Purgatory
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the next Hope, and the third Faith. Faith may be produced by charity, But it seems more probable that she should be intended for an or charity by faith, but the inducements to hope must arise either from allegorical personage.
one or other of these.
v. 80. Thou, Lord hast made me glad.] Psalm xcii. 4
v. 125. A band quaternion.] The four moral or cardinal virtues, of whom Prudence directs the others.
v. 146. On the Parnassian mountain.] In bicipiti somniasse Parnasso.
v. 129. Two old men.] Saint Luke, characterized as the writer of the Persius Prol.
Arts of the Apostles and Saint Paul.
CANTO XXIX
v. 133. Of the great Coan.] Hippocrates, “whom nature made for the benefit of her favourite creature, man.”
v. 76. Listed colours.] Di sette liste tutte in quel colori, &c. —a bow Conspicuous with three listed colours gay. Milton, P. L. b. xi. 865.
v. 138. Four others.] “The commentators,” says Venturi; “suppose these four to be the four evangelists, but I should rather take them to v. 79. Ten paces.] For an explanation of the allegorical meaning of this be four principal doctors of the church.” Yet both Landino and Vellutello mysterious procession, Venturi refers those “who would see in the expressly call them the authors of the epistles, James, Peter, John and dark” to the commentaries of Landino, Vellutello, and oth ers: and adds Jude.
that it is evident the Poet has accom modated to his own fancy many 119
The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory v. 140. One single old man.] As some say, St. John, under his character worth the pains of removing, into one of his Italian poems, son.
of the author of the Apocalypse. But in the poem attributed to Giacopo, the son of our Poet, which in some MSS, accompanies the original of this work, and is descriptive of its plan, this old man is said to be Moses.
CANTO XXXI
E’l vecchio, ch’ era dietro a tutti loro Fu Moyse. And the old man, who was behind them all, Was Moses. See No. 3459 of the Harl. MSS. in the v. 3. With lateral edge.] The words of Beatrice, when not addressed British Museum.
directly to himself, but speaking to the angel of hell, Dante had thought sufficiently harsh.
CANTO XXX
v. 39. Counter to the edge.] “The weapons of divine justice are blunted by the confession and sorrow of the offender.”
v. 1. The polar light.] The seven candlesticks.
v. 12. Come.] Song of Solomon, c. iv. 8.
v. 58. Bird.] Prov. c. i. 17
v. 19. Blessed.] Matt. c. xxi. 9.
v. 69. From Iarbas’ land.] The south.
v. 20. From full hands.] Virg. Aen 1. vi. 884.
v. 71. The beard.] “I perceived, that when she desired me to raise my beard, instead of telling me to lift up my head, a severe reflection was v. 97. The old flame.] Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae Virg. Aen. I.
implied on my want of that wisdom which should accompany the age I. 23. Conosco i segni dell’ antico fuoco. Giusto de’ Conti, La Bella Mano.
of manhood.”
v. 61. Nor.] “Not all the beauties of the terrestrial Paradise; in which v. 98. Tu asperges me.] A prayer repeated by the priest at sprinkling I was, were sufficient to allay my grief.”
the holy water.
v. 85. But.] They sang the thirty-first Psalm, to the end of the eighth v. 106. And in the heaven are stars.] See Canto I. 24.
verse.
v. 116. The emeralds.] The eyes of Beatrice.
v. 87. The living rafters.] The leafless woods on the Apennine.
CANTO XXXII
v. 90. The land whereon no shadow falls.] “When the wind blows, from off Africa, where, at the time of the equinox, bodies being under the v. 2. Their ten years’ thirst.] Beatrice had been dead ten years.
equator cast little or no shadow; or, in other words, when the wind is south.”
v. 9. Two fix’d a gaze.] The allegorical interpretation of Vellutello whether it be considered as justly terrible from the text or not, conveys v. 98. The ice.] Milton has transferred this conceit, though scarcely 120
The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory so useful a lesson, that it deserves our notice. “The understanding is sometimes so intently engaged in contemplating the light of divine truth v. 142. Heads.] By the seven heads, it is supposed with sufficient in the scriptures, that it becomes dazzled, and is made less capable of probability, are meant the seven capital sins, by the three with two attaining such knowledge, than if it had sought after it with greater horns, pride, anger, and avarice, injurious both to man himself and moderation”
to his neighbor: by the four with one horn, gluttony, lukewarmness, concupiscence, and envy, hurtful, at least in their primary effects, v. 39. Its tresses.] Daniel, c. iv. 10, &c.
chiefly to him who is guilty of them.
v. 41. The Indians.] Quos oceano proprior gerit India lucos. Virg. Georg.
v. 146. O’er it.] The harlot is thought to represent the state of the church 1. ii. 122, Such as at this day to Indians known. Milton, P. L. b. ix. 1102.
under Boniface VIII and the giant to figure Philip IV of France.
v. 51. When large floods of radiance.] When the sun enters into Aries, v. 155. Dragg’d on.] The removal of the Pope’s residence from Rome the constellation next to that of the Fish.
to Avignon is pointed at.
v. 63. Th’ unpitying eyes.] See Ovid, Met. 1. i. 689.
CANTO XXXIII
v. 74. The blossoming of that fair tree.] Our Saviour’s transfiguration.
v. 1. The Heathen.] Psalm lxxix. 1.
v. 97. Those lights.] The tapers of gold.
v. 36. Hope not to scare God’s vengeance with a sop.] “Let not him who hath occasioned the de-struction of the church, that vessel which the v. 101. That true Rome.] Heaven.
serpent brake, hope to appease the anger of the Deity by any outward acts of religious, or rather superstitious, ceremony, such as was that, in v. 110. The bird of Jove.] This, which is imitated from Ezekiel, c. xvii.
our poet’s time, performed by a murderer at Florence, who imagined 3, 4. appears to be typical of the persecutions which the church himself secure from vengeance, if he ate a sop of bread in wine, upon sustained from the Roman Emperors.
the grave of the person murdered, within the space of nine days.”
v. 118. A fox.] By the fox perhaps is represented the treachery of the v. 38. That eagle.] He prognosticates that the Emperor of Germany will heretics.
not always continue to submit to the usurpations of the Pope, and foretells the coming of Henry VII Duke of Luxembourg signified by the v. 124. With his feathers lin’d.]. An allusion to the donations made numerical figures DVX; or, as Lombardi supposes, of Can Grande della Scala, appointed the leader of the Ghibelline forces. It is unnecessary by the Roman Emperors to the church.
to point out the imitation of the Apocalypse in the manner of this prophecy.
v. 130. A dragon.] Probably Mahomet.
v. 50. The Naiads.] Dante, it is observed, has been led into a mistake by a corruption in the text of Ovid’s Metam. I. vii. 75, where he found-v. 136. With plumes.] The donations before mentioned.
Carmina Naiades non intellecta priorum; instead of Carmina Laiades, 121
The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory
&c. as it has been since corrected. Lombardi refers to Pansanias, where
“the Nymphs” are spoken of as expounders of oracles for a vindication of the poet’s accuracy. Should the reader blame me for not departing If you wish to download more Electronic
from the error of the original (if error it be), he may substitute Events shall be the Oedipus will solve, &c.
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v. 67. Elsa’s numbing waters.] The Elsa, a little stream, which flows into the Arno about twenty miles below Florence, is said to possess a
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petrifying quality.
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v. 78. That one brings home his staff inwreath’d with palm.] “For the same cause that the pilgrim, returning from Palestine, brings home his If you wish to download more copies of
staff, or bourdon, bound with palm,” that is, to show where he has been.
Che si reca ‘I bordon di palma cinto. “In regard to the word bourdon, why Dante’s works, return to
it has been applied to a pilgrim’s staff, it is not easy to guess. I believe, however that this name has been given to such sort of staves, because pilgrims usually travel and perform their pilgrimages on foot, their
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staves serving them instead of horses or mules, then called bourdons and burdones, by writers in the middle ages.” Mr. Johnes’s Translation
dante.htm
of Joinville’s Memoirs. Dissertation xv, by M. du Cange p. 152. 4to. edit.
The word is thrice used by Chaucer in the Romaunt of the Rose.
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