was married to Peter of Aragon, and was the mother of Frederic of Sicily and of James of Aragon.

124. The Bishop of Cosenza and Pope Clement the Fourth.

131. The name of the river Verde reminds one of the old Spanish ballad, particularly when one recalls the fact that Manfredi had in his army a band of Saracens :

"Rio Verde, Rio Verde,

Many a corpse is bathed in thee,
Both of Moors and eke of Christians,
Slain with swords most cruelly."

132. Those who died "in contumely of holy Church," or under excommunication, were buried with extinguished and inverted torches.

36. Like Christian going up the hill Difficulty in Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress: I looked then after Christian to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees, because of the steepness of the place."

if

43. More than forty-five degrees.

61. If the sun were in Gemini, or we were in the month of May, you would see the sun still farther to the Aorth.

64. Rubecchio is generally rendered red or ruddy. But Jacopo dalla Lana says: "Rubecchio in the Tuscan tongue signifies an indented mill-wheel." This interpretation certainly renders the image more distinct. The several signs of the Zodiac are so many cogs in the great wheel; and the wheel is an image which Dante more than once applies to the celestial bodies.

71. The Ecliptic. See Inf. XVII., Note 107.

73. This, the Mountain of Purgatory; and that, Mount Ziou.

83. The Seven Stars of Ursa Major, the North Star.

109. Compare Thomson's description of the "pleasing land of drowsy-head," in the Castle of Indolence:

"And there a season atween June and May, Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned,

A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared even for play."

123. "He loved also in life," says Ar rivabene, Commento Storico, 584, “a certain Belacqua, an excellent maker of musical instruments."

Benvenuto da Imola says of him: "He was a Florentine who made guitars and other musical instruments. He carved and ornamented the necks and heads of the guitars with great care, and sometimes also played. Hence Dante, who delighted in music, knew him intimately." This seems to be all that is known of Belacqua.

133. Measure for Measure, II. 2 :—

"True prayers That shall be up at heaven, and enter there Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal."

CANTO V.

1. There is an air of reality about this passage, like some personal reminiscence of street gossip, which gives perhaps a little credibility to the otherwise incre dible anecdotes of Dante told by Sacchetti and others ;--such as those of the ass-driver whom he beat, and the blacksmith whose tools he threw into the street for singing his verses amiss, and the woman who pointed him out to her companions as the man who had been in Hell and brought back tidings of it.

38. Some editions read in this line mezza notte, midnight, instead of prima notte, early nightfall.

Of meteors Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. pt. 3, ch. 107, writes: "Likewise it often comes to pass that a dry vapour, when it is mounted so high that it

And

Nothing can be truer to the action of a stream in fury than these lines. how desolate is it all! The lonely flight,

or a star which falls."

Milton, Parad. Lost, IV. 556, scribing the flight of Uriel, says :

"Swift as a shooting star

In Autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired

Impress the air, and show the mariner From what point of his compass to beware Impetuous winds."

66. Shakespeare's "war 'twixt will and will not," and " letting I dare not wait upon I would."

67. This is Jacopo del Cassero of Fano, in the region between Romagna and the kingdom of Naples, then ruled by Charles de Valois (Charles Lackland). He was waylaid and murdered at Oriago, between Venice and Padua, by Azzone the Third of Este.

74. Leviticus, xvii. 2: "The life of the flesh is in the blood."

75. Among the Paduans, who are called Antenori, because their city was founded by Antenor of Troy. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. ch. 39, says: "Then Antenor and Priam departed thence, with a great company of people, and went to the Marca Trevisana, not far from Venice, and there they built another city which is called Padua, where lies the body of Antenor, and his sepulchre is still there."

79. La Mira is on the Brenta, or one of its canals, in the fen-lands between Padua and Venice.

88. Buonconte was a son of Guido di Montefeltro, and lost his life in the battle of Campaldino in the Val d'Arno. His body was never found; Dante imagines its fate.

Ruskin, Mod. Painters, III. 252, remarks:

"Observe, Buonconte, as he dies, crosses his arms over his breast, pressing them together, partly in his pain, partly in prayer. His body thus lies by the river shore, as on a sepulchral monument, the arms folded into a cross. The rage of the river, under the influence of the evil demon, unlooses this cross, dashing the body supinely away, and rolling it over and over by bank and bottom.

and the cross folded over the heart. Then the rage of the demon and the river, the noteless grave,-and, at last, even she who had been most trusted forgetting him,

'Giovanna nor none else have care for me.' There is, I feel assured, nothing else like it in all the range of poetry; a faint and harsh echo of it, only, exists in one Scottish ballad, 'The Twa Corbies.' 89. The wife of Buonconte.

92. Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 241, thus speaks of the battle of Campaldino: "In this plain of Campaldino, now so pleasant and covered with vineyards, took place, on the 11th of June, 1289, a rude combat between the Guelphs of Florence and the fuorusciti Ghibel lines, aided by the Aretines. Dante fought in the front rank of the Floren tine cavalry; for it must needs be that this man, whose life was so complete, should have been a soldier, before being a theologian, a diplomatist, and poet. He was then twenty-four years of age. He himself described this battle in a letter, of which only a few lines remain. 'At the battle of Campaldino,' he says, 'the Ghibelline party was routed and almost wholly slain. I was there, a novice in arms; I had great fear, and at last great joy, on account of the divers chances of the fight.' One must not see in this phrase the confession of cowardice, which could have no place in a soul tempered like that of Alighieri. The only fear he had was lest the battle should be lost. In fact, the Florentines at first seemed beaten ; their infantry feil back before the Aretine cavalry; but this first advantage of the enemy was its destruction, by dividing its forces. These were the vicissitudes of the battle to which Dante alludes, and which at first excited his fears, and then caused his joy."

96. The Convent of Camaldoli, thus described by Forsyth, Italy, p. 117:"We now crossed the beautiful vale

of Prato Vecchio, rode round the modest arcades of the town, and arrived at the lower convent of Camaldoli, just at shutting of the gates. The sun was set and every object sinking into repose, except the stream which roared among the rocks, and the convent-bells which were then ringing the Angelus.

"This monastery is secluded from the approach of woman in a deep, narrow, woody dell. Its circuit of dead walls, built on the conventual plan, gives it an spect of confinement and defence; yet this is considered as a privileged retreat, where the rule of the order relaxes its rigour, and no monks can reside but the sick or the superannuated, the dignitary or the steward, the apothecary or the bead-turner. Here we passed the night, and next morning rode up by the steep traverses to the Santo Eremo, where Saint Romualdo lived and established

de' tacenti cenobiti il coro,
L'arcane penitenze, ed i digiuni
Al Camaldoli suo.

"The Eremo is a city of hermits, walled round, and divided into streets of low, detached cells. Each cell consists of two or three naked rooms, built exactly on the plan of the Saint's own tenement, which remains just as Romualdo left it eight hundred years ago now too sacred and too damp to a mortal tenant.

"The unfeeling Saint has here established a rule which anticipates the pains of Purgatory. No stranger can behold without emotion a number of noble, interesting young men bound to stand erect chanting at choir for eight hours a day; their faces pale, their heads shaven, their beards shaggy, their hacks raw, their legs swollen, and their feet bare. With this horrible institute the climate conspires in severity, and selects from society the best constitutions. The sickly novice is cut off in one or two winters, the rest are subject to dropsy, and few arrive at old age.'

97. Where the Archiano loses its name by flowing into the Arno.

104 Epistle of Jude, 9: "Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against

him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee."

And Jeremy Taylor, speaking of the pardon of sin, says: "And while it is disputed between Christ and Christ's enemy who shall be Lord, the pardon fluctuates like the wave, striving to climb the rock, and is washed off like its own retinue, and it gets possession by time and uncertainty, by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression."

109. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. ch. 107: "Then arise vapours like unte smoke, and mount aloft in air, where little by little they gather and grow, until they become dark and dense, so that they take away the sight of the sun; and these are the clouds; but they never are so dark as to take away the light of day; for the sun shines through them, as if it were a candle in a lantern, which shines outwardly, though it cannot itself be seen. when the cloud has waxed great, so that it can no longer support the abundance of water, which is there as vapour, it must needs fall to earth, and that is the rain."

And

112. In Ephesians ii. 2, the evil spirit is called "the prince of the power of the air.'

Compare also Inf. XXIII. 16,

"If anger upon evil will be grafted "; and Inf. XXXI. 55,

"For where the argument of intellect Is added unto evil will and power, No rampart can the people make against it."

116. This Pratomagno is the same as the Prato Vecchio mentioned in Note 96. The " great yoke" is the ridge of the Apennines.

Dr. Barlow, Study of Dante, p. 199, has this note on the passage :

"When rain falls from the upper region of the air, we observe at a considerable altitude a thin light veil, or a hazy turbidness; as this increases, the lower clouds become diffused in it, and form a uniform sheet. Such is the stra tus cloud described by Dante (v. 115) as covering the valley from Pratomagno to the ridge on the opposite side above Camaldoli. This cloud is a widely extended horizontal sheet cf vapour, in