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banish to their estates the chief nobles of the city, and then, stirring up a popular tumult, fell upon the rest, laying waste their houses, and sending them into exile or to prison, and thus greatly depopulating the city.

110. Iliad, I. 69: "And Calchas, the son of Thestor, arose, the best of augurs, a man who knew the present, the future, and the past, and who had guided the ships of the Achaeans to Ilium, by that power of prophecy which Phoebus Apollo gave him.

112. Æneid, II. 114: "In suspense we send Eurypylus to consult the oracle of Apollo, and he brings back from the shrine these mournful words: 'O Greeks, ye appeased the winds with blood and a virgin slain, when first ye came to the Trojan shores; your return is to be sought by blood, and atonement made by a Grecian life.'

Dante calls Virgil's poem a Tragedy, to mark its sustained and lofty style, in contrast with that of his own Comedy, of which he has already spoken once, Canto XVI. 138, and speaks again, Canto XXI. 2; as if he wished the reader to bear in mind that he is wearing the sock, and not the buskin.

A wizard of such dreaded fame
That when, in Salamanca's cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,

The bells would ring in Notre Dame !
Some of his skill he taught to me;
And, warrior, I could say to thee
The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,
And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone ;
But to speak them were a deadly sin;
And for having but thought them my heart
within,

A treble penance must be done."

And the opening of the tomb to recover
the Magic Book:-

"Before their eyes the wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver rolled,

He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapped him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea;

His left hand held his book of might;
A silver cross was in his right;

The lamp was placed beside his knee;
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled was his face :-

They trusted his soul had gotten grace."

See also Appendix to the Lay of the Last Minstrel.

118. Guido Bonatti, a tiler and astrologer of Forlì, who accompanied Guido di Montefeltro when he marched out of 116. "Michael Scott, the Magician," Forlì to attack the French "under the says Benvenuto da Imola, "practised great oak." Villani, VII. 81, in a pasdivination at the court of Frederick II., sage in which the he and him get a little and dedicated to him a book on natural entangled, says: "It is said that the history, which I have seen, and in which Count of Montefeltro was guided by among other things he treats of Astro-divination and the advice of Guido Bonatti logy, then deemed infallible. . . . It is said, moreover, that he foresaw his own death, but could not escape it. He had prognosticated that he should be killed by the falling of a small stone upon his head, and always wore an iron skull-cap under his hood, to prevent this disaster. But entering a church on the festival of Corpus Domini, he lowered his hood in sign of veneration, not of Christ, in whom he did not believe, but to deceive the common people, and a small stone fell from aloft on his bare head."

The reader will recall the midnight scene of the monk of St. Mary's and William of Deloraine in Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto II. :

In these far climes it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott;

(a tiler who had become an astrologer), or some other strategy, and he gave the orders; and in this enterprise he gave him the gonfalon and said, 'So long as a rag of it remains, wherever thou bearest it, thou shalt be victorious;' but I rather think his victories were owing to his own wits and his mastery in war.

Benvenuto da Imola reports the fol lowing anecdote of the same personages "As the Count was standing one day in the large and beautiful square of Forli, there came a rustic mountaineer and gave him a basket of pears. And when the Count said, 'Stay and sup with me,' the rustic answered, My Lord, I wish to go home before it rains; for infallibly there will be much rain to-day.' The Count wondering at him, sent for Guido Bonatti as a great astrologer, and said to him

The time here indicated is an hour after sunrise on Saturday morning.

CANTO XXI.

1. The Fifth Bolgia, and the punishment of Barrators, or "Judges who take bribes for giving judgment."

'Dost thou hear what this man says?' man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my Guido answered, 'He does not know thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.' what he is saying; but wait a little.' Guido went to his study, and, having taken his astrolabe, observed the aspect of the heavens. And on returning he said that it was impossible it should rain that day. But the rustic obstinately affirming what he had said, Guido asked him, 'How dost thou know?' The rustic answered, Because to-day my ass, in coming out of the stable, shook his head and pricked up his ears, and whenever he does this, it is a certain sign that the weather will soon change.' Then Guido replied, ‘Supposing this to be so, how dost thou know there will be much rain?' 'Because,' said he, 'my ass, with his ears pricked up, turned his head aside,

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and wheeled about more than usual.'
Then, with the Count's leave, the rustic
departed in haste, much fearing the rain,
though the weather was very clear.
And an hour afterwards, lo, it began to
thunder, and there was a great down-a
pouring of waters, like a deluge. Then
Guido began to cry out, with great indig.
nation and derision, 'Who has deluded
me? Who has put me to shame?' And
for a long time this was a great source of
merriment among the people.'

2. Having spoken in the preceding Canto of Virgil's "lofty Tragedy," Dante here speaks of his own Comedy, as if to prepare the reader for the scenes which are to follow, and for which he apologises in Canto XXII. 14, by repeating the proverb,

"In the church

With saints, and in the tavern with carousers.'

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7. Of the Arsenal of Venice Mr. Hillard thus speaks in his Six Months in Italy, I. 63:

"I Asdente, a cobbler of Parma. think he must have had acuteness of of life. mind, although illiterate; some having the gift of prophecy by the inspiration of Heaven.' Dante mentions him in the Convito, IV. 16, where he says that, if nobility consisted in being known and talked about, "Asdente the shoemaker of Parma would be more noble than any of his fellow-citizens."

126. The moon setting in the sea west of Seville. In the Italian popular tradition to which Dante again alludes, Par. II. 51, the Man in the Moon is Cain with his Thorns. This belief seems to have been current too in England, Mid"Or summer Night's Dream, III. 1: else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moon-shine." And again, V. I: "The man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' the moon? All that I have to say is to tell you, that the lantern is the moon I, the

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"No reader of Dante will fail to pay visit to the Arsenal, from which, in order to illustrate the terrors of his Inferno,' the great poet drew one of these striking and picturesque images, characteristic alike of the boldness and the power of his genius, which never | hesitated to look for its materials among the homely details and familiar incidents In his hands, the boiling of pitch and the calking of seams ascend to the dignity of poetry. Besides, it is the most impressive and characteristic spot in Venice. The Ducal Palace and the Church of St. Mark's are symbols of pride and power, but the strength of Her whole his. Venice resided here. tory, for six hundred years, was here epitomized, and as she rose and sunk, the hum of labour here swelled and subsided. Here was the index-hand which marked the culmination and decline of her greatness. Built upon several sma!! islands, which are united by a wall o two miles in circuit, its extent and com pleteness, decayed as it is, show what the naval power of Venice once was, a the disused armour of a giant enables us to measure his stature and strength. Near the entrance are four marble lions, brought by Morosini from the Pelopon nesus in 1685, two of which are striking works of art. Of these two, one is by

far the oldest thing in Venice, being not much younger than the battle of Marathon ; and thus, from the height of twenty-three centuries, entitled to look down upon St. Mark's as the growth of yesterday. The other two are nondescript animals, of the class commonly called heraldic, and can be styled lions only by courtesy. In the armoury are some very interesting objects, and none more so than the great standard of the Turkish admiral, made of crimson silk, taken at the battle of Lepanto, and which Cervantes may have grasped with his unwounded hand. A few fragments of some of the very galleys that were engaged in that memorable fight are also preserved here."

37. Malebranche, Evil-claws, a general

name for the devils.

38. Santa Zita, the Patron Saint of Lucca, where the magistrates were called Elders, or Aldermen. In Florence they

bore the name of Priors.

41. A Barrator, in Dante's use of the word, is to the State what a Simoniac is to the Church; one who sells justice, office, or employment.

Benvenuto says that Dante includes Bontura with the rest, "because he is speaking ironically, as who should say, Bontura is the greatest barrator of all.' For Bontura was an arch-barrator, who sagaciously led and managed the whole commune, and gave offices to whom he wished. He likewise excluded whom he wished."

46. Bent down in the attitude of one in prayer; therefore the demons mock

him with the allusion to the Santo Volto.

It sweeps into the affrighted sea. In morning's smile its eddies coil, Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil, Torturing all its quiet light

Into columns fierce and bright."

63. Canto IX. 22:—

"True is it once before I here below

Was conjured by that pitiless Erictho, Who summoned back the shades unto thei bodies."

95. A fortified town on the Arnɔ, in the Pisan territory. It was besieged by the troops of Florence and Lucca in 1289, and capitulated. As the garrison marched out under safe-guard, they were terrified by the shouts of the crowd, crying: "Hang them! hang them! In this crowd was Dante, "a youth of twenty-five," says Benvenuto da Imola. 110. Along the circular dike that separates one Bolgia from another.

III. This is a falsehood, as all the bridges over the next Bolgia are broken. See Canto XXIII. 140.

112. At the close of the preceding Canto the time is indicated as being an hour after sunrise. Five hours later

would be noon, or the scriptural sixth hour, the hour of the Crucifixion. Dante understands St. Luke to say that Christ died at this hour. Convito, IV. 23: "Luke says that it was about the sixth hour when he died; that is, the culmination of the day.” Add to the "one thousand and two hundred sixty-six years," the thirty-four of Christ's life on earth, and it gives the year 1300, the date of the Infernal Pilgrimage.

114. Broken by the earthquake at 48. The Santo Volto, or Holy Face, the time of the Crucifixion, as the rock is a crucifix still preserved in the Cathe-leading to the Circle of the Violent, dral of Lucca, and held in great venera- Canto XII. 45:— tion by the people. The tradition is that it is the work of Nicodemus, who sculptured it from memory.

See also Sacchetti, Nov. 73, in which a preacher mocks at the Santo Volto in the church of Santa Croce at Florence.

49. The Serchio flows near Lucca. Shelley, in a poem called The Boat, on the Serchio, describes it as a "torrent Sierce,"

"Which fervid from its mountain source,

Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come;
Swift as fire, tempestuously

"And at that moment this primeval rock Beth here and elsewhere made such overthrow."

As in the next Bolgia Hypocrites are punished, Dante couples them with the Violent, by making the shock of the earthquake more felt near them than

elsewhere.

125. The next crag or bridge, tra versing the dikes and ditches. 137. See Canto XVII. 7j.

CANTO XXII

1. The subject of the preceding Canto is continued in this.

5. Aretino, Vita di Dante, says that Dante in his youth was present at the "great and memorable battle, which Lefell at Campaldino, fighting valiantly on horseback in the front rank." It was there he saw the vaunt-couriers of the Aretines, who began the battle with such a vigorous charge, that they routed the Florentine cavalry, and drove them back upon the infantry.

7. Napier, Florentine Hist., I. 214217, gives this description of the Carroccio and the Martinella of the Florentines:--

bullocks: the car was always red, and
the bullocks, even to their hoofs, covered
as above described, but with red or white
according to the faction; the ensign staff
was red, lofty, and tapering, and sur-
mounted by a cross or golden ball: on
this, between two white fringed veils,
hung the national standard, and half-
way down the mast, a crucifix.
A plat-
form ran out in front of the car, spacious
enough for a few chosen men to defend
it, while behind, on a corresponding
space, the musicians with their military
instruments gave spirit to the combat:
mass was said on the Carroccio ere it
quitted the city, the surgeons
stationed near it, and not unfrequently a
chaplain also attended it to the field.
The loss of the Carroccio was a great
disgrace, and betokened utter discom-
fiture; it was given to the most distin-
guished knight, who had a public salary
and wore conspicuous armour and a
golden belt: the best troops were sta-
tioned round it, and there was frequently
the hottest of the fight.

were

"In order to give more dignity to the national army and form a rallying point for the troops, there had been established a great car, called the Carroccio, drawn by two beautiful oxen, which, carrying the Florentine standard, generally accompanied them into the field. This car was painted vermilion, the bullocks were "Besides the Carroccio, the Florentine covered with scarlet cloth, and the driver, army was accompanied by a great bell, a man of some consequence, was dressed called Martinella or Campana degli in crimson, was exempt from taxation, Asini, which, for thirty days before hosand served without pay; these oxen tilities began, tolled continually day and were maintained at the public charge in night from the arch of Porta Santa a public hospital, and the white and red | Maria, as a public declaration of war, banner of the city was spread above the and, as the ancient chronicle hath it, car between two lofty spars. Those for greatness of mind, that the enemy taken at the battle of Monteaperto are might have full time to prepare himself. still exhibited in Siena Cathedral as At the same time also, the Carroccia was trophies of that fatal day. drawn from its place in the offices of "Macchiavelli erroneously places the San Giovanni by the most distinguished adoption of the Carroccio by the Floren-knights and noble vassals of the republic, tines at this epoch, but it was long before in use, and probably was copied from the Milanese, as soon as Florence became strong and independent enough to equip a national army. Eribert, Årchbishop of Milan, seems to have been its author, for in the war between Conrad I. and that city, besides other arrangements for military organisation, he is said to have finished by the invention of the Carroccio; it was a pious and not impolitic imitation of the ark as it was carried before the Israelites. This vehicle is described, and also represented in ancient paintings, as a four-wheeled ob- 48. Giampolo, or Ciampolo, say all long car, drawn by two, four, or six the commentators; but nothing more is

and conducted in state to the Mercato Nuovo, where it was placed upon the circular stone still existing, and remained there until the army took the field. Then also the Martinella was removed from its station to a wooden tower placed on another car, and with the Carroccio served to guide the troops by night and day. 'And with these two pomps, of the Carroccio and Campana,' says Malespini, the pride of the old citizens, our ancestors, was ruled.''

15. Equivalent to the proverb, "Do in Rome as the Romans do."

known of him than his name, and what he tells us here of his history.

52. It is not very clear which King Thibault is here meant, but it is proba

"A painted people there below we found,
Who went about with footsteps very slow,
Weeping and in their looks subdued and
weary."

"In his colde grave Alone, withouten any compagnie."

And Gower, Conf. Amant. :—

"To muse in his philosophie
Sole withouten compaignie

bly King Thibault IV., the crusader and Chaucer, Knightes Tale, 2780:-
poet, born 1201, died 1253. His poems
have been published by Lévêque de la
Ravallière, under the title of Les Poésies
du Roi de Navarre; and in one of his
songs (Chanson 53) he makes a clerk
address him as the Bons Rois Thiebaut.
Dante cites him two or three times in
his Volg. Eleq., and may have taken
this expression from his song, as he does
afterwards, Canto XXVIII. 135, lo Re
joves, the Re Giovane, or Young King,
from the songs of Bertrand de Born.
65. A Latian, that is to say, an

Italian.

4.

The Fables of Esop, by Sir Roger "There fell out a L'Estrange, IV.: bloody quarrel once betwixt the Frogs and the Mice, about the sovereignty of the Fenns; and whilst two of their champions were disputing it at swords point, down comes a kite powdering 82. This Frate Gomita was a Sar- upon them in the interim, and gobbles dinian in the employ of Nino de' Vis-up both together, to part the fray." conti, judge in the jurisdiction of Gallura, 7. Both words signifying now; the "gentle Judge Nino" of Purg. mo, from the Latin modo; and issa, from VIII. 53. The frauds and peculations the Latin ipsa; meaning ipsa hora. of the Friar brought him finally to the "The Tuscans say mo," remarks Bengallows. Gallura is the north-eastern jurisdiction of the island.

88. Don Michael Zanche was Seneschal of King Enzo of Sardinia, a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II. Dante gives him the title of Don, still used in Sardinia for Signore. After the death of Enzo in prison at Bologna, in 1271, Don Michael won by fraud and flattery his widow Adelasia, and became himself Lord of Logodoro, the north-western jurisdiction, adjoining that of Gallura.

The gossip between the Friar and the Seneschal, which is here described by Ciampolo, recalls the Vision of the Sardinian poet Araolla, a dialogue be tween himself and Gavino Sambigucci, written in the soft dialect of Logodoro, a mixture of Italian, Spanish, and Latin, and beginning

"Dulche, amara memoria de giornadas Fuggitivas cun doppia pena mia,

Qui quanto plus l'istringo sunt passadas." See Valery, Voyages en Corse et en Sardaigne, II. 410.

CANTO XXIII.

1. In this Sixth Bolgia the Hypocrites are punished.

venuto,

"the Lombards issa.”

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37. "When he is in a fright and hurry, and has a very steep place to go down, Virgil has to carry him altogether," says Mr. Ruskin. See Canto XII., Note 2.

66

63. Benvenuto speaks of the cloaks of the German monks as ill-fitting and shapeless."

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66. The leaden cloaks which Frede-
rick put upon malefactors were straw in
comparison. The Emperor Frederick II.
is said to have punished traitors by
wrapping them in lead, and throwing
them into a heated cauldron. I can find
no historic authority for this.
only on tradition; and on the same
authority the same punishment is said to
have been inflicted in Scotland, and is
thus described in the ballad of
"Lord
Soulis," Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border, IV. 256 :—

"On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot,
Till the burnished brass did glimmer and
shine.

"They roll'd him up in a sheet of lead,
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall,
And plunged him into the cauldron red,
And melted him,-lead, and bones, and
all."

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