v. 22.  More than I am wont.] “When I reflect on the punishment allotted to those who do not give sincere and upright advice to others I am more anxious than ever not to abuse to so bad a purpose those talents, whatever they may be, which Nature, or rather Providence, has conferred on me.”  It is probable that this declaration was the result of real feeling Textd have given great weight to any opinion or party he had espoused, and to whom indigence and exile might have offerred strong temptations to deviate from that line of conduct which a strict sense of duty prescribed.

v. 35. as he, whose wrongs.] Kings, b. ii. c. ii.

v. 54. ascending from that funeral pile.] The flame is said to
have divided on the funeral pile which consumed tile bodies of
Eteocles and Polynices, as if conscious of the enmity that
actuated them while living. 
        Ecce iterum fratris, &c. 
               Statius, Theb. l. xii. 
        Ostendens confectas flamma, &c. 
               Lucan, Pharsal. l. 1. 145.

v. 60.  The ambush of the horse.] “The ambush of the wooden horse, that caused Aeneas to quit the city of Troy and seek his fortune in Italy, where his descendants founded the Roman empire.”

v. 91.  Caieta.] Virgil, Aeneid. l. vii. 1.

v. 93.  Nor fondness for my son] Imitated hp Tasso, G. L. c.
viii. 
        Ne timor di fatica o di periglio,
        Ne vaghezza del regno, ne pietade
        Del vecchio genitor, si degno affetto
        Intiepedir nel generoso petto. 
This imagined voyage of Ulysses into the Atlantic is alluded to
by Pulci. 
        E sopratutto commendava Ulisse,
        Che per veder nell’ altro mondo gisse. 
               Morg.  Magg. c. xxv
And by Tasso, G. L. c. xv. 25.

v. 106.  The strait pass.] The straits of Gibraltar.

v. 122.  Made our oars wings.l So Chiabrera, Cant.  Eroiche. xiii
               Faro de’remi un volo. 
And Tasso Ibid. 26.

v. 128.  A mountain dim.] The mountain of Purgatorg

Canto xxvii.

v. 6.  The Sicilian Bull.] The engine of torture invented by Perillus, for the tyrant Phalaris.

v. 26.  Of the mountains there.] Montefeltro.

v. 38.  Polenta’s eagle.] Guido Novello da Polenta, who bore an eagle for his coat of arms.  The name of Polenta was derived from a castle so called in the neighbourhood of Brittonoro.  Cervia is a small maritime city, about fifteen miles to the south of Ravenna.  Guido was the son of Ostasio da Polenta, and made himself master of Ravenna, in 1265.  In 1322 he was deprived of his sovereignty, and died at Bologna in the year following.  This last and most munificent patron of Dante is himself enumerated, by the historian of Italian literature, among the poets of his time.  Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett.  Ital. t. v. 1. iii. c. ii. 13.  The passnge in the text might have removed the uncertainty wwhich Tiraboschi expressed, respecting the duration of Guido’s absence from Ravenna, when he was driven from that city in 1295, by the arms of Pietro, archbishop of Monreale.  It must evidently have been very short, since his government is here represented (in 1300) as not having suffered any material disturbance for many years.