Page 120 of 240 CANTO I - Divine Comedy

CANTO I

Verse 1. O'er better waves.] Berni, Orl. Inn. L 2. c. i. Per correr maggior acqua alza le vele, O debil navicella del mio ingegno.

v. 11. Birds of chattering note.] For the fable of the daughters of Pierus, who challenged the muses to sing, and were by them
changed into magpies, see Ovid, Met. 1. v. fab. 5.

v. 19. Planet.] Venus.

v. 20. Made all the orient laugh.] Hence Chaucer, Knight's Tale: And all the orisont laugheth of the sight.

It is sometimes read "orient."

v. 24. Four stars.] Symbolical of the four cardinal virtues, Prudence Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. See Canto XXXI v. 105.

v. 30. The wain.] Charles's wain, or Bootes.

v. 31. An old man.] Cato.

v. 92. Venerable plumes.] The same metaphor has occurred in Hell Canto XX. v. 41:

--the plumes,
That mark'd the better sex.

It is used by Ford in the Lady's Trial, a. 4. s. 2.

Now the down
Of softness is exchang'd for plumes of age.

v. 58. The farthest gloom.] L'ultima sera. Ariosto, Oroando Furioso c. xxxiv st. 59:
Che non hen visto ancor l'ultima sera.

And Filicaja, c. ix. Al Sonno. L'ultima sera.

v. 79. Marcia.]
Da fredera prisci
Illibata tori: da tantum nomen inane Connubil: liceat tumulo scripsisse, Catonis Martia
Lucan, Phars. 1. ii. 344.

v. 110. I spy'd the trembling of the ocean stream.] Connubil il tremolar della marina.

Trissino, in the Sofonisba.] E resta in tremolar l'onda marina

And Fortiguerra, Rleelardetto, c. ix. st. 17. --visto il tremolar della marine.

v. 135. another.] From Virg, Aen. 1. vi. 143. Primo avulso non deficit alter

		"Mathematical theorems, as they regard to reality are not truth; and for indeed be truth, they have nothing to do with reality." Albert Einstein