[Footnote 18:  Lucy, Lucia (supposed to be derived from lux, lucis), is the goddess (I was almost going to say) who in Roman Catholic countries may be said to preside over light, and who is really invoked in maladies of the eyes.  She was Dante’s favourite saint, possibly for that reason among others, for he had once hurt his eyes with study, and they had been cured.  In her spiritual character she represents the light of grace.]

[Footnote 19:  The first step typifies consciousness of sin; the second, horror of it; the third, zeal to amend.]

[Footnote 20:  The keys of St. Peter.  The gold is said by the commentators to mean power to absolve; the silver, the learning and judgment requisite to use it.]

[Footnote 21:  “Te Deum laudamus,” the well-known hymn of St. Ambrose and St. Augustine.]

[Footnote 22: 

  “Non v’accorgete voi, che noi siam vermi,
  Nati a formar l’angelica farfalla,
  Che vola a giustizia senza schermi?”

  “Know you not, we are worms
  Born to compose the angelic butterfly,
  That flies to heaven when freed from what deforms?”

[Footnote 23: 

  “Piu ridon le carte
  Che penelleggia Franco Bolognese: 
  L’onore e tutto or suo, e mio in parte.”

[Footnote 24:  The “new Guido” is his friend Guido Cavalcante (now dead); the “first” is Guido Guinicelli, for whose writings Dante had an esteem; and the poet, who is to “chase them from the nest,” caccera di nido (as the not very friendly metaphor states it), is with good reason supposed to be himself!  He was right; but was the statement becoming?  It was certainly not necessary.  Dante, notwithstanding his friendship with Guido, appears to have had a grudge against both the Cavalcanti, probably for some scorn they had shewn to his superstition; far they could be proud themselves; and the son has the reputation of scepticism, as well as the father.  See the Decameron, Giorn. vi. Nov. 9.]

[Footnote 25:  This is the passage from which it is conjectured that Dante knew what it was to “tremble in every vein,” from the awful necessity of begging.  Mr. Cary, with some other commentators, thinks that the “trembling” implies fear of being refused.  But does it not rather mean the agony of the humiliation?  In Salvani’s case it certainly does; for it was in consideration of the pang to his pride, that the good deed rescued him from worse punishment.]

[Footnote 26:  The reader will have noticed the extraordinary mixture of Paganism and the Bible in this passage, especially the introduction of such fables as Niobe and Arachne.  It would be difficult not to suppose it intended to work out some half sceptical purpose, if we did not call to mind the grave authority given to fables in the poet’s treatise on Monarchy, and the whole strange spirit, at once logical and gratuitous, of the learning of his age, when the acuter the mind, the subtler became the reconcilement with absurdity.]