[772] _Fonte Branda_: A celebrated fountain in the city of Siena. Near Romena is a spring which is also named Fonte Branda; and this, according to the view now most in favour, was meant by Master Adam. But was it so named in Dante's time? Or was it not so called only when the _Comedy_ had begun to awaken a natural interest in the old coiner, which local ingenuity did its best to meet? The early commentators know nothing of the Casentino Fonte Branda, and, though it is found mentioned under the date of 1539, that does not take us far enough back. In favour of the Sienese fountain is the consideration that it was the richest of any in the Tuscan cities; that it was a great architectural as well as engineering work; and that, although now more than half a century old, it was still the subject of curiosity with people far and near. Besides, Adam has already recalled the brooks of Casentino, and so the mention of the paltry spring at Romena would introduce no fresh idea like that of the abundant waters of the great fountain which daily quenched the thirst of thousands. [773] _Eleven miles_: It will be remembered that the previous Bolgia was twenty-two miles in circumference. [774] _Three carats_: Three carats in twenty-four being of some foreign substance. [775] _Who smoke, etc._: This description of sufferers from high fever, like that of Master Adam with his tympanitis, has the merit, such as it is, of being true to the life. [776] _One, etc._: Potiphar's wife. [777] _Sinon_: Called of Troy, as being known through his conduct at the siege. He pretended to have deserted from the Greeks, and by a false story persuaded the Trojans to admit the fatal wooden horse. [778] _When Trojans, etc._: When King Priam sought to know for what purpose the wooden horse was really constructed. [779] _Narcissus' mirror_: The pool in which Narcissus saw his form reflected. [780] _'Tis shame_: Dante knows that Virgil would have scorned to portray such a scene of low life as this, but he must allow himself a wider licence and here as elsewhere refuses nothing, even in the way of mean detail, calculated to convey to his readers 'a full experience of the Inferno' as he conceived of it--the place 'where all the vileness of the world is cast.' CANTO XXXI.