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We get also a glimpse of this punishment in Ducange, Glos. Capa Plumbea, where he cites the case in which one man tells another: "If our Holy Father the Pope knew the life you are leading, he would have you put to death in a tloak of lead."

67. Comedy of Errors, IV. 2 :—

"A devil in an everlasting garment hath him.", 91. Bologna was renowned for its University; and the speaker, who was a Bolognese, is still mindful of his college.

95. Florence, the bellissima e famosissima figlia di Roma, as Dante calls it, Convite, I. 3.

103. An order of knighthood, established by Pope Urban IV. in 1261, under the title of "Knights of Santa Maria." The name Frati Gaudenti, or "Jovial Friars," was a nickname, because they lived in their own homes and were not bound by strict monastic rules. Napier, Flor. Hist. I. 269, says :

"A short time before this a new order of religious knighthood under the name of Frati Gaudenti began in Italy: it was not bound by vows of celibacy, or any very severe regulations, but took the usual oaths to defend widows and orphans and make peace between man and man the founder was a Bolognese gentleman, called Loderingo di Liandolo, who enjoyed a good reputation, and along with a brother of the same order, named Catalano di Malavolti, one a Guelf and the other a Ghibelline, was now invited to Florence by Count Guido to execute conjointly the office of Podestà. It was intended by thus dividing the supreme authority between two magistrates of different politics, that one should correct the other, and justice be equally administered; more especially as, in conjunction with the people, they were allowed to elect a deliberative council of thirty-six citizens, belonging to the principal trades without distinction of party."

Farther on he says that these two Frati Gaudenti "forfeited all public confidence by their peculation and hypocrisy." And Villani, VII. 13: "Although they were of different parties, under cover of a false hypocrisy, they were of

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1. The Seventh Bolgia, in which Thieves are punished.

2. The sun enters Aquarius during the last half of January, when the Equinox is near, and the hoar-frost in the morning looks like snow on the fields, but soon evaporates. If Dante had been a monk of Monte Casino, illuminating a manuscript, he could not have made a more clerkly and scholastic flourish with his pen than this, nor have painted a more beautiful picture than that which follows. The medieval poets are full of lovely descriptions of Spring, which seems to blossom and sing through all their verses; but none is more beautiful or suggestive than this, though serving only as an illustration.

21. In Canto I.

43. See what Mr. Ruskin says of Dante as "a notably bad climber," Canto XII. Note 2.

55. The ascent of the Mount of Purgatory.

73. The next circular dike, dividing the fosses.

86. This list of serpents is from Lucan, Phars. IX. 711, Rowe's Tr. :—

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And swift thro' air the flying Javelin shoots.

The Amphisbæna doubly armed appears
At either end a threatening head she rears;
Raised on his active tail Pareas stands,
And as he passes, furrows up the sands."

Milton, Parad. Lost, X. 521 :—

"Dreadful was the din

Of hissing through the hall, thick-swarming

now

With complicated monsters head and tail,
Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbæna dire,
Cerastes horned, hydrus, and elops drear,
And dipsas.

Of the Phareas, Peter Comestor, Hist. Scholast., Gloss of Genesis iii. I, says: "And this he (Lucifer) did by means of the serpent; for then it was erect like inan; being afterwards made prostrate by the curse; and it is said the Phareas walks erect even to this day."

And, though her body die, her fame sur vives

A secular bird ages of lives."

114. Any obstruction, "such as the epilepsy," says Benvenuto. "Gouts and dropsies, catarrhs and oppilations," says Jeremy Taylor.

Benve

125. Vanni Fucci, who calls himself a mule, was a bastard son of Fuccio de' Lazzari. All the commentators paint him in the darkest colours. Dante had known him as "a man of blood and wrath," and seems to wonder he is here, and not in the circle of the Violent, or of the Irascible. But his great_crime was the robbery of a sacristy. nuto da Imola relates the story in detail. He speaks of him as a man of depraved life, many of whose misdeeds went unpunished, because he was of noble family. Being banished from Pistoia for his crimes, he returned to the city one night of the Carnival, and was in company whom was Vanni della Nona, a notary; with eighteen other revellers, among when, not content with their insipid diversions, he stole away with two com"The Am-panions to the church of San Giacomo, and, finding its custodians absent, or asleep with feasting and drinking, he entered the sacristy and robbed it of all its precious jewels. These he secreted in the house of the notary, which was close at hand, thinking that on account of his honest repute no suspicion would fall upon him. A certain Rampino was arrested for the theft, and put to the torture; when Vanni Fucci, having escaped to Monte Carelli, beyond the Florentine jurisdiction, sent a messenger to Rampino's father, confessing all the circumstances of the crime. Hereupon the notary was seized "on the first Monday in Lent, as he was going to a sermon in the church of the Minorite Friars, and was hanged for the theft, and Rampino set at liberty.

Of the Amphisbæna, Brunetto Latini, Tresor I. v. 140, says: phimenie is a kind of serpent which has two heads; one in its right place, and the other in the tail; and with each she can bite; and she runs swiftly, and her eyes shine like candles."

93. Without a hiding-place, or the heliotrope, a precious stone of great virtue against poisons, and supposed to render the wearer invisible. Upon this latter vulgar error is founded Boccaccio's comical story of Calandrino and his friends Bruno and Buffulmacco, Decam., Gior. VIII., Nov. 3.

107. Brunetto Latini, Tresor I. v. 164, says of the Phoenix: "He goeth to a good tree, savoury and of good odour, and maketh a pile thereof, to which he set teth fire, and entereth straightway into it toward the rising of the sun. And Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1697:

"So Virtue, given for lost,

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Depressed and overthrown, as seemed,
Like that self-begotten bird
In the Arabian woods embost,
That no second knows nor third,
And lay erewhile a holocaust,

From out her ashy womb now teemed,
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed;

Vanni Fucci, except the Canonico CresNo one has a good word to say for cimbeni, who, in the Comentarj to the Istoria della Volg. Poesia, II. ii., p. 99, counts him among the Italian Poets, and speaks of him as a man of great courage and gallantry, and a leader of the Neri party of Pistoia, in 1300. He smooths over Dante's invectives by

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

2. This vulgar gesture of contempt consists in thrusting the thumb between the first and middle fingers. It is the same that the ass-driver made at Dante in the street; Sacchetti, Nov. CXV. : "When he was a little way off, he turned round to Dante, and, thrusting out his tongue and making a fig at him with his hand, said, Take that.""

Villani, VI. 5, says: "On the Rock of Carmignano there was a tower seventy yards high, and upon it two marble arms, he hands of which were making the figs at Florence." Others say these hands were on a finger-post by the road-side.

In the Merry Wives of Windsor, I. 3, Pistol says: "Convey, the wise it call; Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase!" And Martino, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Widow, V. I:

"The fig of everlasting obloquy
Go with him."

19. Pistoia is supposed to have been

founded by the soldiers of Catiline. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. i. 37, says: "They found Catiline at the foot of the mountains and he had his army and his people in that place where is now the city of Pestoire. There was Catiline conquered in battle, and he and his were slain; also a great part of the of the pestilence of that great slaughter Romans were killed. And on account the city was called Pestoire."

The Italian proverb says, Pistoia la ferrigna, iron Pistoia, or Pistoia the pitiless.

15. Capaneus, Canto XIV. 44. 19. See Canto XIII. Note 9. 25. Cacus was the classic Giant Despair, who had his cave in Mount Aventine, and stole a part of the herd of Geryon, which Hercules had brought to Italy. Virgil, Æneid, VIII., Dryden's Tr. :

"See yon huge cavern, yawning wide around, Where still the shattered mountain spreads the

ground:

That spacious hold grim Cacus once possessed, Tremendous fiend! half human, half a beast: Deep, deep as hell, the dismal dungeon lay, Dark and impervious to the beams of day. With copious slaughter smoked the purple floor,

Pale heads hung horrid on the lofty door, Dreadful to view! and dropped with crimson gore.

"

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the fore feet of the serpent and the arms of Agnello.

76. Shakespeare, in the "Additional Poems to Chester's Love's Martyrs," Knight's Shakespeare, VII. 193, speaks of "Two distincts, division none;" and continues :

"Property was thus appalled

That the self was not the same,
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called.
"Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;

To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded."
83. This black serpent is Guercio
Cavalcanti, who changes form with
Buoso degli Abati.

95. Tr. :

Lucan, Phars., IX., Rowe's

"But soon a fate more sad with new surprise From the first object turns their wondering

eyes.

Wretched Sabellus by a Seps was stung:
Fixed on his leg with deadly teeth it hung.
Sudden the soldier shook it from the wound,
Transfixed and nailed it to the barren ground.
Of all the dire, destructive serpent race,
None have so much of death, though none
are less.

For straight around the part the skin withdrew,

The flesh and shrinking sinews backward flew,

And left the naked bones exposed to view. The spreading poisons all the parts confound, And the whole body sinks within the wound.

Small relics of the mouldering mass were left,
At once of substance as of form bereft ;
Dissolved, the whole in liquid poison ran,
And to a nauseous puddle shrunk the man.

So snows dissolved by southern breezes run,
So melts the wax before the noonday sun.
Nor ends the wonder here; though flames are
known

To waste the flesh, yet still they spare the

bone:

Here none were left, no least remains were seen,

No marks to show that once the man had been.

A fate of different kind Nasidius found,—
A burning Prester gave the deadly wound,
And straight a sudden flame began to spread,
And paint his visage with a glowing red.
With swift expansion swells the bloated
skin,-

Naught but an undistinguished mass is seen,
While the fair human form lies lost within;
The puffy poison spreads and heaves around,
Till all the man is in the monster drowned.
No more the steely plate his breast can stay,
But yields, and gives the bursting poison way.
Not waters so when fire the rage supplies,

Bubbling on heaps, in boiling cauldrons rise; Nor swells the stretching canvas half so fast, When the sails gather all the driving blast, Strain the tough yards, and bow the lofty

mast.

The various parts no longer now are known, One headless, formless heap remains alone.' 97. Ovid, Metamorph., IV., Eusden's Tr. :

"Come, my Harmonia, come, thy face recline Down to my face: still touch what still is mine.

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O let these hands, while hands. be gently pressed,

While yet the serpent has not all possessed.' More he had spoke, but strove to speak in vain,

The forky tongue refused to tell his pain,
And learned in hissings only to complain.

"Then shrieked Harmonia, Stay, my Cadmus, stay!

Glide not in such a monstrous shape away! Destruction, like impetuous waves, rolls on. Where are thy feet, thy legs, thy shoulders gone?

Changed is thy visage, changed is all thy frame,

Cadmus is only Cadmus now in name.
Ye gods! my Cadmus to himself restore,
Or me like him transform,-I ask no more.'"

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The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her
As she lingered towards the deep."

Some editions read la penna, the pen, instead of la lingua, the tongue. 151. Gaville was a village in the Valdarno, where Guercio Cavalcanti

was murdered. The family took vengeance upon the inhabitants in the old Italian style, thus causing Gaville to ment the murder.

CANTO XXVI.

1. The Eighth Bolgia, in which Fraudulent Counsellors are punished. 4. Of these five Florentine nobles, Cianfa Donati, Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, Puccio Sciancato, and Guercio Cavalcanti, nothing is known but what Dante tells us. Perhaps that is enough.

7. See Purg. IX. 13:—

'Just at the hour when her sad lay begins
The little swallow, near unto the morning,
Perchance in memory of her former woes,
And when the mind of man, a wanderer
More from the flesh, and less by thought
imprisoned,

Almost prophetic in its visions is."

9. The disasters soon to befall Florence, and in which even the neighbouring town of Prato would rejoice, to mention no others. These disasters were the fall of the wooden bridge of Carraia, with a crowd upon it, witnessing a Miracle Play on the Arno; the strife of the Bianchi and Neri; and the great fire of 1304. See Villani, VIII., 70, 71. Napier, Florentine History, I. 394, gives this account:

place, from Vacchereccia to Porta Santa Maria and the Ponte Vecchio, all was one broad sheet of fire: more than nineteen hundred houses were consumed; plunder and devastation revelled un checked amongst the flames, whole races were reduced in one moment to beggary, and vast magazines of the richest merchandise were destroyed. The Cavalcanti, one of the most opulent families consumed, and lost all courage; they in Florence, beheld their whole property made no attempt to save it, and, after almost gaining possession of the city, were finally overcome by the opposite faction."

10. Macbeth, 1. 7:

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly."

23. See Parad. XII. 112:—

"O glorious stars! O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknow-
ledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be."

24. I may not baulk or deprive myself of this good.

34. The Prophet Elisha, 2 Kings ii. 23:

"And he went up from thence unto Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord: and there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two chil dren of them.”

35. 2 Kings ii. 11:—

"And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

"Battles first began between the Cerchi and Giugni at their houses in the Via del Garbo; they fought day and night, and with the aid of the Cavalcanti and Antellesi the former subdued all that quarter: a thousand rural adherents strengthened their bands, and that day might have seen the Neri's destruction if an unforseen disaster had not turned the scale. A certain dissolute priest, called Neri Abati, prior of San Piero Scheraggio, false to his family and in concert with the Black chiefs, consented to set fire to the dwellings of his own kinsmen in Orto-sanMichele; the flames, assisted by faction, spread rapidly over the richest and most crowded part of Florence: shops, warehouses, towers, private dwellings and Dalaces, from the old to the new market-430, Lewis's Tr. :-

54. These two sons of Edipus, Eteocles and Polynices, were so hostile to each other, that, when after death their bodies were burned on the same funeral pile, the flames swayed apart, and the ashes separated. Statius, Thebaid, XIL

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