v. 113.  That stripling.] Either (as the old commentators suppose) Alonzo iii King of Arragon, the eldest son of Peter iii who died in 1291, at the age of 27, or, according to Venturi, Peter the youngest son.  The former was a young prince of virtue sufficient to have justified the eulogium and the hopes of Dante.

See Mariana, 1. xiv. c. 14.

v. 119.  Rarely.]
Full well can the wise poet of Florence
That hight Dante, speaken in this sentence
Lo! in such manner rime is Dantes tale. 
Full selde upriseth by his branches smale
Prowesse of man for God of his goodnesse
Woll that we claim of him our gentlenesse: 
For of our elders may we nothing claime
But temporal thing, that men may hurt and maime. 
Chaucer, Wife of Bathe’s Tale.

Compare Homer, Od. b. ii. v. 276; Pindar, Nem. xi. 48 and
Euripides, Electra, 369.

v. 122.  To Charles.] “Al Nasuto.” -"Charles ii King of Naples, is no less inferior to his father Charles I. than James and Frederick to theirs, Peter iii.”

v. 127.  Costanza.] Widow of Peter iii She has been already mentioned in the third Canto, v. 112.  By Beatrice and Margaret are probably meant two of the daughters of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence; the former married to St. Louis of France, the latter to his brother Charles of Anjou.  See Paradise, Canto Vl. 135.  Dante therefore considers Peter as the most illustrious of the three monarchs.

v. 129.  Harry of England.] Henry iii.

v. 130.  Better issue.] Edward l. of whose glory our Poet was perhaps a witness, in his visit to England.

v. 133.  William, that brave Marquis.] William, Marquis of Monferrat, was treacherously seized by his own subjects, at Alessandria, in Lombardy, A.D. 1290, and ended his life in prison.  See G. Villani, 1. vii. c. 135.  A war ensued between the people of Alessandria and those of Monferrat and the Canavese.

CANTO VIII

v. 6.  That seems to mourn for the expiring day.] The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.  Gray’s Elegy.

v. 13.  Te Lucis Ante.] The beginning of one of the evening hymns.

v. 36.  As faculty.]

My earthly by his heav’nly overpower’d
     * * * *
As with an object, that excels the sense,
Dazzled and spent. 
Milton, P. L. b. viii. 457.

v. 53.  Nino, thou courteous judge.] Nino di Gallura de’ Visconti nephew to Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi, and betrayed by him.  See Notes to Hell Canto xxxiii.

v. 65.  Conrad.] Currado Malaspina.

v. 71 My Giovanna.] The daughter of Nino, and wife of Riccardo da Cammino of Trevigi.

v. 73.  Her mother.] Beatrice, marchioness of Este wife of Nino, and after his death married to Galeazzo de’ Visconti of Milan.

v. 74.  The white and wimpled folds.] The weeds of widowhood.