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Ed ho irnparato piu teologia
In questi giorni, che ho riletto Dante,
Che nelle scuole fattto io non avria.
CANTO VIII
v. 4. Epicycle,] "In sul dosso di questo cerchio," &c.
Convito di Dante, Opere, t. i. p. 48, ed. Ven. 1793.
"Upon the back of this circle, in the heaven of Venus, whereof we are now treating, is a little sphere, which
has in that heaven a revolution of its own: whose circle the astronomers term
epicycle."
v. 11. To sit in Dido's bosom.] Virgil. Aen. 1. i. 718,
v. 40. 'O ye whose intellectual ministry.]
Voi ch' intendendo il terzo ciel movete. The first line in our Poet" first canzone. See his Convito, Ibid. p. 40.
v. 53. had the time been more.] The spirit now speaking is Charles Martel crowned king of Hungary, and son
of Charles 11 king of Naples and Sicily, to which
dominions dying in his father's lifetime, he did not succeed.
v. 57. Thou lov'dst me well.] Charles Martel might have been known to our poet at Florence whither he came
to meet his father in 1295, the year of his death. The retinue and the habiliments of the young monarch are
minutely described by G. Villani, who adds, that "he remained more than twenty days in Florence,
waiting for his father King Charles and his brothers during which time great honour was done him by the,
Florentines and he showed no less love towards them, and he was much in favour with all." 1. viii. c. 13. His
brother Robert, king of Naples, was the friend of Petrarch.
v. 60. The left bank.] Provence.
v. 62. That horn
Of fair Ausonia.]
The kingdom of Naples.
v. 68. The land.] Hungary.
v. 73. The beautiful Trinaeria.] Sicily, so called from its three promontories, of which Pachynus and Pelorus,
here
mentioned, are two.
v. 14 'Typhaeus.] The giant whom Jupiter is fabled to have overwhelmed
under the mountain Aetna from whence he vomits forth smoke and flame.
v. 77. Sprang through me from Charles and Rodolph.] "Sicily would be still ruled by a race of monarchs,
descended through me from Charles I and Rodolph I the former my grandfather king of Naples and Sicily; the
latter emperor of Germany, my
father-in-law; "both celebrated in the Purgatory Canto, Vll.
v. 78. Had not ill lording.] "If the ill conduct of our
governors in Sicily had not excited the resentment and hatred of the people and stimulated them to that
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dreadful massacre at the Sicilian vespers;" in consequence of which the kingdom fell into the hands of Peter
III of Arragon, in 1282
v. 81. My brother's foresight.] He seems to tax his brother Robert with employing necessitous and greedy
Catalonians to administer the affairs of his kingdom.
v. 99. How bitter can spring up.] "How a covetous son can spring from a liberal father." Yet that father has
himself been accused of avarice in the Purgatory Canto XX. v. 78; though his general character was that of a
bounteous prince.
v. 125. Consult your teacher.] Aristole. [GREEK HERE]
De Rep. 1. iii. c. 4. "Since a state is made up of members
differing from one another, (for even as an animal, in the first instance, consists of soul and body, and the
soul, of reason and desire; and a family, of man and woman, and property of master and slave; in like manner
a state consists both of all these and besides these of other dissimilar kinds,) it necessarily follows that the
excellence of all the members of the state cannot be one and the same."
v. 136. Esau.] Genesis c. xxv. 22.
v. 137. Quirinus.] Romulus, born of so obscure a father, that his parentage was attributed to Mars.
CANTO IX
v. 2. O fair Clemenza.] Daughter of Charles Martel, and second wife of Louis X. of France.
v. 2. The treachery.] He alludes to the occupation of the kingdom of Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his
brother s son Carobert, or Charles. Robert, the rightful heir. See G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 112.
v. 7. That saintly light.] Charles Martel.
v. 25. In that part.] Between Rialto and the Venetian
territory, and the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava is situated a castle called Romano, the birth-place of
the famous tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino, the brother of Cunizza, who is now speaking. The tyrant we have
seen in "the river of blood." Hell, Canto XII. v. 110.
v. 32. Cunizza.] The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the influence of her star, are related by the
chronicler Rolandino of Padua, 1. i. c. 3, in Muratori Rer. It. Script. t. viii. p. 173.
She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the company of Sordello, (see Purgatory, Canto
VI. and VII. ) with whom she is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage: then lived with a soldier of
Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the same city, and on his being murdered by her brother
the tyrant, was by her brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo, lastly when he also had fallen by the same
hand she, after her brother's death, was again wedded in Verona.
v. 37. This.] Folco of Genoa, a celebrated Provencal poet, commonly termed Folques of Marseilles, of which
place he was perhaps bishop. Many errors of Nostradamus, regarding him, which have been followed by
Crescimbeni, Quadrio, and Millot, are detected by the diligence of Tiraboschi. Mr. Matthias's ed. v. 1. P. 18.
All that appears certain, is what we are told in this Canto, that he was of Genoa, and by Petrarch in the
Triumph of Love, c. iv. that he was better known by the appellation he derived from Marseilles, and at last
resumed the religious habit. One of his verses is cited by Dante, De Vulg. Eloq. 1. ii. c. 6.
v. 40. Five times.] The five hundred years are elapsed: and unless the Provencal MSS. should be brought to
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light the poetical reputation of Folco must rest on the mention made of him by the more fortunate Italians.
v. 43 The crowd.] The people who inhabited the tract of country bounded by the river Tagliamento to the east,
and Adice to the west.
v. 45. The hour is near.] Cunizza foretells the defeat of Giacopo da Carrara, Lord of Padua by Can Grande, at
Vicenza, on the 18th September 1314. See G. Villani, 1. ix. c. 62.
v. 48. One.] She predicts also the fate of Ricciardo da Camino, who is said to have been murdered at Trevigi,
where the rivers (Sile and Cagnano meet) while he was engaged in playing at chess.
v. 50. The web.] The net or snare into, which he is destined to fall.
v. 50. Feltro.] The Bishop of Felto having received a number of fugitives from Ferrara, who were in
opposition to the Pope, under a promise of protection, afterwards gave them up, so that they were reconducted
to that city, and the greater part of them there put to death.
v. 53. Malta's.] A tower, either in the citadel of Padua, which under the tyranny of Ezzolino, had been "with
many a foul and midnight murder fed," or (as some say) near a river of the same name, that falls into the lake
of Bolsena, in which the Pope was accustomed to imprison such as had been guilty of an irremissible sin.
v. 56 This priest.] The bishop, who, to show himself a zealous partisan of the Pope, had committed the
above-mentioned act of treachery.
v. 58. We descry.] "We behold the things that we predict, in the mirrors of eternal truth."
v. 64. That other joyance.] Folco.
v. 76. Six shadowing wings.] "Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings." Isaiah, c. vi. 2.
v. 80. The valley of waters.] The Mediterranean sea.
v. 80. That.] The great ocean.
v. 82. Discordant shores.] Europe and Africa.
v. 83. Meridian.] Extending to the east, the Mediterranean at last reaches the coast of Palestine, which is on its
horizon when it enters the straits of Gibraltar. "Wherever a man is," says Vellutello, "there he has, above his
head, his own particular meridian circle."
v. 85. --'Twixt Ebro's stream
And Macra's.]
Eora, a river to the west, and Macra, to the east of Genoa, where Folco was born.
v. 88. Begga.] A place in Africa, nearly opposite to Genoa. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]