Inferno: Canto XXV

Longfellow, 1867 · <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy_(Longfellow_1867)/Volume_1/Notes">source</a>

1. Stanza 1, line 1 The subject of the preceding Canto is continued in this.
2. Stanza 1, line 2 This vulgar gesture of contempt consists in thrusting the thumb between the first and middle fingers. It is the same that the ass-driver made at Dante in the street; Sacchetti, Nov. CXV.: "When he was a little way off, he turned round to Dante, and, thrusting out his tongue and making a fig at him with his hand, said, 'Take that.'"
   
   Villani, VI. 5, says: "On the Rock of Carmignano there was a tower seventy yards high, and upon it two marble arms, the hands of which were making the figs at Florence." Others say these hands were on a finger-post by the road-side.
   
   In the Merry Wives of Windsor, I. 3, Pistol says: "Convey, the wise it call; Steal! foh; a fico for the phrase!" And Martino, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Widow, V. 1:—
   
   "The fig of everlasting obloquy Go with him."
3. Stanza 4, line 10 Pistoia is supposed to have been founded by the soldiers of Catiline. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. i. 37, says: "They found Catiline at the foot of the mountains and he had his army and his people in that place where is now the city of Pestoire. There was Catiline conquered in battle, and he and his were slain; also a great part of the Romans were killed. And on account of the pestilence of that great slaughter the city was called Pestoire."
   
   The Italian proverb says, Pistoia la ferrigna, iron Pistoia, or Pistoia the pitiless.
4. Stanza 5, line 15 Capaneus, Canto XIV. 44.
5. Stanza 7, line 19 See Canto XIII. Note 9.
6. Stanza 9, line 25 Cacus was the classic Giant Despair, who had his cave in Mount Aventine, and stole a part of the herd of Geryon, which Hercules had brought to Italy. Virgil, Æneid, VIII., Dryden's Tr.:—
   
   "See yon huge cavern, yawning wide around, Where still the shattered mountain spreads the ground: That spacious hold grim Cacus once possessed, Tremendous fiend! half human, half a beast: Deep, deep as hell, the dismal dungeon lay, Dark and impervious to the beams of day. With copious slaughter smoked the purple floor, Pale heads hung horrid on the lofty door, Dreadful to view! and dropped with crimson gore."
7. Stanza 10, line 28 Dante makes a Centaur of Cacus, and separates him from the others because he was fraudulent as well as violent. Virgil calls him only a monster, a half-man, Semihominis Caci facies.
8. Stanza 12, line 35 Agnello Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, and Puccio Sciancato.
9. Stanza 13, line 38 The story of Cacus, which Virgil was telling.
10. Stanza 15, line 43 Cianfa Donati, a Florentine nobleman. He appears immediately, as a serpent with six feet, and fastens upon Agnello Brunelleschi.
11. Stanza 22, line 65 Some commentators contend that in this line papiro does not mean paper, but a lamp-wick made of papyrus. This destroys the beauty and aptness of the image, and rather degrades
    
    "The leaf of the reed, Which has grown through the clefts in the ruins of ages."
12. Stanza 25, line 73 These four lists, or hands, are the fore feet of the serpent and the arms of Agnello.
13. Stanza 26, line 76 Shakespeare, in the "Additional Poems to Chester's Love's Martyrs," Knight's Shakespeare, VII. 193, speaks of "Two distincts, division none"; and continues:—
    
    "Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same, Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called.
    
    "Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together; To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded."
14. Stanza 28, line 83 This black serpent is Guercio Cavalcanti, who changes form with Buoso degli Abati.
15. Stanza 32, line 95 Lucan, Phars., IX., Rowe's Tr.:—
    
    "But soon a fate more sad with new surprise From the first object turns their wondering eyes. Wretched Sabellus by a Seps was stung: Fixed on his leg with deadly teeth it hung. Sudden the soldier shook it from the wound, Transfixed and nailed it to the barren ground. Of all the dire, destructive serpent race, None have so much of death, though none are less. For straight around the part the skin withdrew, The flesh and shrinking sinews backward flew, And left the naked bones exposed to view. The spreading poisons all the parts confound, And the whole body sinks within the wound. ····· Small relics of the mouldering mass were left, At once of substance as of form bereft; Dissolved, the whole in liquid poison ran, And to a nauseous puddle shrunk the man. ····· So snows dissolved by southern breezes run, So melts the wax before the noonday sun. Nor ends the wonder here; though flames are known To waste the flesh, yet still they spare the bone: Here none were left, no least remains were seen, No marks to show that once the man had been. ···· A fate of different kind Nasidius found,— A burning Prester gave the deadly wound, And straight a sudden flame began to spread, And paint his visage with a glowing red. With swift expansion swells the bloated skin,— Naught but an undistinguished mass is seen, While the fair human form lies lost within; The puffy poison spreads and heaves around, Till all the man is in the monster drowned. No more the steely plate his breast can stay, But yields, and gives the bursting poison way. Not waters so, when fire the rage supplies, Bubbling on heaps, in boiling caldrons rise; Nor swells the stretching canvas half so fast, When the sails gather all the driving blast, Strain the tough yards, and bow the lofty mast. The various parts no longer now are known, One headless, formless heap remains alone."
16. Stanza 33, line 97 Ovid, Metamorph., IV., Eusden's Tr.:—
    
    "'Come, my Harmonia, come, thy face recline Down to my face: still touch what still is mine. O let these hands, while hands, be gently pressed, While yet the serpent has not all possessed.' More he had spoke, but strove to speak in vain,— The forky tongue refused to tell his pain, And learned in hissings only to complain. "Then shrieked Harmonia, 'Stay, my Cadmus, stay! Glide not in such a monstrous shape away! Destruction, like impetuous waves, rolls on. Where are thy feet, thy legs, thy shoulders, gone? Changed is thy visage, changed is all thy frame,— Cadmus is only Cadmus now in name. Ye Gods! my Cadmus to himself restore, Or me like him transform,—I ask no more.'"
    
    And V., Maynwaring's Tr.:—
    
    "The God so near, a chilly sweat possessed My fainting limbs, at every pore expressed; My strength distilled in drops, my hair in dew, My form was changed, and all my substance new: Each motion was a stream, and my whole frame Turned to a fount, which still preserves my name."
    
    See also Shelley's Arethusa:—
    
    "Arethusa arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains,— From cloud and from crag With many a jag Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks, With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams; Her steps paved with green The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams; And gliding and springing, She went, ever singing, In murmurs as soft as sleep. The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep."
17. Stanza 48, line 144 Some editions read la penna, the pen, instead of la lingua, the tongue.
18. Stanza 51, line 151 Gaville was a village in the Valdarno, where Guercio Cavalcanti was murdered. The family took vengeance upon the inhabitants in the old Italian style, thus causing Gaville to lament the murder.