v. 132. -Gualterotti dwelt And Importuni.] Two families in the compartment of the city called Borgo.

v. 135.  The house.] Of Amidei.  See Notes to Canto xxviii. of Hell. v. 102.

v. 142.  To Ema.] “It had been well for the city, if thy ancestor had been drowned in the Ema, when he crossed that stream on his way from Montebuono to Florence.”

v. 144.  On that maim’d stone.] See Hell, Canto xiii. 144.  Near the remains of the statue of Mars.  Buondelmonti was slain, as if he had been a victim to the god; and Florence had not since known the blessing of peace.

v. 150.  The lily.] “The arms of Florence had never hung reversed on the spear of her enemies, in token of her defeat; nor been changed from argent to gules;” as they afterwards were, when the Guelfi gained the predominance.

CANTO XVII

v. 1.  The youth.] Phaeton, who came to his mother Clymene, to inquire of her if he were indeed the son of Apollo.  See Ovid, Met. 1. i. ad finem.

v. 6.  That saintly lamp.] Cacciaguida.

v. 12.  To own thy thirst.] “That thou mayst obtain from others a solution of any doubt that may occur to thee.”

v. 15.  Thou seest as clear.] “Thou beholdest future events, with the same clearness of evidence, that we discern the simplest mathematical demonstrations.”

v. 19.  The point.] The divine nature.

v. 27.  The arrow.] Nam praevisa minus laedere tela solent.  Ovid.

Che piaga antiveduta assai men duole. 
Petrarca, Trionfo del Tempo

v. 38.  Contingency.] “The evidence with which we see the future portrayed in the source of all truth, no more necessitates that future than does the image, reflected in the sight by a ship sailing down a stream, necessitate the motion of the vessel.”

v. 43.  From thence.] “From the eternal sight; the view of the Deity.

v. 49.  There.] At Rome, where the expulsion of Dante’s party from Florence was then plotting, in 1300.

v. 65.  Theirs.] “They shall be ashamed of the part they have taken aga’nst thee.”

v. 69.  The great Lombard.] Either Alberto della Scala, or Bartolommeo his eldest son.  Their coat of arms was a ladder and an eagle.

v. 75.  That mortal.] Can Grande della Scala, born under the influence of Mars, but at this time only nine years old

v. 80.  The Gascon.] Pope Clement V.

v. 80.  Great Harry.] The Emperor Henry vii.

v. 127.  The cry thou raisest.] “Thou shalt stigmatize the faults of those who are most eminent and powerful.”

CANTO XVIII

v. 3.  Temp’ring the sweet with bitter.] Chewing the end of sweet and bitter fancy.  Shakespeare, As you Like it, a. 3. s. 3.

v. 26.  On this fifth lodgment of the tree.] Mars, the fifth ot the @