v. 59. Thou gav’st.]
Tu
ne vestisti
Queste
misere carni, e tu le spoglia.
Imitated by Filicaja, Canz. iii.
Di
questa imperial caduca spoglia
Tu,
Signor, me vestisti e tu mi spoglia:
Ben
puoi’l Regno me tor tu che me’l desti.
And by Maffei, in the Merope:
Tu
disciogleste
Queste
misere membra e tu le annodi.
v. 79. In that fair region.]
Del
bel paese la, dove’l si suona.
Italy as explained by Dante himself, in his treatise
De Vulg. Eloq. l. i. c. 8. “Qui autem
Si dicunt a praedictis finibus. (Januensiem)
Oreintalem (Meridionalis Europae partem) tenent; videlicet
usque ad promontorium illud Italiae, qua sinus Adriatici
maris incipit et Siciliam.”
v. 82. Capraia and Gorgona.] Small islands near the mouth of the Arno.
v. 94. There very weeping suffers not to weep,]
Lo
pianto stesso li pianger non lascia.
So Giusto de’Conti, Bella Mano. Son.
“Quanto il ciel.”
Che
il troppo pianto a me pianger non lassa.
v. 116. The friar Albigero.] Alberigo de’Manfredi,
of Faenza, one of the Frati Godenti, Joyons Friars
who having quarrelled with some of his brotherhood,
under pretence of wishing to be reconciled, invited
them to a banquet, at the conclusion of which he called
for the fruit, a signal for the assassins to rush in
and dispatch those whom he had marked for destruction.
Hence, adds Landino, it is said proverbially of one
who has been stabbed, that he has had some of the
friar Alberigo’s fruit. Thus Pulci, Morg.
Magg. c. xxv.
Le
frutte amare di frate Alberico.
v. 123. Ptolomea.] This circle is named Ptolomea from Ptolemy, the son of Abubus, by whom Simon and his sons were murdered, at a great banquet he had made for them. See Maccabees, ch xvi.
v. 126. The glazed tear-drops.]
-sorrow’s
eye, glazed with blinding tears.
Shakspeare,
Rich. II. a. 2. s. 2.
v. 136. Branca Doria.] The family of Doria was possessed of great influence in Genoa. Branca is said to have murdered his father-in-law, Michel Zanche, introduced in Canto xxii.
v. 162 Romagna’s darkest spirit.] The friar Alberigo.
Canto xxxiv.
v. 6. A wind-mill.] The author of the Caliph Vathek, in the notes to that tale, justly observes, that it is more than probable that Don Quixote’s mistake of the wind-mills for giants was suggested to Cervantes by this simile.
v. 37. Three faces.] It can scarcely be doubted but that Milton derived his description of Satan in those lines,
Each
passion dimm’d his face
Thrice
chang’d with pale, ire, envy, and despair.
P.
L. b. iv. 114.
from this passage, coupled with the remark of Vellutello
upon it:
“The first of these sins is anger which he signifies by the red face; the second, represented by that between pale and yellow is envy and not, as others have said, avarice; and the third, denoted by the black, is a melancholy humour that causes a man’s thoughts to be dark and evil, and averse from all joy and tranquillity.”