignity.